[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 99 (Tuesday, July 26, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: July 26, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                 THE MARINE AQUACULTURE ENHANCEMENT ACT

                                 ______


                             HON. JACK REED

                            of rhode island

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, July 26, 1994

  Mr. REED. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased today to join my colleague, Mr. 
Studds, the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Merchant Marine 
and Fisheries, in introducing the Marine Aquaculture Enhancement Act.
  This bill is intended to foster economic growth and create jobs by 
encouraging aquaculture development in our lakes and coastal areas.
  Other nations around the world have already recognized the potential 
of aquaculture and the important role that government can play in 
developing this industry. The Governments of Japan, Norway, and Chile 
are supporting aquaculture development programs and giving their 
citizens the opportunity to reap the accompanying economic rewards. In 
fact, these countries are exporting their aquaculture harvests of fish 
and shellfish to America.
  The Marine Aquaculture Enhancement Act authorizes the Secretary of 
Commerce, acting through the National Sea Grant College Program, to 
award aquaculture-related grants. These grants can be used for 
aquaculture research and development and to fund projects that 
accelerate the development, growth, and commercialization of the 
domestic marine aquaculture industry. This grant program will be 
authorized at $5 million in 1995 and 1996, and $7 million in 1997 and 
1998.
  I was pleased to have the opportunity to add language to this bill 
that will also make these grants available to States like Rhode Island 
that need to develop a comprehensive aquaculture strategy.
  At the turn of the century, Rhode Island shellfishermen harvested so 
much shellfish from Narragansett Bay that this harvest would be worth 
almost $1 billion at today's prices. Today, Rhode Island's much smaller 
shellfish harvest isn't even worth one-tenth this price.
  There are many reasons why the number of shellfish harvested in Rhode 
Island waters has declined in the last century. Pollution, development, 
disease, and overharvesting have all contributed to the decline in 
harvests. I also believe our State has suffered because there has been 
no clearly defined plan for aquaculture development in Rhode Island.
  Under my language, States like Rhode Island that have no 
comprehensive plan for aquaculture development will, for the first 
time, have access to a Federal grant program that can be used to get 
started in the process of creating jobs and economic development 
through aquaculture.
  The Marine Aquaculture Enhancement Act also creates a grant program 
modeled after a shellfish seeding program operating in Nantucket. This 
grant program is designed to enhance the profitability of existing 
aquaculture resources. Under this program, a total of $6 million will 
be available to States to expand ongoing projects related to 
aquaculture.
  Working with Congressman Studds, I was successful in adding language 
to this bill that will make Rhode Island Quahog transplant operations 
eligible for these funds.
  According to the Associated Press--

       There was a time when almost half the clams offered on this 
     nation's restaurant menus came from Rhode Island. Today the 
     claming industry in that tiny state is at low tide, another 
     casualty of pollution.

  By transplanting clams from high bacteria areas of Narragansett Bay 
to clean areas of the bay, the clams are given the opportunity to clean 
themselves and eventually be ready for harvest. This sounds like a 
simple proposition, but Rhode Island lacks a steady funding source to 
pay clam diggers to conduct transplant operations. Under this bill, 
Rhode Island's Quahog transplant operations will have a chance to 
thrive long into the future, providing jobs and income to families that 
depend on clam harvests.
  In addition to the language I have added, the Marine Aquaculture 
Enhancement Act is a bill that holds the promise of a prosperous future 
for my home State of Rhode Island. The University of Rhode Island is 
the world's finest center for coastal resource research. The planned 
construction of the Coastal Resource Center at URI will add to this 
well-earned reputation for world class research. The Marine Aquaculture 
Enhancement Act, used in tandem with the knowledge of coastal resource 
experts at URI, will enable local business men and women to turn 
scientific research into jobs and economic prosperity for Rhode Island.
  This is a modest bill, but it does not take a lot of money to marry 
marine aquaculture and economic development. An example of this 
principle can be seen in a recent column by Providence Journal-Bulletin 
business editor Peter Phipps. Phipps chronicles how a modest 1986 
investment of $20,000 made by the State of Connecticut in aquaculture 
development has turned into a $33.3 million oyster business and created 
500 jobs. With the help of the Federal Government, other States will 
now be able to follow Connecticut's lead. I request that Mr. Phipps' 
article be included in the Record at the conclusion of my statement.
  Although differences remain over the best way to create a sustainable 
aquaculture industry in the United States, I believe that this 
legislation will serve as an important first step in helping coastal 
States like Rhode Island fully utilize their scientific expertise and 
entrepreneurial spirit in developing and sustaining our marine 
resources. As a member of the Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee, 
I plan to work to see that this bill becomes the law of the land.

         [From the Providence Journal-Bulletin, June 26, 1994]

Connecticut Proves a ``Development'' Point With Its Revived Oyster Beds

                           (By Peter Phipps)

       We tend to write a lot about government when it wastes 
     money.
       Recently staff writer Nora Lockwood Tooher went to 
     Connecticut to find out why in the world the state was 
     spending $200 million to prop up its defense industries.
       It didn't seem to make any sense, especially when the 
     grants, tax breaks, loan guarantees and other incentives 
     failed to stop the layoffs.
       In fact, the taxpayers got no guarantee the companies will 
     stay in the state after their money runs out.
       ``There's a real question,'' says Fleet's chief economist 
     Gary Ciminero, ``whether it's wise to engage in an industrial 
     policy that throws money into industries in an inevitable 
     decline.''
       In Connecticut, its' defense jobs. In Rhode Island, it's 
     the construction of a $350-million convention center when the 
     country already had more convention capacity than it needed.
       Rhode Island's pols built it anyway. They weren't alone. 
     And that's part of the problem.
       ``The expansions suggest a booming industry,'' wrote 
     Lawrence Tabak in the April Atlantic magazine, ``yet demand 
     for space has shown essentially no growth over the past two 
     years.''
       Oh sure the Convention Center's backers can marshal 
     evidence to show how the building will pay for itself. And 
     maybe it will.
       But, as Tabak pointed out, no one ever asked whether all 
     that money might have been better spent invested in, say, 
     education, the clean-up of the Bay or the establishment of a 
     small-business loan fund.
       Too often this kind of soft thinking is what the taxpayers 
     get when government engages in ``economic development,'' Few 
     private companies would throw the dice on ventures as risky 
     as defense conversion or a convention center. Their 
     stockholders wouldn't allow it.
       But government, for all its flaws, can also pick a winner. 
     And there's no better example of that than Connecticut's 
     investment in the revival of its oyster industry.
       Once one of Connecticut's largest employers, oystering had 
     dwindled, by the mid-1980s to a $5 million-a-year business.
       The state-owned oyster beds off Bridgeport and Stratford, 
     which once supported 1,000 workers, had lain fallow for maybe 
     50 years.
       Water quality started improving in the `70s with the 
     passage of the Clean Water Act. And the salinity and water 
     temperature of the Bridgeport-Stratford beds were still 
     perfect for the spawning and growth of baby oysters.
       The problem was that, to develop, oyster larvae need to 
     attach to a clean shell or rock. The bottom of that part of 
     Long Island Sound was fouled with algae and silt.
       Then in the spring of 1986, marine biologist John Volk 
     managed to get his hands on $20,000 left over in the 
     Agriculture Department's budget. It was enough for Volk's 
     Aquaculture Division, working with private shellfishers, to 
     clean 20 to 30 acres of Long Island Sound. They then spread 
     20,000 bushels of clean shell.
       The experiment went well and that fall Volk went to the 
     legislature for enough money to revitalize all 3,000 acres.
       ``It was a tough sell,'' Volk recalls. The politicians were 
     skeptical. ``There were a few legislators who looked at this 
     as a subsidy.''
       But he said all the usual things about jobs and economic 
     development and got $1.3 million at first and later another 
     $4 million to buy about 5 million bushels of clean shell.
       Starting in the spring of 1987, the state and the private 
     companies cleaned the bottom of the Sound and put down 2,000 
     shells per acre. That summer, the temperatures were right--
     between 67 and 70 degrees--and the currents were right and 
     the spawning went ``very well,'' Volk says.
       That fall the baby oysters, or ``seed,'' were harvested and 
     sold for transplanting to beds in deeper waters.
       The growing oysters are picked up and moved around for 
     another three or four years until they are large enough to 
     harvest. And the prime, state-owned oysters grounds are then 
     ``replanted'' with fresh shell for the next spawning.
       The results have been almost too good to believe. The 
     wholesale value of Connecticut's oysters harvest nearly 
     doubled to $9 million in 1988. In 1991, the total hit $33.3 
     million and then $50 million in 1993.
       The state now issued 150 to 200 licenses a year for the 
     ``seed'' beds and leases another 40,000 acres in deeper water 
     to 110 other oyster-men, all of which means that the 
     taxpayers' $5.3 million has created some 500 jobs.
       The oyster industry couldn't have done this on its own. For 
     one thing, the public owned and controlled the prime seed 
     beds. Beyond that, Volk says, ``it was the state that came 
     around and said, `we've got to do this--it's an important 
     natural resource.'''
       It can happen. Not all government programs are a waste of 
     money. ``Economic development'' doesn't have to be a hollow 
     phrase.
       Every once and a while it's good for everyone to be 
     reminded of that.