ECSGA Newsletter Page 1Issue 4 December 2015

East Coast Shellfish Growers Association

1623 Whitesville Rd. Toms River, NJ 08755

www.ecsga.org

Executive Director Bob Rheault

(401) 783-3360bob@ecsga.org

President Daniel J. Grosse

Vice-President Tom Kehoe

Secretary Ed Rhodes

Treasurer Gef Flimlin

Connecticut .... Steve Plant Maine .............. Jeff AugerMaryland ........ Johnny Shockley Massachusetts John BrawleyNew Jersey ..... Bill AveryNew York .......... Karen Rivara North Carolina Jay StyronRhode Island ... Jeff Gardner South Carolina Julie Davis Virginia ........... Chad Ballard

Equipment Dealers Bob Ketcham

Shellfish Dealers Alex Hay Ex-Officio

Rick Karney, Leslie Sturmer

The East Coast Shellfish Growers Association

represents over 1,000 shellfish farmers from Maine

to Florida. These proud stewards of the marine environment produce

sustainable, farmed shellfish while providing thousands of

jobs in rural coastal towns.

The ECSGA informs policy makers and regulators to

protect a way of life.

Autumn weather

continues to be relatively mild, stirring up memories of last year. With any luck we won’t get slammed with another three-week

blizzard in February. The short days and early sunsets remind me that winter is almost here. I hope it also means that growers have more time to do things like read this newsletter. We put in a lot of effort to ensure that our newsletter is timely and informative, and we hope you enjoy it.

This issue is jam-packed with im-portant news. I drafted an exten-sive review of the 2015 Interstate Shellfish Sanitation Conference (ISSC) meeting in Salt Lake City, highlighting many proposed regulatory changes. The ISSC meetings are a necessary evil – six days of non-stop discussions and debates covering dozens of pro-posed edits to the 980-page Model Ordinance, which dictates the regulations we all must live by.

Those of you who attended the 6th

International Oyster Symposium in Falmouth, Mass. in October were treated to a novel and inno-vative multi-disciplinary conversa-tion about all things oyster related (Story begins on page 7). We also enjoyed oyster theater (Sammy the Spat and the Ocean Princess), oyster humor (from Paula Poundstone) and an Oyster Grand Tasting that featured a dozen chefs showing off their oyster creativity.

Our member profile this month is about charter-ECSGA members Ryan and Travis Croxton, who revived their grandfather’s oyster leases to form the Rappahannock Oyster Company. The profile describes two hard-charging entrepreneurs who are masters of marketing “the story” of how oysters are grown (page 2).

Always a tough time to be on the water, winter also ushers in a busy season of conferences and

meetings. This year is no excep-tion – we have the 36th annual Milford Aquaculture Seminar in Shelton, Conn., from Jan. 11-13; followed by the 42nd annual East Coast Commercial Fishermen’s & Aquaculture Trade Exposition in Ocean City, Md., Jan. 15-17. Then comes the North Carolina Aquaculture Development Confer-ence in New Bern, N.C., Feb. 11-13; followed by the World Aqua-culture Society Triennial Meeting with the National Shellfisheries Association in Las Vegas, Nev., Feb. 22-26.

We are already planning our an-nual Walk on the Hill meetings in Washington, D.C., for the first three days of February. If you have never made it to DC to meet your elected representatives before, you should really consider joining us this year. It’s is a great oppor-tunity to learn “how the sausage is made” and to teach your elected

representatives and agency lead-ership about the issues affecting your business.

The Walk on the Hill is both networking opportunity and civics lesson, one you will not quickly forget. It is also critically impor-tant work, protecting the liveli-hoods of everyone in the shellfish community. We get a much better reception when we walk into a Congressional office with an actual grower from that district, as opposed to if I just go in there representing the industry at large.

This year we are bringing a few critical issues to the attention of our Congressional representatives. Top of the list is the controversy surrounding potential conflicts be-tween oyster farms in Cape May, N.J., and the Red Knot, a robin-sized, wading shore bird that feeds on horseshoe crab eggs as it makes its annual migration from the Arctic Circle to Argentina (where apparently it is a delicacy). The Red Knot was listed as a threat-ened species in 2014, ushering in new concerns about how oyster

farmers might be impacting their foraging behavior. Board member Steve Plant issues a call to action in his opinion piece on page 3. Unfortunately, the issue is not only a problem in Cape May. Since Red Knots travel across almost every growing area on the Eastern seaboard, restrictions on farming activities in one state could easily spread to others.

It would serve us all well to nip this in the bud and to ensure that any regulatory actions are based on sound science rather than biased, agenda-driven research. When we gather in DC we will be meeting with local representa-tives and senators, as well as with staffers from the House Natural Resources Committee to discuss potential resolutions to this brew-ing controversy.

We will also be carrying with us information about how eelgrass issues are being misinterpreted by state regulators and the Army Corps of Engineers in a manner that threatens shellfish growers across the nation. We all love eelgrass for the ecosystem services it provides: it stabilizes sediments, removes nutrients and provides habitat for juvenile fish. But we also know that shellfish culture provides these same ecosystem services, and in some cases actu-ally does a better job than eelgrass. If we can get resource managers to acknowledge that these ecosystem services are essentially equivalent, we might be able to move away from a policy that dictates no net loss of eelgrass to one that stipu-lates no net loss of habitat values or ecosystem services. This could open up thousands of acres to productive shellfish culture while creating thousands of jobs.

As we make the rounds in Con-gress we will also continue to plead for funds to conduct critical research on issues such as Vibrios and ocean acidification. And we will continue to educate our representatives on the subject of nutrient-credit-trading and how it might be a tool to monetize the nutrient-removal services that our animals provide. So do your part and plan to come with us to DC Feb. 1-3 as we join forces with the growers from the Pacific Coast Shellfish Growers Association.

The Mouth of the BayIn This Issue

Executive DirectorBob Rheault

“restrictions on farming activities in one state could easily spread to others.”

ECSGA Newsletter Page 2 Issue 4 December 2015

— Continued on page 3

Ryan and Travis Croxton started Rappahan-nock Oyster Company in 2001. They now

have three farms located on Chesapeake Bay, each showcasing the various “taste regions” – one in the Rappahannock River (“river”), one in Mobjack Bay (“bay”), and one in

Chincoteague (“ocean”). Employ-ing around 20 full-time workers on the farms, they augment their workforce in summer with seasonal employees. Even with year-round production from these three sites, the brothers also purchase oys-ters from co-op growers for their “Barcat” oyster line. From time to time they’ll represent some unique brands that have limited availability. The Croxtons use bottom-cages on all of their farms, as well as using spat-on-shell for shucked oysters.

“Our great-grandfather started the business in 1899, and while oyster-ing had been good to him, he saw the writing on the wall and encour-aged our dads to do something else,” Ryan recalls. Oyster populations were declining rapidly as Dermo became a serious menace in the 1960s.

“When our grandfather passed away in 1991 the business went with him. By 2001 the Virginia harvest had hit its all-time low, the American oyster was targeted for the Endan-gered Species List, and there was a movement afoot to introduce a non-native species. That

also happened to be the year our family oyster leases came up for renewal, which was the spark that got us interested,” he added.

When I asked Ryan what he likes about his job, he replied, “There’s no ‘dark side’ to this business. It’s all upside, if you do it right. Feeling great about what you do and what it’s doing for the environment, your economy, the preservation of your heritage and foodways, re-ally makes you want to jump out of bed in the morning.

“We’re extremely optimistic about the future of the industry. We have a great opportunity to get this right: to do mass food production in a way that’s balanced. We’re designing an industry with the benefit of countless examples of how not to do it.”

Talking about the biggest challenges facing his business, Ryan said, “I’d be white-washing it if I didn’t mention bureaucratic inertia, access is-

sues, rogue farmers and our nation’s desire to want to sterilize every-thing, but through conversations I think we’re making progress and we remain immensely positive. We are very fortunate in Virginia. Most of our regulators are good people who are reasonable and well-inten-tioned. You’re always going to get the occasional over-zealous bureau-crat, but reason generally prevails. However, once you start talking about food safety, we can’t be laissez faire. Here we need to have strong regulations.”

Ryan continued, “Of course we’re always going to be concerned about water quality, but we probably wor-ry most about climate change and how it will impact our future. It’s not a simple solution. That’s where organizations like the ECSGA are critical. Not to sound trite, but it’s a fight you can’t win alone.”

Ryan and Travis were charter members of the ECSGA and both have seen first-hand the value of the

Member Profile:Rappahannock Oystersby Robert Rheault, ECSGA Executive Director

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ECSGA Newsletter Page 3Issue 4 December 2015

association’s annual Walk on the Hill. “It has been a great oppor-tunity, not just to influence power brokers, but to get educated on the challenges that face the industry as a whole. Talking with other growers gives you a rich perspec-tive, and that’s powerful. Some-one else’s problem today could be yours next year. You also get humbled by the ‘process,’ while at the same time you learn to not be intimidated by it. Most politicians are approachable people who will listen to reason,” Ryan noted.

The brothers think it is important to be members of trade associa-tions because, “you’re not as smart or influential as you think you are, but there some smart people in this industry, and we would be fools not to band together and really make a difference. While there is some healthy dissention among us, there’s a surprising degree of like-mindedness, with the emphasis on doing good things. It’s an industry we’re immensely proud to be a part of.”

— Continued from page 2Rappahannock Oysters

—Photo by Ryan CroxtonRappahannock Oysters employs around 20 full-time workers on its

three farms, but adds seasonal employees in summer.

A typical Virginia double-stack bottom tray.

The latest user conflict be-tween oyster farmers and

“environmentalists” comes from Cape May, N.J., where the NJ Endangered and Nongame Species Advisory Committee, with guidance from leaders of NJ Audu-bon, the American Littoral Society and the Conserve

Wildlife Foundation of NJ, is claiming that oyster aquaculture activities are disturbing Red Knot wading birds as they stop to feed on their annual migration route.

This is not the first time state or federal agen-cies, backed by environmental groups, have brought claims against oyster farming in the name of environmental stewardship. Years ago when I had only been in the business for a short time, Connecticut and Rhode Island angling groups claimed that oyster farming (under certain conditions) was damaging to eelgrass. Not only has that claim remained unsubstantiated to this day, studies have shown that shellfish farms actually enhance sea-grass recovery. Nevertheless, the legacy of that battle lives on in the requirement that shellfish lease permit applicants in New England now have to survey proposed grounds for the presence of submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV), which includes eelgrass.

More recently, in 2013 a Maryland environmentalist and former scien-tist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Wolf-Dieter Busch, argued unsuccessfully that the Eastern oys-ter should be added to the endan-gered species list. Based on his peti-tion, the National Marine Fisheries Service initiated a “90-day finding period” that set off a firestorm of political activism to dispute, refute and eventually defeat the measure. But not before millions of dollars and many hours were spent defeat-ing it. Today Mr. Busch remains an environmental consultant active in the environmental policy arena. And finally… who could ever forget the Drake’s Bay fiasco?

The current Red Knot debate provides us with a real-time look into the processes used by non-gov-ernmental agencies to force gov-ernment restriction of commercial activity under the guise of “protect-ing the environment.” The re-cently published study on Red Knot interactions, which used unrealistic aquaculture structures, was led by Joanna Burger, an internationally recognized bird enthusiast with no

Knot in My Backyardby Steve Plant, Noank Aquaculture Cooperative

— Continued on page 16

—Photo by Ryan Croxton

ECSGA Newsletter Page 4 Issue 4 December 2015

Attendees at the Interstate Shellfish Sanitation Conference (ISSC) held in Salt Lake City over the last week of October quipped that Hal-loween costumes and disguises would have made the meetings a lot more interesting. But costumes or no, compared to the last few meet-ings, this one was relatively low key; discussion rarely got heated, and I think we avoided any damaging changes to the Model Ordinance. We did manage to add a few tools to the tool-box, while kicking a bunch of issues back to committee for refinement.

The ISSC has about 45 committees, eight subcommittees and 18 workgroups on subjects ranging from Vibrio education to growing-area classification and patrol. Many of these groups are tasked with massaging proposals from pre-vious years to come up with language that the

majority can support. In an effort to trim the conference from the usual seven days to six, the ISSC tried to get many of the committees to do some of their work via conference call before the actual meeting. For those of us on a lot of committees it meant many long calls, but the effort paid off – by the time we got to Salt Lake City we had taken care of much of the word-smithing. Nevertheless, the law of unintended consequences often rears its ugly head, and someone in the room invariably identifies an unforeseen problem. The ensuing controversy often condemns a proposal to go back to com-mittee until the next conference.

What was achieved, in a nutshellWe approved a few new rapid algal-toxin tests, and codified the use of some Vibrio quantifica-tion methods that were already being used with interim approval.

Several proposals were adopted using Male Specific Coliphage (MSC), a surrogate virus that mimics Norovirus (NoV) in sewage very well. We don’t have a huge problem with No-rovirus in U.S. shellfish, but it is a big problem

in other countries, constituting the leading cause of foodborne illness overseas. We don’t have a tool to measure live, infective NoV – and PCR methods only tell us if there is Noro RNA in the waters. There is still no way to tell if that Noro RNA has been inactivated or if it is still infective. We can grow and measure MSC so it (like fecal coliform bacteria) is used as a sew-age indicator. Authorities can now use MSC to refine the closure area around wastewater treat-ment plants. This has the potential to open vast areas around high-performing UV-treatment plants. MSC is also a tool that can now be used to accelerate openings after sewage spills and to assess depuration effectiveness.

The FDA tried to push through regulations re-quiring new rules designed to control Clostridi-um botulinum in shucked shellfish meats packed in reduced-oxygen packaging. The FDA claims to have detected the deadly soil bacteria in meats, which poses a theoretical risk worthy of forcing all shuckers to redesign their packaging and put temperature recorders on individual containers. Industry members pointed out that

ISSC Meeting Wrap-Upby Robert Rheault, ECSGA Executive Director

— Continued on page 6

Boring But Necessary Files:

ECSGA Newsletter Page 5Issue 4 December 2015

ECSGA Newsletter Page 6 Issue 4 December 2015

there have been no recorded botulism cases associated with shellfish since the invention of refrigeration, suggesting that our limited regula-tory and scientific resources should be focused on issues that are actually getting real people sick. Task Force II tried to kill the proposal, but it was resurrected by the state regulators at General Assembly and sent to committee for refinement.

I had submitted a couple of proposals trying to clarify aquaculture-facility inspections and the length of time a grower needs to ensure that seed from nurseries in prohibited waters meets acceptable standards. Inspections are now annual, but the seed issue was punted back to committee with the added task of rewriting the entire aquaculture chapter. That should be an interesting exercise. This committee spent the better part of an hour arguing the difference between “hatchery-reared” and “reared in a hatchery.” When it was suggested that we de-fine “hatchery” I could not fathom how anyone could somehow misconstrue the meaning of the word. At that point my hair started to hurt.

There was an effort to rewrite the interpreta-tion of the tiered approach to sporadic Vibrio parahaemolyticus (Vp) illnesses that was passed in San Antonio last year. Some believed that two illnesses should result in a precautionary closure, but Task Force II reaffirmed that the intent of the original change was to avoid clo-sures when an “implicated area” has less than four sporadic illnesses.

States are now required to report monthly land-ings at the end of each year to inform calcula-tions of risk-per-serving.

Reconditioning of shellstock recalled follow-ing an outbreak of Vp or Vibrio vulnificus (Vv)is now permitted under various circumstances; however, developing a definition of “resubmer-gence” following exposure turned out to be too challenging so it was sent back to committee.

We voted not to change the name of the or-ganization from “Conference” to “Congress” as it would have opened a huge can of federal agency worms (the worst kind).

And finally, for those of you looking to join the fray – you’ll have to wait two more years. A late proposal was adopted that will return the ISSC to biennial meetings (as opposed to an-nual meetings) as a cost-saving measure.

ISSC meetings typically feature a half day of presentations, and this year’s offerings were excellent. Kristin DeRosia-Banick (from the Conn. Dept. of Agriculture, Bureau of Aqua-culture) presented some of her data on rapid cooling (discussed in the last newsletter).

Norm Bloom shared some very cool drone video footage showing his son Jimmy harvest-ing oysters on one of their dredge boats and filling six huge containers with oysters, all set up to rapid-chill each cage to well below 50° F within minutes. It was an impressive display of how industry can be very creative and willing to make massive investments to meet the regu-latory challenges we face. (See photo spread on pages 8-9)

Chris Schillaci, Aquaculture Coordinator and Vibrio Specialist for the Mass. Dept. of Marine Fisheries presented results from several studies he coordinated this past summer. Confirmed Vibrio parahemolyticus cases linked to Mass. harvest areas increased from nine in 2012 to 33 in 2013, triggering significant revisions to the state’s Vibrio Control Plan. Illnesses dropped to 14 in 2014, but then in 2015 they climbed to 27, with some cases still pending investigation. The vast majority of cases turned out to be caused by the virulent O4:K12 strain of Vp.

Interestingly, less than a quarter of the cases were related to oysters grown inter-tidally. Chris’s studies showed that Vibrio levels in intertidal oysters climb when the animals are exposed, in some cases two-to-six times the background level of submerged animals. But he showed that levels went back to background after being resubmerged for one or two tides.

Chris also looked at what happens to Vibrio levels in oysters that are held out of the water

for 48 hours, as might be done to control fouling. Again, as expected, Vibrio levels climbed during exposure, but after pro-longed exposure it took as long as four days for levels to subside back to background. He is looking forward to repeating these studies next year, as well as testing the hypothesis that Vibrio levels may correlate with the organic content of sediments and the proximity of the oysters to re-suspended silt. Studies like these should lead to more effective harvest controls and management measures that could help us find ways to mini-mize illnesses going forward.

I want to thank the industry mem-bers from all coasts, who spent the time and money to attend the conference. While it may be a change of scenery, attending the ISSC is certainly no vacation. All industry members in attendance worked very hard through the meeting defending our industry, negotiating, writing and re-writing model ordinance language. This process only works because of the efforts of a handful of dedicated industry folks.

— Continued from page 4 ISSC Wrap-Up

ECSGA Newsletter Page 7Issue 4 December 2015

Around 350 people hailing from six continents and 19 states made their way to Falmouth, Mass., October 21-23 to attend the 6th Interna-tional Oyster Symposium. They came from industry, academia, and the fields of education and restora-tion – collaborating in meetings and events designed to raise awareness about oysters and their role in sustainable seafood and healthy ecosystems.

The symposium opened with an entertaining skit featuring Sammy the Spat and the Ocean Princess – not your typical fare at scientific meetings. Barton Seaver, a self-described “recover-ing chef,” author and sustainable-seafood advocate, delivered an inspiring keynote address with a simple message: “The way we eat defines how this world is used,” he said. “But sustainabil-ity cannot be defined by simply the absence of negative impact.”

Comparing farmed fish to pork and beef, Seaver concluded that farmed fish is a superior choice by almost any metric – water use, food conversion, greenhouse gas emissions or health impacts. He asserted that there is a global imperative to embrace aquaculture to feed the next two billion mouths predicted to join the human race over the next 25 years. Getting Americans to support the increased aquacul-ture production so desperately needed to feed those people involves improving consumer perceptions of both our processes and our products.

To do that, Seaver said, “all that is truly needed are the facts…. Americans’ diets are slowly kill-ing them … [and ] current food-production methods are harming the environment in myriad ways.” He noted that the “do-no-harm” approach espoused by NGOs and embraced by producers for years may not be enough to win the public’s hearts and minds. For farmed shellfish the message is easy. The facts show that farm-ing shellfish is not only one of the most sustainable forms of protein production possible, but that shellfish themselves and the gear used to grow them “are in fact restorative.”

Cultured shellfish are helping to re-store the natural state of our waters and the habitats that humans have so drastically altered. When con-sumers choose to eat more heart-healthy cultured shellfish, Seaver

concluded, then growers will plant more seed and more benefits will accrue to our ecosys-tems – a true win, win, win.

Another highlight of the symposium was the Oyster Grand Tasting event, where almost 400 oyster fans flocked to enjoy 13 varieties of oys-ters prepared a dozen different ways by a bunch of very talented, oyster-loving chefs. Offerings ranged from the simple – raw oysters with the usual accompaniments – to the fanciful – corn-

dusted Wellfleet oysters on veal cheeks with horseradish foam.

Many people deserve a big round of thanks. Of course, the event wouldn’t have been pos-sible without the World Oyster Society and organizer, Kahren Dowcett. Emily Weedon and Annie McNamara from Island Creek helped with the logistics and shucked all night with CJ and Skip Bennett. The Sea Crest Beach Hotel was a great venue and the entire staff was efficient and gracious.

Dozens of growers stepped up and donated product, not only for the Grand Tasting on Thurs-day night, but also for five other raw bars set up over the course of the three-day symposium.

In no particular order, special thanksComing all the way from the West Coast, John Finger and his crew from Hog Island, Calif., grilled his signature Hog Island Oysters; and Nesbit Oyster Co. shared their Goosepoint Oysters from Willipa Bay, WA.

Tom Kehoe donated Mexican Kumamotos from Baja; Steve Malinowski brought his Fishers Island Oysters; John and Cindy West shared Moonstones; Perry Raso and Chef Jeff Cruff served Matunucks; Steve Wright and his

crew brought Chathams; and the crews from Island Creek and Peter’s Point brought their fine products.

Tonie Simmons and Karl Escholtz brought Dodge Cove Pemaquids; Alex Hay and Andy Cummings were shucking Wellfleets; Todd Stressinger shared his Washburn Island Oys-ters; Paul and Theresa Hendricks shared Cape Cod Native Oysters; and we also enjoyed East Dennis Oysters and Brewster Oysters.

Despite the challenges of tropical deluges closing most of the Southeast, Bill and Beth Walton brought four varieties of southern oysters that were served the day after the Grand

6th International Oyster Symposium a Successby Robert Rheault, ECSGA Executive Director

— Photo by Bob RheaultThe Island Creek (Duxbury, Mass.) Oysteresses

whooping it up at the Oyster Grand Tasting.

— Photo BartonSeaver.orgIOS6 keynote speaker Barton Seaver leads the Sustainable Seafood and Health Initiative at the Center for Health and

the Global Environment at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of

Public Health.

— Continued on page 13

ECSGA Newsletter Page 8 Issue 4 December 2015

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Each of six insulated containers on the deck of the harvest vessel is pre-filled with

6-8 totes of ice. Seawater is then pumped in to make a slurry.

The goal is a 40°F ice slurry (too much colder risks freezing the oysters). This technique works well for the Blooms because they can pre-groom

beds and plant them with only market-sized animals. They don’t have to cull as much as a

normal dredge operation would.

Dredges full of oysters are dumped into the cage lining the container of ice slurry. After

around seven minutes the drain plug is pulled and the oysters are cold.

Rapid cooling of harvested oysters on a large scale as implemented by Norm Bloom and Son is shown in these six photos taken by a drone.

All photos courtesy of Jimmy Bloom.

ECSGA Newsletter Page 9Issue 4 December 2015

After draining, workers throw a few shovelfuls of ice on top of the cage and

close the lid of fhe container.

Oysters are extremely cold within minutes of harvest, and it doesn’t take much ice to keep

them cold once they’ve cooled down.

The harvest bed is 15 minutes from the dock. After arriving at the dock, cages are winched ashore and wheeled right into the

refrigerated packing room.

Large-scale Rapid Cooling of Harvested Oysters at Norm Bloom and Son in Norwalk, Connecticut

ECSGA Newsletter Page 10 Issue 4 December 2015

ECSGA Newsletter Page 11Issue 4 December 2015

Insurance is one of those necessary evils – boring but important. If you are like me you rarely study the fine print in that stack of paper they send you called a policy. I think they intentionally make it thick and opaque so you give up on actually reading it.

Around 20 years ago I was told by my custom-ers that I needed to have product liability insur-ance, but didn’t get around to actually reading the ¼-inch thick insurance binder until several years later. It was only after I had been paying for insurance for several years that I discov-ered there was an exemption in my policy for illnesses caused by bacteria, viruses or mold. Obviously, this was a worthless policy.

I thought others might learn from my mistakes, so I asked David McCaleb of Eastern Shore Insurance (McCaleb-Metzler, Inc.) just what growers and dealers should ask their agents

before buying product liability coverage or a general liability policy.

Here’s what David says you should find out before you buy:

Does this general liability policy include product liability? Some general liability policies exclude product liability altogether. Remember, some of your clients have products that are shellfish and oth-ers have products that are equipment or gear.

Does this general liability policy have any exclu-sions for liability associated with virus or bacteria in the food? Almost all general liability policies will have some sort of virus/bacteria exclusion. The key is making sure you’ve got the right one. The exclusion should not apply to products meant for bodily consumption.

What water-related exposures are excluded? Some policies only exclude liability associ-ated with the policy holder’s operating a boat, whereas others have more broad exclusions for any water-related liability.

Can you spell Crassostrea virginica? Just use this one to see if they have a sense of humor.

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What Type of Insurance Do You Need?

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—Photo by Gregorio Borgia for AP

ECSGA Newsletter Page 12 Issue 4 December 2015

ECSGA Newsletter Page 13Issue 4 December 2015

Tasting event.

Special thanks to Richard Rush, Brian Pinsky, CJ and all the other folks who came to help shuck. Many of them barely had a chance to look up from the tables to enjoy the band and try the food.

In order to avoid getting fired I asked the chefs to each select an oyster to work with, and we had far more offers of oyster variet-ies than chefs to work with them, so unfortunately many members didn’t get to participate. We’re hoping to feature these oysters the next time we do something fun like this.

Special thanks to all the chefs who wowed the crowd with their amaz-ing creativity:

Jeremy Sewall from Row 34 and Eastern Standard; Pat Shea from CK Pearl in Essex; Chefs Tatsuo Saito and Shoko Izumi, who came all the way from Japan; Maureen Pothier from Johnson and Wales University.

Jeff Cruff from Matunuck Oys-ter Bar; John Finger and Matt Shapiro from Hog Island Oyster Bar; Dan Kenny from The Har-bor View/Sea Crest Beach Hotel; Lucio Gamica from The Sage Inn and Lounge; Greg Burns from The Oyster Company; Bill Taibe from The Whelk; and Matt Trope-ano from The Spoon and Seed.

The rest of the Oyster Symposium was made possible by several self-less folks who brought tons of gear to the trade show or spent months organizing the presentations for the various technical sessions.

Technical sessions were organized by Dot Leonard, Sandy MacFar-lane, Bill Walton, Gary Wikfors and many more.

If you weren’t able to make the trip, you missed an extraordinary inspirational keynote speech by Barton Seaver, a fascinating his-torical perspective by Bill Taylor, and a very enlightening lunch-time marketing primer by Island Creek’s Dana Hale.

Thanks again to everyone who helped make this event such a great success.

The 7th International Oyster Sym-posium will be held in Bangor, Wales in the fall of 2017.

— Continued from page 7 Oyster Symposium

—Photo by Robert Rheault

Betsey Peabody of Puget Sound Restoration Fund in Bainbridge Island,

Wash., sports an Olympia Oysters shell skirt at the Oyster Grand Tasting.

ECSGA Newsletter Page 14 Issue 4 December 2015

At this year’s October ISSC meeting Andy De-Paola (the FDA’s Vibrio guru from the agency’s Gulf Coast Seafood Laboratory in Dauphin Island, Ala.) unveiled a simple spreadsheet designed to help states easily calculate risk-per-serving – the predicted risk of an individual’s becoming ill when they consume a single serving of raw oysters. The aim of the tool is to help inform states’ regulatory deci-sions in the face of Vibrio illness outbreaks.

By definition, an “outbreak” occurs when two or more unrelated people get ill from shellfish harvested on the same date from the same harvest area. An outbreak typically warrants a closure of the harvest area and a recall of the shellfish. By contrast, “sporadic cases” occur when individuals become ill but there is no apparent pattern of implicated harvest dates.Under current regulations in most states, more than four sporadic cases in a month will trigger a closure of the “implicated area” unless a huge amount of product is being harvested from the area and the state can demonstrate that the risk- per-serving falls below 1 in 100,000 servings.

Over the past few years there has been quite a bit of discussion about how a state might go about calculating risk-per-serving. That’s

where the FDA calcula-tor comes in, offering a simple spreadsheet to guide authorities in mak-ing that calculation. (See chart at right). To ac-curately fill in the spread-sheet, state authorities would need real-time monthly harvest numbers for each harvest area. For large bodies of water that are subdivided into several harvest areas, the authorities would then need to decide if illnesses from adjacent harvest areas comprise a large “implicated area,” but it remains unclear how to determine that.

The rest of the calculation is pretty straightfor-ward. If you know how many oysters are being harvested and their average weight, you can calculate the pounds of meat and enter that in the third column. From there the spreadsheet derives the number of raw servings. As long as illness numbers are provided in a timely fash-ion, state authorities can easily determine the risk-per-serving.

In the spreadsheet example shown in the chart above, I plugged in numbers for a hypothetical growing area with significant monthly landings. I entered a few illnesses in July and August to see what the outputs would be in terms of risk-per-serving in the last column. In this hypothetical case, as long as harvest levels stay above 1.2 million pounds of meat, 13 sporadic illnesses still falls below the target threshold of 1 illness per 100,000 servings, meaning the area could remain open. However, when harvest levels dip below 900,000 pounds of meat in August, the same 13 illnesses yields a risk of 1.2 per 100,000 servings, which would trigger a closure.

The model relies on several assumptions that were derived from con-sumption trends and harvest statistics for Gulf Coast oysters in 2001.

Some of these assumptions are probably incor-rect based on current consumption and harvest trends in other parts of the country. It uses inputs taken from the FDA’s Vibrio Risk Calcu-lator (www.fda.gov/downloads/Food/FoodScienceResearch/UCM196915.pdf)

For instance, the model assumes that a “serv-ing” consists of 13 hefty four-to-five-inch oysters with a combined weight of 196 grams (nearly 7 oz.) of meat. It further assumes that half of all oysters are consumed raw, while the other half go to shucking plants, are cooked or undergo post-harvest processing (PHP) using one of the four approved processes that reduce Vibrio loading.

But in many areas of the country it’s more likely that 13 large oysters constitute much more than a typical serving. In New England, where markets tend to favor petite oysters and prices are high, industry experts predict that a typical meal is probably between three and six small oysters and that less than 10 percent of harvests go to shucking plants, are cooked or undergo PHP preparations.

This spreadsheet could help resource managers by indicating when risk-per-serving is heading in the right direction. When harvest numbers are climbing fast, relative risk may be headed down even if illnesses are on the rise. But the calculator can only be useful if states are able to capture monthly harvest statistics and provide data to support altering the model assumptions on percent eaten raw and typical serving size.

The ECSGA is organizing an effort to provide more appropriate regional data on serving size and percent consumed raw. We propose that we can get at these numbers by polling our retail and restaurant cus-tomers. We will be request-ing that all our wholesalers ask their customers to fill out a simple questionnaire to refine those numbers. If we get enough responses we expect that state authorities will use the data to inform their work.

Stay tuned – once the survey is complete we will be asking everyone to have their customers to fill it out.

Vp Risk Calculatorby Robert Rheault, ECSGA Executive Director

ECSGA Newsletter Page 15Issue 4 December 2015

ECSGA Newsletter Page 16 Issue 4 December 2015

experience in aquaculture, who sits on the NJ Endangered and Nongame Species Advisory Committee. Burger and the authors of that study contend that experimental activity of oys-ter growers along a section of the New Jersey shore known as Reed’s Beach reduced the pres-ence and feeding activity of Red Knots and, to a lesser degree, of other wading shore birds.

In the experiment, Dr. Burger set up a series of “rack-and-bag” oyster grow-out equipment and observed the activity and numbers of shore birds during times when workers were tend-ing the gear. All this seems reasonable until we take a closer look at the specifics of the methodology. Among numerous issues: the racks and bags were actually sub-tidal cages about five times larger and taller than gear being used by nearby farm-ers or permitted for farm-ing in the area. With only one experimental site in the study, the conclusions drawn were not replicated in any other area. Even though the study’s authors concluded that “the oystermen” were significant disturbances, they were actually present in fewer than 10 percent of the observational periods. Worse, statistical results presented in the paper and in the ap-pendix actually show no statistically significant effect of the aquaculture site versus reference sites! This means they are used equally. The site selected was inside a Red Knot buffer zone to begin with, so birds in the area would have had very little time to acclimate (as wildlife frequently does) to the gear or to the workers over the limited time that the experiment was conducted.

To provide more background: the amount of

habitat that actual oyster growers currently use for their activities is less than five percent of the total habitat used by Red Knots when they stop on the Cape shore to feed on horseshoe crab eggs, and is much less than one percent of the entire Delaware Bay. When the Aquaculture Development Zones (ADZs) were established, the NJDEP Bureau of Shellfisheries provided funding to the NJDEP Endangered and Non-game Species Program to conduct “before and after” studies of shorebirds using the ADZ site. They collected three years of data, and none of it raised any questions, although no formal report was ever released. Despite numerous requests that data still has not been released.

So why all of a sudden is aquaculture a problem? In a further ironic twist, the article published in the Press of Atlantic City on Oct. 30 (Shellfish Farms Disturb Protected Red Knots, Study Says) was followed 10 days later on Nov. 9, in the same paper, by a story citing the same conservation groups’ applauding the construction of an artificial oyster reef off exactly the same beach (Cape Oyster Reef Shows Promise, Conservation Groups Say)!

There are some common threads in these examples. Frequently these claims are bolstered by agenda-driven science, as opposed to ob-jective, peer-reviewed science. Their meager evidence is based on micro-sliver snapshots of information from a vastly larger pie. The “experiments” are set up to prove an already bi-ased hypothesis. What is equally bothersome: there is never any cost borne by the claimants, despite the real economic threats they pose to the livelihoods of those oyster farmers who have (in many cases) spent their lives building up a business in one of the most difficult arenas on the planet.

The individuals who bring these claims never seem to suffer any professional discredit or financial cost, even as they threaten to discredit and impose financial hardships on the targets of their claim – in this case, oyster farmers across multiple states. By the way, in none of these cases did the claimants acknowledge the many environmental benefits of oyster aqua-culture, such as providing habitat, filtering the water and removing excess nutrients.

I advocate a more aggressive approach. I think shaky or downright fraudulent claims need to be discredited at the source. The repudiation by groups such as the ECSGA needs to be blasted out to as many legislators, regulators, policy makers, members of the press and the public as possible. If you are going to threaten the reputation and livelihood of others, then you should be prepared for a commensurate public (and potentially embarrassing) rebut-tal if those claims are disproved. All parties need skin in the game. When I was working in finance, if a trade didn’t go your way, the cost of making that wrong decision went right to the bottom line. You needed to be prepared to hear the ramifications from above, which could come down to losing your job and even your career.

Such a lack of transparency and disclosure on the part of our governmental agencies is extremely disquieting.

— Continued from page 3 Knot in My Backyard

— Photo by Dale GerhardIn this photo published in the Press of Atlantic City,

workers harvest oysters on the Delaware Bay.

— Photo by Gregory Breese, USFWS

The rufa subspecies of the Red Knot, a robin-sized shorebird, was designated in

2014 as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.