S.Na Glimmering May Morning, Tom Briggs Pilots A Barge 45ft aluminum through CASCO Bay water in one of the last days of the annual sea harvest. By past cars, Clapboard, refers to a floating wooden platform where the mussels were planted alongside edible seaweed strips.
Brezz, the farm director, says to the farm Banjzl Al Bahr IslandPortland marine farm, which grows, harvested and sells hundreds of thousands of shells and seaweed every year. “When we come here, we get the largest and fastest mussels with the most thicker and better shells. In my opinion, in an unlawful way, it is due to the sea grass.”
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Zoe Benycic, Oyster bullets in the sea mules Banzal Island, harvested the sea. Sea herbs change the water chemistry enough to reduce carbon dioxide levels to feed the mussels
An increasing group of science supports brigade intuition. The Gulf of Mine State is uniquely vulnerable to ocean acids, which can hinder the development of dandruff in the mussels, nullse, the shellfish, and the corner, threatens an industry that employs hundreds of people and generates 85 million dollars to 100 million dollars (63 million pounds to 74 million pounds) annually.
Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of fossil fuel is the main engine to reduce the acidity in the ocean, Increase the acidity of the world’s oceans More than 40 % since the pre -industry era and more than 15 % since 1985. Add the surface flow of carbon from the growing coastal societies, regular flows of the most acidic water from Canada, and intense thermal stress – Mine State Bay The fastest three times than the global average – I left with a sensitive marine environmental system and a major economic resource under threat.
Enter the herb. The streams of shiny seaweed and brown green herbs, which are the seeds of the island on lines under the cold November sky and harvest in the end of spring a natural answer to ocean acids because they devour carbon dioxide. Specific sensors near sea grass lines in CASCO Bay over the past decade It has shown that increasing seaweed changes the water chemistry sufficiently to reduce carbon dioxide levels directly in the vicinity, and nourish nearby mollusks.
“We know that, in general, for the coincidence perpetrators, the ocean acidification is bad, and we know that the sea herb improves the better in the high fence2 “The environment”, a non -profit climate and societal organization in Rolland, says, said “environment”, a non -profit climate and societal organization in Rolland, whoAnd the pioneer of Bang Island water.
Working with the Bigelow Laboratory for Oceanic Sciences, an independent research organization based in Main She says the water test off the island of Chebeague in 2015 “to see if we can discover the difference between water chemistry in the middle of all this sea herb and away from it.” “We planted juvenile mussels inside and outside the sea grass, and we were able to show that the mussels inside the sea had a thicker shell. Now you see the island of Bangal growing into the sea herb around the mussels because it can achieve a profit on the sea herb and also a mussel insulating.”
The CEO and the owner of the mussel Banzal Island, More Moretti, helped marine biology at the College College and the School of School, in raising sea cancer children in New England Aquarium, and worked on the oyster farm before purchasing the sea farm with his father in 2010.
“Even before we start cultivating the mussels, I was interested in this concept as an environmentally friendly method for cultivation, and cultivating an ecosystem instead of one type,” said Moretti from his office on the bare upper floor of the Panclix island warehouse on Portland.
As the harvest of the sea grass, Moretti realized that they needed a way to stabilize seaweed, which did not last long after leaving the water. For a while, they dried themselves, hung it in the warehouse and on the sidewalks. Now, they sell all fresh seaweed to a local processor, which turns them into fleeing foods like Kimchi, among other products.
“We have always suspected that this positive interaction between the mussels and young men, and we suspected that because of the optical representation of the sea herb, it absorbs the carbon from the water, then it should be useful for the ocean and the virtue of the mussel,” Moretti says. The water test in BGLOOW has proven that “we have a positive effect”.
Nichley Price, Director of the Bijelow’s Center for Seafood Solutions, with Arnold in those early experiments and continues to monitor water around Bangs Island Mussel and Kelp, is an expansion voltage to include water control in Seaweed Farms from Alaska to Norway. in A paper published this year In the journal Nature Climateghic, PRICE, Arnold, and a group of participating authors, it has documented another way in which marine herbal farms can contribute to ocean health in the world: by besieging the carbon at the sea floor.
“When you reap, you do not withdraw every other part of the sea.” Price says. “We were diving under the farms during the harvest, and you can see the pieces and pieces that rain. Then there is a execution process, the pieces and pieces that are thrown, and this is what was measured by this paper: unusable parts, not usable from the harvest that ends on the sea bottom.”
Neglected seaweed scraps can contribute to what is known as carbon deposition. “The fingers crossed, they are covered with sediments quickly enough to be removed from the global carbon cycle,” says Price.
Looking at the environmental and financial benefits of developing the herb and shellfish together, you may think everyone will do so. But the joint cultivated mussels and sea guards require more than mere cultivation and harvest. With five boats, plankton monitoring program, tanks on the ground floor of the warehouse, where the mussels are formulated from the nearby trap to lines before putting them in the ocean, which is Bangs Island is part of the science laboratory.
The changes in the assembly courses and seeds collection in recent years forced Moretti and its employees to pay more attention to the surrounding water and inhabitants, from Parancke-a nuisance source for oyster farmers because they go out on the mussels-almost the form of young people, and they are ignited in the young, and they are burning in young people. a job.
“From a conceptual point of view, what we do is very simple: we grow the mussels, reap it, and sell it,” Moretti said. “But adding all the pieces together is a truly large and complex puzzle.”
Today, Bangs Island reaps about 600,000 pounds (270,000 kg) of mussels and 100,000 pounds of seaweed annually; Last fall, they started cultivating oysters. Oyster, along with about half of the mussels, grows near the sea grass.
“Climate change, ocean gel, represents a global problem. When you try to think about it, like what you can do? It is very difficult,” Moretti says. “But when you think about raising the sea grass in the ocean, this is the only way we were able to discover at all to dilute a local scale of this global problem. It is something we can do here that can help the water around us that has a great impact.”
