This should be a growth sector
By Rob Smith / ecoRI News staff
The latest numbers released by the Coastal Resources Management Council, the state agency that oversees Rhode Island’s burgeoning aquaculture sector, show that the dollar value for products grown in aquaculture farms declined 2.42% in 2023 compared to the previous year, earning slightly above $8 million.
The industry saw a similar decline in employment,
shedding 7.3% of part-time and full-time jobs in the industry in 2023 compared
to the previous year. The figures come from a yearly questionnaire distributed
to all aquaculture leaseholders by CRMC.
The declines are in spite of the fact the agency approved a
new aquaculture lease last year,
and approved more than 10 additional acres of state waters for aquaculture use.
Benjamin Goetsch, the agency’s sole aquaculture staffer who wrote the CRMC
report, found demand for farm-grown shellfish remains robust, noting that
“demand and production remained very strong, with 2023 out-pacing all other
years other than 2022.”
“Rhode Island aquaculturists are resilient and continue to work on and invest in their farms to meet this strong demand for high-quality shellfish,” Goetsch wrote. “Many farmers remain optimistic that strong demand for sustainably grown R.I. aquaculture products, both locally and throughout the country, will only continue into 2024 and beyond.”
The industry’s growth has been stagnant since just before
the pandemic. The state has added on average about one new aquaculture site a
year since 2019, a far cry from the industry’s rapid rise in its first two
decades. In the five-year period prior to 2019, the agency approved 16 new
aquaculture sites. Acreage over the past decade, meanwhile, has nearly doubled
from 206 acres of aquaculture in 2014 to 384 acres today.
While shellfish, and the restaurants that serve them, have
grown in popularity in recent years, so has the community backlash to new or
expanded aquaculture production sites in Rhode Island. The backlash carries a
specific not-in-my-backyard flavor: opponents say they aren’t opposed to the
industry as a whole, just the specific sites that are chosen for the
aquaculture farms.
Many of the best sites are typically located in quiet inlets in Narragansett Bay, or in coastal ponds with a strong saltwater presence, that typically also coincide with recreational water uses such as swimming, boating or jet skiing, and the waterfront homes with high values that accompany such areas.
The ponds that run along the state’s southern shore — Green Hill,
Ninigret, Point Judith, Potter, Quonochontaug. and Winnapaug — have natural
barriers that separate the coastal lagoons from the ocean, forming an excellent
environment for aquaculture as well as summertime activities.
Another issue aquaculture farm owners face is the slow pace
of the CRMC when it comes to ruling on applications.
Perry Raso, the owner and operator of the popular Matunuck
Oyster Bar, applied for an expansion to his scallop farm in South Kingstown’s
Potter’s Pond back in 2019. It took over five years of deliberations, disputes,
and public hearings before CRMC’s executive body voted to approve a slimmed-down version of
his application in June 2023, allowing for 2 additional acres of aquaculture.
Raso’s original application, which sought to add 3 acres to
his 10-acre aquaculture farm, was denied in
November 2021, primarily because of neighbors’ complaints that the proposed
expansion would deeply cut into water-based activities, with the aquaculture
cages posing a hazard for everyone else using the pond.
John and Patrick Bowen show another example of the
tug-of-war over coastal ponds and aquaculture. In 2020 the brothers applied to
install up to 200 oyster cages in an area totaling less than an acre 285 feet
offshore in the Sakonnet River. Their proposal, which would have sited their
farm close to Sapowet Marsh, a state-managed area in Tiverton, set off years of
opposition from anglers, residents, and others who said it would interfere with
other uses of the water and intrude on the public trust.
Despite submitting their application over four years ago,
the Bowens still have not received a final decision from the agency. Last year
the council voted to have the application heard by CRMC’s newly minted hearing
officer, Mark Krieger, who almost a year later has not issued a final decision
on the matter.
According to the report, oysters remained the No. 1
aquaculture product with 10,648,321 pieces sold for consumption. The U.S.
Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resource Conservation Service worked with
R.I. aquaculturists to purchase and seed a record number of approximately
1,700,551 oysters to restoration sites throughout the coastal ponds and
Narragansett Bay.