ECSGA Newsletter Page 1Issue 3 October 2015

East Coast Shellfish Growers Association

1623 Whitesville Rd Toms River NJ 08755

wwwecsgaorg

Executive Director Bob Rheault

(401) 783-3360bobecsgaorg

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 1000 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

The Mouth of the BayIn This Issue

Executive DirectorBob Rheault

Once again the weather was perfect the crowds were

massive and the 41st annual Milford Oyster Festival was a terrific success for the East Coast Shellfish Growers Association (ECSGA) This was our eleventh year providing oysters and clams for the day-and-a-half festival in Milford Conn This year we brought 32000 oysters ndash 19 variet-ies from eight states ndash and 3200 clams from three states The mid-August event always seems to be blessed with good weather and this year was no different ndash sunny and warm but not too hot An estimated 40000-50000 people turned out to enjoy the carnival setting the beer the bands and of course the oysters

In addition to all the fun com-memorating the oyster industryrsquos history in the town the festival is also about helping nonprofit orga-nizations It plays a crucial role as the ECSGArsquos largest fundraiser of the year with profits covering around half of our annual operat-ing expenses Other non-profits

operating at the festival sell food and donate the proceeds to local chari-ties

It takes a staggering amount of coordina-tion and organization to pull this thing off We relied heavily on the organizational skills of Trisha Gilbert Kozlows-ki (niece of ECSGA member Briarpatch Enterprises) whom we hired to coordinate the two-day event and take care of the local logis-tics She was assisted by Executive Director Bob Rheault Board Secretary Ed Rhodes and his wife Kathy Rhodes Vice President Tom Kehoe again this year gener-ously provided the use of a refrig-erated truck and two of his crew who picked up all the shellfish in New York got them to the festival bright and early in the morning and then worked tirelessly at the festival all day

In addition to raw shellfish we also served grilled oysters with two top-pings fried oysters chowder fries soda and water In past years we have tried selling oyster knives and gloves and other shellfish-related

items but this crowd seems to be focused mainly on eating oysters Even though we had five cashiers trying to keep up with orders at times folks were standing in line for over an hour Once they got to the head of the line many cus-tomers would load up plates with several dozen and very few balked at paying $2 apiece Since many customers preferred the larger oys-ters the local varieties were a huge hit These folks were true oyster lovers some returning to the line again and again

Milford Oyster Fest Another Home Runby Kathy Rhodes

As the days get shorter

and much of the East Coast braces for the first hurricane of the season many of us are taking a deep breath after a busy summer watching shell-

fish markets enter their annual Fall slump Much of our industry had a tough year following the brutal February that caused so many headaches Many clam growers lost product and markets this summer were very tight Even though prices were strong few growers had enough inventory to see much of a benefit

Contemplating the challenges of farming shellfish during the coming winter those of us in the North may find the description on page 2 of Frank Robertsrsquos farm in South Carolina an enticing alter-native

Lately Irsquove been spending a lot of time trying to correct some mis-conceptions about shellfish in vari-ous media outlets A publication about Norovirus in (mostly) Chi-nese oysters sparked over a dozen articles that no doubt caused many potential customers to think twice about eating raw oysters I try to explain some of the nuances of this subject on page 9

Similar misconceptions about Vib-rios abound and I address some of what we know and what we donrsquot know about them on page 12 Our industry has made drastic changes in harvesting practices since the new ldquoWest Coastrdquo strain was introduced in 2013 and we

can all be proud of the way we have risen to the challenge and made the necessary investments to reduce illnesses

Recently I spent a few days talk-ing with NOAA regulators at a workshop on turtle- and whale-entanglement issues NOAA finds itself wrestling with the dual roles of advocating for aquaculture de-velopment in one office while at the same time following mandates to protect threatened species and critical habitat in another office The workshop was both illuminat-ing and distressing which I de-scribe in the summary on page 3

In this issue I also try to answer a question I often get from mem-bers ldquoWhat does an executive director dordquo on page 4 My job is quite diverse and difficult to describe and most members never get to see me in action It is cer-tainly a far cry from the job I did as an oyster farmer

Photo by AK Thornton

The crowds kept lining up for more oysters at the ECSGArsquos main tent on a picture-perfect August day

mdash Continued on page 7

ECSGA Newsletter Page 2 Issue 3 October 2015

Member ProfileLadyrsquos Island Oysters

Frank Roberts grows Ladyrsquos Island Oysters in Beaufort County SC surrounded by

thousands of acres of undeveloped protected tidal marsh I first met him in the 1990s when he came to visit my Rhode Island oyster farm and met with a few other growers who were getting established with various intensive oyster culture methods in New England At that time Frank was working his traditional bottom lease

outside of Branford Conn but even then he had his heart set on moving back down to South Carolina to start an oyster farm He comes from a long line of oystering families that have been harvesting oysters in the Chesa-peake since the 1700s

After his wife retired in 2005 Frank was finally able to move back to South Carolina and he now lives on a small island just a short boat ride from his farm He does a little of every-thing ndash besides operat-

ing a small hatchery he makes use of various types of gear floating OysterGro cages inter-tidal rack-and-bag systems triple-stack cages and where the bottom is firm enough he even bottom-plants oysters in the Fall And as if that werenrsquot enough he also plants a few acres of bamboo stakes to collect wild set so he can sell oyster clusters for oyster roasts

The rich marsh is washed daily with tides that range between seven and nine feet delivering plenty of food to the crop while his seven-man crew struggles to keep up with the incredible growth rates ndash Ladyrsquos Island oysters can reach three inches in only 10-12 months With scant freshwater input to the river ndash salinity runs 30-35 ppt ndash these oysters are very briny Rowan Jacobsen author of A Geography of Oysters describes them as ldquoexplosions of brine and umamirdquo

Frank notes that growing oysters in South Carolina is very different from growing them up north and he doesnrsquot miss the harsh North-

ern winters at all Winter water temperatures in the tidal marsh rarely dip below 55ordmF with the best growth between October and April Boring sponge is one of the biggest challenges a sub-tidal oyster wonrsquot survive in high-salinity areas very long because of this pervasive pest

Back when he was first starting out Frank set up a small hatchery but when the state insti-tuted a ban on seed imports from Virginia this year he had to quickly expand the hatchery operation in order to keep his farm and the rest of the statersquos growers in business He breeds

tetrapolid sperm from Louisiana State Univer-sity with local diploid females to produce his triploid line and he is even developing his own

tetraploid line

Frank said he really enjoys the challenges of producing seed in the hatchery but he just wishes it didnrsquot eat up so much of his time He feels the best part of working his farm is the 20-minute ride in his skiff to the lease on a cool winter morning where he wonrsquot typically see another soul all day

There are only a handful of folks growing single oysters in South Carolina but Frank expects that to change because the Lowcountry has thousands of acres of prime oyster habitat As he struggles to keep up with seed orders and the business of running the farm he finds himself spending quite a bit of time teaching wannabe growers that this business is not for the faint of heart

ldquoIf you donrsquot like hard work and getting real muddy and you canrsquot face the thought of losing a crop then you should probably stick to your day jobrdquo he says

Nonetheless he does see potential in many of his own employees and in the former shrimpers and crab-bers who are not afraid to work hard and know how to work on the

by Robert Rheault ECSGA Executive Director

(l to r) Frank Roberts SC Sea Grant Extension Agent Julie Davis Brian Cabral

mdash Photo by Amy Thurman

mdash Continued on page 11

Bamboo stakes collect wild oyster set the

clusters are later sold for oyster roasts

mdash Photo by Frank Roberts

OysterGro floats in the Lowcountry tidal marshmdash Photo by Frank Roberts

ECSGA Newsletter Page 3Issue 3 October 2015

Recently I attended a workshop in Glouces-ter Mass with about 20 folks from

NOAArsquos Office of Protected Resources on potential harmful interactions stemming from longline gear used in mussel and seaweed aqua-culture with whales and turtles in New Eng-land Since we donrsquot really have an offshore mussel industry in the US there were only a couple of industry folks in the room

John Bullard NOAA Fisheries Regional Administrator for the Greater Atlantic Region briefly spoke about the need to increase aqua-culture production in order to reduce imports and create jobs He pointed out that behind sea scallops and lobster aquaculture is the third largest source of fishery products (salmon oys-ters and clams) in the Greater Atlantic region

Lagging far behind (and slipping each year) are groundfish landings which nevertheless seem to get all the media attention these days

Most of the two-day workshop was spent talk-ing about things we have little or no first-hand knowledge of entanglements of whales and turtles in mussel longlines Globally there have been only a handful of reported entanglements related to mussel farms despite the millions of feet of longline deployed in New Zealand Can-ada and Europe None of these entanglements occured in the Greater Atlantic where we have only a few small demonstration farms

One might reasonably assume that mussel farming offshore is a low-risk activity and in fact this is what the government of New Zea-land has concluded after decades of experience That experience notwithstanding the prevailing wisdom of NOAArsquos resource protection staff assumes that if we allow a mussel farm in New England waters entanglements will surely fol-low Resource managers were quick to dismiss the potential to mitigate the risk of entangle-

ments through the use of pingers different col-ored lines lights different stiffness or tension of lines or even the placement of farms Some appeared to have already made up their minds that this was an intractable problem

Protected Resources and US Mussel Farmingby Robert Rheault ECSGA Executive Director

mdash Continued on page 6

mdash Photo by Louise MurrayGetty ImagesMussels on longlines at a farm in Isle of Skye

Scotland (from wwwtakepartcomarticle20141112offshore-mussel-farm)

ECSGA Newsletter Page 4 Issue 3 October 2015

So what exactly does an executive director do This is a question I often hear when I

introduce myself Most ECSGA members and even some of our board members donrsquot really know much about the nature of my job and its responsibilities I usually answer with ldquoI have the best job in the world I advocate for an industry that has no downside We pro-vide jobs and economic development produce domestic sustainable seafood grown without drugs or fertilizers and we provide tangible environmental benefits in the waters where we work I have the privilege of representing some of the hardest-working most generous people I knowrdquo

However the real answer is a little more com-plicated than the 30-second elevator speech My position is a half-time appointment because our association cannot yet afford a full-time di-

rector The ECSGA staff includes three com-petent and talented assistants who work on an hourly basis My wife Ann Rheault maintains the website and edits the newsletter putting a professional face on our association Kathy Rhodes is the administrative assistant and she helps schedule meetings prepares meeting min-utes and sends out invoices to those who fall behind in paying membership dues or advertis-ing fees I also rely on our talented bookkeeper Kelly Jurgensen who pays the bills and deals with the taxes Everything else gets done by volunteers board members and growers who donate their precious time and energy to keep the ball rolling and keep expenses down

My responsibilities encompass a wide range of activities and goals At the top of the list in terms of importance to our members are two that I think most members have little ap-preciation for representing our industry at the Interstate Shellfish Sanitation Conference (ISSC) and in Washington DC when we do our annual Walk on the Hill If you have never been to these events then you have never seen me at my best They are the Superbowl and the World Series of shellfish It takes months to

prepare for each of them and each demands a solid week of concentrated all-out effort Iden-tifying the issues defining the response and coordinating the efforts of the members who attend with me is critical work and has huge impacts on our industry

As executive director I serve at the pleasure of the board of directors I organize the board meetings set the agenda and try to keep the various subcommittees and tasks on track I also craft a proposed annual budget and try to help the board reach consensus on the many issues we address although (to my frustration) I donrsquot get a vote

In addition therersquos a laundry list of important tasks I am expected to juggle Since proceeds from the Milford Oyster Festival cover roughly half of our annual operating expenses it gets a lot of attention I am in charge of procuring product donations from our members

Our second largest revenue source is mem-bership dues so I am constantly seeking new members and trying to keep current and past members on board Last year we increased our

What Does an Executive Director Do Anywayby Robert Rheault ECSGA Executive Director

mdash Continued on page 13

ECSGA Newsletter Page 5Issue 3 October 2015

ECSGA Newsletter Page 6 Issue 3 October 2015

Their willingness to draw comparisons between mussel longlines and fishing gear (gill nets and lobster pots) extrapolating the risk of entangle-ments to mussel farms was the single most disturbing aspect of the workshop It was clear that these folks had never seen a mussel farm The discussion which ostensibly was to focus on entanglements often devolved into issues of noise disturbance habitat exclusion and even trophic carrying-capacity impacts and marine debris from farms

I commend the passion of these resource managers but when they referred to indi-vidual whales by name fondly recounting their birthdays and world travels I began to ques-tion their ability to render objective scientific assessments of proposed farming activity and Endangered Species Act considerations

To be fair NOAA is presented with conflicting mandates on this issue NOAArsquos small Office of Aquaculture is tasked with increasing aqua-culture production and is provided with mini-mal resources around $56 million in 2014 At the same time NOAArsquos Office of Protected

Resources appears to be well-staffed and well-funded ($177 million in 2014) with a mandate to protect migratory species ma-rine mammals sea turtles birds and critical habitat from potential threats

Clearly some NOAA staffers want to do the right thing but I donrsquot see how we will ever get large-scale mussel farming off the ground in US waters if the prevailing attitude is a certainty that any lines in the water will result in entanglements

The most stunning suggestion I heard was that all aquaculture lines ndash not just those used in mussel farms ndash should be ldquohard-enedrdquo (coated in PVC pipe) to prevent turtle entanglements In fact in an effort to get an Aquaculture Development Zone per-mitted off Provincetown Mass on Cape Cod the applicants consented to putting 1-inch PVC pipe on the vertical lines used for their oyster gear The pipes are now coated with barnacles that are chafing through the marker buoy lines itrsquos impossible to run the lines through a pot hauler and the pipe often shatters in winter We have no idea if the PVC sheathing really works but one of the resource managers sug-gested the regulation be adopted coastwide

I kept trying to introduce the hypothesis that whales (being intelligent beings) might perceive and actively avoid mussel farms and that this might explain the relative lack of global entan-glements I proposed that this hypothesis was at least worth testing but it was rejected out of hand My suggestion that so few recorded entanglements in a global industry worth hun-dreds of millions of dollars was indicative of a ldquolow riskrdquo was countered with the presump-tion that most entangled whales and mammals are never observed because the dead animals simply sink out of sight

The group introduced a draft white-paper on interactions that was actually pretty good It represented a huge effort examining hundreds of publications from around the world and found only a handful of harmful interactions It went off the rails a bit by reinforcing the as-sumption that mussel longlines are similar to gill nets but the paper also pointed to the lack of evidence that mussel farms are going to be a

big problem based on the experi-ences of the industry to date

The white-paper included a vast list of knowledge gaps ranging from how animals perceive the mussel lines to what sorts of miti-gation efforts might be effective The report included some prema-ture recommendations on draft Best Management Practices that I hope will be deleted No one in the room had enough experience with industry practices to make such suggestions at this juncture

This was the first step in a process where resource managers and industry both have a lot to learn about the concerns of their coun-terparts I hope we will be able to reach a middle ground where pilot farms of significant scale can be tested to see if entanglements are a valid issue Once we know what the real hazards are I am confi-dent that industry will rise to the challenge and develop methods to minimize the risks so we can grow mussels in relative harmony with our whale and turtle friends

mdash Continued from page 3Protected Resources and Mussels

mdash Photo from wwwseawatchfoundationorguk

A whale entangled in fishing gear

ECSGA Newsletter Page 7Issue 3 October 2015

mdash Continued from page 1Milford Oyster Festival

mdash Photo by AK ThorntonThe shucking contest was a big hit

drawing shuckers from nine states for a chance to win $1750 in prize money

Special Thanks to Our Shellfish DonorsThe generosity of our members (listed here in order

from north to south) was key to the success of the 2015 Milford Oyster Festival

Tonie Simmons of Muscongus Bay (Dodge Cove Pemaquids)

Bill Mook and Jeff Auger of Mook Sea Farm (Wiley Points)

Alex Hay of Wellfleet Shellfish A bunch of Island Creek growers including Skip Ben-

nett Brian Zec Christian Horne Joe Grady and Bill Bennett

Al Surprenant and Dave Ryan of Cape Cod Oyster (Wi-anno)

John and Cindy West of Cedar Island Oyster Co (Moonstone)

Dave Roebuck of Salt Pond Oyster Co Perry Raso of Matunuck Oyster FarmJim Arnoux and Nick Papa (East Beach)Rob Krause of Ninigret OystersJeff Gardner of Shellfish For You (Watch Hill) Norm and Jimmy Bloom (Copps Island Oysters) Nancy Follini and Joe Gilbert of Briarpatch Ent

(Silver Beach) Tom Kehoe of KampB Shellfish (Saddlerocks)Steve Fleetwood of Bivalve Packing (Eastpoint)Brian Harmon of Atlantic Capes Fisheries

(Cape May Salts)Lori Mayer of Clam Daddyrsquos Johnny Shockley (Chesapeake Gold) Chad Ballard of Cherrystone Aquafarms (Misty Point)Ryan and Travis Croxton of Rhappahannock

River Oyster CoCedar Key Aquaculture Association

In order to make it all work we rely heavily on the invaluable help of around 60 volunteers ndash growers board members regional exten-sion agents and friends from the Milford Lab We were a little short-handed this year because a huge traffic accident on Route 95 closed the highway for several hours in both directions forcing several carloads of volunteers to turn around and go back home after sitting in traffic for hours

To keep up with the demand at an event of this magnitude you need professional shuckers and we were fortunate to have been able to hire 18 of the best They hailed from nine states and for a little bit of travel money and the chance to compete for the $1750 in prize money they worked as fast as they could non-stop all day We estimate that we served around 70 oysters a minute for seven hours straight thanks to the skill and sheer stamina of the professional shuckers We certainly couldnrsquot have done it without their help

Congratulations to Charlie Lar-kin of Mystic Oysters who took first place in the shucking contest Jose Pentildea representing the Grand Central Oyster Bar in New York City (second place) and Josh Bedea of Old Causeway Steak and Oyster House in Manahawkin NJ (third place) The Milford Oyster Festival and the ECSGA will be sponsoring Charlie to compete in the National Oyster Shuck-ing Contest Oct 17-18 at the St Maryrsquos County Oyster Festival in Leonardtown Md

We are especially grateful to the many ECSGA members who came to the festival and gave up their precious time on a gorgeous summer weekend to staff the two booths ndash some even brought fam-ily members along Many of these generous folks helped shuck but more importantly they stepped up to do whatever jobs needed doing ndash taking orders cashiering crowd control grilling oysters restocking condiments and drinks ladling out chowder hauling ice keeping the shuckers resupplied and empty-ing buckets of shell What a fine group of people

Although all the volunteers worked tirelessly wersquore especially grateful to long-time supporters Kathy Watchter who managed the satellite booth on Saturday Tom Rossi who grilled and grilled

and grilled and Pedro Mendez who once again labored over the deep-fryer for eight hours straight

Every year we get a bigger tent and sell even more shellfish Wersquore already looking forward to next year incorporating what wersquove learned and continuing to perfect the process Just about everyone who comes to help out each year describes it as an exhausting but rewarding experience As Gra-ham Brawley said to Max Sher-man (both from the Ocean State Shellfish Coop) ldquoItrsquos an amazing eventrdquo You really do have to see it to believe it

See more photos at wwwmilfordoysterfestivalcom indexphpfestival-photos andphotosnewhavenregistercom20150815photos-of- milford-oyster-festival-24

ECSGA Newsletter Page 8 Issue 3 October 2015

ECSGA Newsletter Page 9Issue 3 October 2015

If yoursquore like me and you have your Google Alerts set to notify you when an article is

posted on oysters or shellfish yoursquove seen a dozen stories in the popular press on Norovirus and oysters (Oysters Linked to Norovirus Oysters Are Norovirus Factories UK Woman Sickened by Norovirus From Oysters Despite Not Eating Them Eating Oysters Could Put You at Risk for a Deadly Stomach Virus)

Norovirus (NoV) is the leading cause of food-borne illness in the US sending 56000-71000 patients to the hospital and killing 570-800 people in this country each year Many thou-sands more cases go unreported

Incredibly contagious NoV is perhaps best known for sickening hundreds on cruise ships in nursery schools and in nursing homes It is transmitted easily from person to person when infected people fail to wash their hands properly or when people eat shellfish harvested from sewage-contaminated waters A gram of vomitus or feces from an infected individual can harbor billions of infective particles and it only takes 10 of these to make you quite ill Although Norovirus rarely kills healthy people if you become infected you might wish you were dead

Norovirus cannot be grown in culture so itrsquos impossible to measure live infective viruses Although we can use PCR to estimate the amount of viral RNA in oysters or in harvest areas much or all of it may represent inactive viruses that cannot make you sick We can measure surrogates that we hope act like NoV The Interstate Shellfish Sanitation Conference (ISSC) has a raft of proposals referring to MSC (male-specific coliphage a virus that attacks coliform bacteria) that researchers believe is the best avail-able indicator organism in seawaterNorovirus is rapidly degraded by UV light so more infections typically occur in winter when sunlight inten-sity is lower

But one key fact gets lost in all the breathless reporting coming out in the wake of a recent research pub-lication on predominantly Chinese oysters titled Molecular epidemiol-ogy of oyster-related human norovi-ruses (See aemasmorgcontentearly20150817AEM01729-15fullpdf+html)

In the US we do a good job treat-ing our sewage We have ldquoNo-Dischargerdquo policies for boaters as well as rigid regulations defining harvest areas and closures follow-ing big rainfall events The Centers for Disease Control lists oysters as a significant vector for NoV ndash and that is true for much of the world ndash but we do a much better job with sewage treatment and harvest-area

surveillance than much of the rest of the world In the US we see very few NoV illnesses that implicate shellfish Between 2011 and 2013 of the 780 reported NoV-related outbreaks only 250 implicated a specific food source and only five of those were linked to oysters (See wwwncdcgovfoodborneoutbreaks)

Therersquos a reason the US only allows four coun-tries to import raw shellfish inadequate sewage treatment and poor harvest-area surveillance put consumers of raw shellfish at great risk of illness While you might think our regulations are a pain and result in costly closures the alternative would be to see more illnesses than our society is willing to bear The main reason we are enjoying a robust shellfish market today is that we can consume raw shellfish with the expectation that we wonrsquot spend the rest of the week bent double over a toilet bowl

When you see articles saying shellfish are a vec-tor of Norovirus you can say with some confi-dence that this is a small problem in the US Looking at illnesses related to shellfish from third-world countries and suggesting that we have the same problem here is simply irrespon-sible reporting Norovirus in US shellfish is a small problem for which we can be very very thankful

Norovirus and Oystersby Robert Rheault ECSGA Executive Director

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ECSGA Newsletter Page 10 Issue 3 October 2015

ECSGA Newsletter Page 11Issue 3 October 2015

water Many are looking at what Frank is doing and trying to get their own leases started

All this has drawn the attention of the Army Corps of Engineers which is worrisome ldquoLast year it was concerns about navigation This year they are concerned that farmed oysters might be eating all the algae in the riverrdquo he said Thankfully Frank has a good relationship with his neighbor Rep Mark Sanford and with Sen Lindsey Graham both of whom have made calls to the Corps on his behalf

Frank joined us in Washington DC for our annual Walk on the Hill last February and after meeting with his representatives he said ldquoItrsquos good to get on their

radarrdquo In fact Rep Sanford still calls him occasionallly to ask how things are going and ask if he needs anything Frank says that networking on the trip with fellow growers from both the East and West Coasts was invaluable

ldquoYou learn a lot by talking to other growers hearing what works

and what doesnrsquotrdquo he said He also does a lot of public speaking for church and civic groups in his area because he says ldquosomething good always comes from itrdquo

When asked why he is such an avid supporter of the ECSGA Frank said the association has ldquothe best library in town the best source of solid information that impacts my farmrdquo He also praised the efforts of ECSGA board member and Sea Grant Extension agent Julie Davis

ldquoShe is a huge asset to the grow-ersrdquo he said adding that ldquoJulie has great enthusiasm and when I needed to expand my hatchery Ju-lie introduced me to lots of good people who were willing to help me out I spent $80000 expanding my hatchery but I wouldnrsquot have known what to do without the help of all these folksrdquo

mdash Continued from page 2Ladyrsquos Island Oysters

mdash Photo by Frank RobertsLadyrsquos Island Oysters on the

halfshell

2016 Coming Events

Feb 1-3 ECSGA Walk on the Hill Washington DC Contact Bob Rheault 401-783-3360 or bobECSGAorg

Feb 22-26 Aquau-culture 2016 Triennial conference and trade show including annual meetings of the National Shellfisheries Association and National Aquacul-ture Association Paris Hotel Las Vegas NV Visit wwwwasorg

ECSGA Newsletter Page 12 Issue 3 October 2015

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In case you get cornered by a reporter looking to make headlines

Does global warming cause Vibrio outbreaksEvery reporter these days seems intent on draw-ing a link between global warming and Vibrio outbreaks Although it makes for an attractive narrative I donrsquot think the theory really holds up Over the past 50 years wersquove seen average temperatures increase around 10ordmF Although there are places where the increase has been more or less on average this is what NOAA data have shown globally While Vibrio popula-tions are correlated with temperatures based on what we know one degree is not likely to cause a statistically significant increase in either Vibrio populations or number of outbreaks

The dramatic increase in outbreaks seen in New England in 2013 and 2014 was not associ-

ated with unusually hot summers but rather was related to the introduction of a new strain of Vibrio parahaemolyticus serotype O4K12 (Serotypes are variations within a species of bacteria or virus based on cell surface antigens)

What is the deal on the new O4K12 strainAlmost all the outbreaks since 2013 that have been serotyped appear to be related to this new strain of Vibrio parahaemolyticus (Vp) This strain has plagued West Coast harvesters for years but only recently appeared in New England By all accounts it is far more virulent than anything we have dealt with before Prior to the introduction of O4K12 most New Eng-land states had only experienced sporadic Vp illnesses and harvesters were holding shellfish on deck for 10-14 hours prior to refrigeration with no ill effects

How did the shellfish industry respondIrsquom proud of how the industry rose to the chal-lenge of dealing with this new strain When the first wave of illnesses hit in 2013 many har-vesters were incredulous ndash they werenrsquot doing

anything differently than they had for years so how could it be their fault The problem had to lie with someone else down the value chain At that time as the first wave of Vibrio regulations was being rolled out there was resistance to the new mandates and compliance was probably not what it should have been

When the second wave of illnesses closures and recalls hit in 2014 everyone realized that we had a new challenge on our hands New England growers met those challenges head-on adopting drastically more stringent post-harvest temperature controls Most have gone to icing or refrigeration in under two hours Grow-ers have invested millions of dollars on bigger walk-ins new ice machines and reefer trucks

When water temperatures in western Long Island Sound climb above 68ordmF most Connecti-cut growers now follow a protocol of dipping oysters in rapid-cooling ice slurries that can drop the internal temperature below 50ordmF

A Few Words on Vibriosby Robert Rheault ECSGA Executive Director

mdash Continued on page 16

ECSGA Newsletter Page 13Issue 3 October 2015

mdash Continued from page 4What Does a Director Domembership by 30 percent but this year it looks as if nearly 25 percent of our existing members have yet to renew their member-ships

Advertising in our newsletter generates a big chunk of revenue so I do my best to pull together a quality quarterly newsletter that is interesting and informative

Irsquom also expected to be the voice of the industry when me-dia folks come calling I spend several hours a week responding to queries about red tides Vibrio outbreaks or most recently about the growth of the industry If you judged me on what you read in the media you might think I do a bad job because I am invariably mis-quoted in just about every article Irsquove ever been cited in

This job calls for a lot of travel Last year I spent 55 days on the road giving talks at meetings and representing industry at work-shops and in Washington DC In 2014 I logged 52 conference calls for the various ISSC subcommit-tees and many advisory panels I sit on I sent over 5000 e-mails last year and I try to ride herd on the sometimes fractious Listserv discussions

Since I have been instructed to improve our social media pres-ence I am learning to use Twitter and Instagram and I maintain the ECSGA Facebook page I must admit that this is not my strong suit and I am still trying to figure out how to communicate most ef-fectively with our membership and with the public

The ECSGA board has also in-structed me to serve on NOAArsquos Marine Fisheries Advi-sory Council (MAFAC) a group of 21 fisheries and aquaculture experts drawn from industry academia and non-governmental organizations that is tasked with advising the Secretary of Com-merce on matters pertaining to fisheries We meet for one week twice a year but the aquaculture subcommittee has been very active between meetings trying to help shape NOAArsquos policy and budget priorities

Many of you have probably heard of my efforts as self-appointed Vib-rio evangelist educating growers on the hazards of Vibrio bacte-ria I have developed a fistful of educational brochures and have given my Vibrio Education talk in 12 states at least 18 times over the past four years This is a challenge that never seems to go away

Periodically I get roped into shuck-ing at fundraisers and organizing special events like our Romancing the Clam tasting event in Savannah Ga in 2009 or the Grand Tasting being held at the 6th International Oyster Symposium this October in Falmouth Mass These events promote the work of our mem-bers but take a huge amount of effort to pull together

I hope this gives you some idea of what itrsquos like being your executive director and I havenrsquot even men-tioned what I do with the rest of my time Maybe now you might understand if I occasionally forget to do something you asked I still think this is the best job in the world and that I have some of the best bosses I could ever hope for

ECSGA Newsletter Page 14 Issue 3 October 2015

A few months ago we had a lively discussion on the ECSGA Listserv pertaining to the

water-quality benefits associated with shellfish aquaculture and whether or not those impacts are significant As a search of the Listserv ar-chives shows this subject has come up several times over the years

The argument goes something like this Excess nutrients in our estuaries cause eutro-phication -- a cascade of impacts following the crash and decay of algal blooms ndash leading to low oxygen habitat loss and reduced bio-diversity NOAA has determined that excess nitrogen is the primary cause of impaired water quality in 65 percent of our nationrsquos estuaries

We know that shellfish filter the water As they feed they remove particulate organic matter and phytoplankton from the water and this fil-tering improves water clarity and allows better light penetration We know that a percentage of the nitrogen captured by shellfish becomes incorporated into tissues and shell while an-other portion is deposited in fecal ribbons on the bottom This fecal material then becomes available to detritivores like amphipods and polychaetes that form the base of the food

chain for many other species We also know that when you harvest shellfish about one percent of the total weight removed from the watershed is nitrogen

But is that amount significant Lynton Land a retired geochemist and oyster gardener in Virginia has repeatedly piped up on the List to say that the nitrogen removal amounts from aquaculture harvests are trivial And worse he says when we claim these benefits we distract resource managers from their primary respon-sibility of eliminating and reducing the sources of nitrogen entering the watershed in the first place

Land points to the need to tighten nutrient discharges from farms in the Chesapeake wa-tershed which account for most of the nitrogen entering the Bay The 475 wastewater treat-ment plants (WTPs) in this five-state watershed are already meeting their nitrogen removal targets spending $385 million annually in up-grades and maintenance

Land points to the practice of spreading chick-en manure on the sandy soils of the Delmarva Peninsula as one of the easier inputs to elimi-nate If farmers replaced chicken manure with high-efficiency time-release fertilizers (and used the manure instead to generate bio-gas) he estimates that significant reductions in nitro-gen runoff would result With farms contribut-ing the lionrsquos share of the nitrogen inputs into the Chesapeake Land believes the best ap-proach is to go after the big sources Anything else is insignificant and distracts the authorities from more important work

So who is right I suggest they both are

Land points out that ldquothe bottom would have to be paved with shellfish to make a differencerdquo In many of our highly populated watersheds I believe he is essentially correct In Long Island Sound (LIS) or the Chesapeake Bay any nitro-gen removed by shellfish is likely to account for

only a fraction of a percent of the total load Itrsquos still beneficial but even under the most optimistic scenarios not capable of making a huge difference However in many of our smaller less-populated watersheds it is read-ily apparent that shellfish can and do make a significant difference in water quality If we are talking about cleaning up after a few thou-sand homes instead of a few million itrsquos clear that large populations of shellfish can make a significant difference In smaller estuaries and ponds on Cape Cod we are seeing data indicat-ing improved water clarity and reductions in the symptoms of eutrophication (I will put links to some of these reports on our website)

Nonetheless Land is right we still need to do everything we can to reduce the sources of nitrogen entering our waterways No one is arguing against the need for source reduc-

tion And there is always a danger that developers will argue that more homes and more nutrient runoff can be justified if we just put a few more shellfish in the water

But in some cases removing even a few tons of nitrogen results in vast improve-ments and finding a way to meet a percent or two of your target reduction is a triumph to be celebrated After implementing the ldquoeasyrdquo source reduction measures like nitrogen-reducing WTP upgrades it gets progressively more dif-ficult and more expensive to achieve the next tier of

The Case for Water Qualityby Robert Rheault ECSGA Executive Director

mdash Continued on page 16

mdash Graphic by Washington State Dept of Ecology wwwecywagovprogramseapNitrogenEffects

ECSGA Newsletter Page 15Issue 3 October 2015

ECSGA Newsletter Page 16 Issue 3 October 2015

source reductions Over the past decade more than $1 billion has been spent upgrading WTPs in the LIS watershed with another $1 billion in projected future costs Models predict that even this will be inadequate to return the LIS to a state where low oxygen and eutrophication are small problems instead of big issues

There have been numerous studies showing ac-tual cases where shellfish have made a tangible difference in water quality and many more studies where these impacts are predicted by models

The take-home message from all these studies should be that shellfish are not a cure-all for eu-trophication in our nationrsquos estuaries but that shellfish aquaculture is one component in the toolbox contributing to a piece of the solution Source reduction remains the primary goal but if political and economic incentives fail to achieve the necessary nitrogen reductions to return our estuaries to a healthy state then we have to look for creative solutions and shellfish can help

Shellfish aquaculture can result in significant mitigation of the symptoms of eutrophication Growers provide this service at no cost to the taxpayer and as a side benefit we also produce sustainable nutritious local seafood as well as jobs and productive habitat for juvenile fish

If shellfish aquaculture were eligible for inclu-sion in nutrient-credit-trading schemes that have already been established in the Chesa-peake Bay and Long Island Sound it is esti-mated that growers could significantly augment their income The cost per pound of nitrogen removed would be similar to the costs of agricultural Best Management Practices and the impacts from shellfish harvests are easier to document

Donrsquot sell shellfish as a panacea to your water-quality problems but donrsquot sell them short either

mdash Continued from page 14Water Quality

within 30 minutes of leaving the water These efforts seem to have worked because the same harvest areas that were associated with illnesses in 2013 were essentially illness-free in 2014 and 2015 Growers who once fought the regulation now embrace it saying that once an oyster is cold it is easy to keep it cold so they spend less money on ice and donrsquot need as much refrigera-tion capacity

What is the trendThe Centers for Disease Control (CDC) points to Vibrio illnesses as one of the few to have increased in recent years but I think we may have turned the corner We continue to grow and sell more oysters for summertime raw consumption and by all accounts coast-wide production has doubled in just the past five years When I started to write this article I was preparing to report that on average the risk per serving was headed down and that we had risen to the challenge but Vibrio season is not yet over and some illnesses may still be in the trace-back and investigation stage This yearrsquos Massachusetts illness numbers were looking lower than 2014rsquos until just last week So we still have a significant public health challenge on our hands

What does the science tell usUnfortunately the science on the new strain is very weak We canrsquot detect it in the environ-ment We donrsquot know if it grows at the same rate as other strains at various temperatures We suspect it is more virulent but we donrsquot know how many cells it takes to cause ill-ness The FDA Risk Calculator is fraught with unknowns and huge error bars We donrsquot know how many oysters comprise a meal or what percentage get cooked and in most states we have no real-time estimates on harvest numbers or servings

The good news is that a lot of very smart people are working on this Many states have invested in the equipment needed to measure

virulent strains A number of studies are already underway and I look forward to seeing some results this Fall

Kristin DeRosia-Banick (Conn Bureau of Aquaculture) is leading a group of Vibrio researchers who will be holding a small confer-ence in November to share regionally specific Vibrio data and information needs and to develop new risk assessment and forecasting tools This same group is also working with the FDA to update the FDA Risk Calculator so it better reflects the Vibrio risk associated with the Northeast region Connecticut regulators also have partnered with local industry to con-duct research funded by the Interstate Shellfish Sanitation Conference on the post-harvest growth of Vp comparing treatments of oysters subjected to ice slurry at different intervals in addition to traditional mechanical refrigeration

Chris Schillaci (Mass Vp Program Coordina-tor) has helped set up some studies on the ef-fects of air drying and intertidal exposure

Cheryl Whistler (University of New Hamp-shire) is tracking the serotypes of infections and has developed techniques to monitor the new strain

John Jacobs from NOAA is developing a mod-el to help harvesters predict Vibrio doubling times based on water temperature and regional hourly weather forecasts

I remain hopeful that all this research will en-able us to continue to find workable ways to address the Vibrio problem

mdash Continued from page 12 About Vibrio