April 1, 2014

 

 

The US government has shown support to Catalina Sea Ranch as the California Coastal Commission unanimously approved its application for a 100 acre shellfish farm in January, and believes to be a positive litmus test for the future of aquaculture in the US.

 

Projected to produce 2.6 million pounds of mussels a year, it is 10 miles from an expensive slab of real estate - California's Huntington Beach - is prime territory for a "NIMBY" uproar. NIMBYism ("not in my backyard", an urban dictionary creation describing public outcries against block development proposals from neighbouring residents) has long been known to put obstacles in the way of aquaculture projects' permitting approval processes.

 

Yet Catalina Sea Ranch chief executive officer Phil Cruver says there was no such uproar for his Mediterranean mussel farm, which he hopes to begin this summer. It likely did not hurt that he positioned the project smartly out of residents' sight, at 10 miles offshore.

 

As for squelching possible objections from the environmental community, Cruver and the other five members of his management team turned to scientists to validate the intensive environmental planning he had done before taking the project through the applications project.

 

Mussels, being bivalves, filter the water as they eat and require no extra food be put in the water, avoiding the negative press salmon farms get from environmental groups on account of fish waste.

 

Phil Cruver is scouting for the final US$3 million he needs to start the project this summer, citing "lots of interest" in a fundraising cycle that ends in April. With a history in successful start-ups, being co-founder of offshore aquaculture project KZO Sea Farms and former chairman of the software company KZO Innovations, he is going after the remaining funding needed via multiple channels.

 

The company recently submitted an application for two US$250,000 grants. The first is for its offshore monitoring programme with partners Lockheed Martin, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Scripps Oceanographic Institute, Wrigley Institute of Environmental Studies, and the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole.

 

The second is for its selective breeding programme with University of California and California State University, Long Beach, from NOAA's Sea Grant Aquaculture programme. These grants, if awarded, require 50% matching funds from Catalina Sea Ranch.

 

 

Funds would go to buying anchors, installing them, completing the nursery, completing the hatchery and paying off a 75-foot research vessel, named Captain Jack, which the company attained at a deep discount from the former owner.