Shellfish Farming Permit Help
One of the many challenges for the shellfish farmer is making sure that all the permiting is complete and up to date. We will cover the permiting for an existing farm.
Alaska Department of Fish & Game
Lets start with the ADF&G (this is sent to ADNR as well) Annual Report. Here is an example of the Ruddy farm Annual Report
Another form Shellfish farmers need to fill out every year for each ADF&G certified seed source is the Shellfish Spat Transport Application Form. This is a sample of the Ruddy farm form 2006 Spat Transport form.
Both of these forms are available from: http://www.cf.adfg.state.ak.us/geninfo/enhance/maricult/maricult.php
Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation
Farmers are required to send in a minimum of one shellfish sample every week that they harvest from April 1st to September 30th for Paralitic Shellfish Poison (PSP) testing. PSP is very seriouse and it is advisable to increase your testing durring the times of year that you may have a history of infection.
The main DEC form that a farmer needs to apply for is the Shellfish Harvesters Permit. This sample of the Ruddy farm Shellfish Harvesters Permit application compleate with the boat certification. The boat certification only needs to be done once. There are some very spacific instructions for how the Shellfish Harvest tag is to be made. Some of the text that must be included on your water and tear resistant tags is "THIS TAG IS REQUIRED TO BE ATTACHED UNTIL CONTAINER IS EMPTY OR RETAGED AND THEREAFTER KEPT ON FILE FOR 90 DAYS."
A sample of your tag must be sent in with a check for $162 made out to the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation.
More information and the Harvest Application can be found on the ADEC site: http://www.state.ak.us/dec/deh/seafood/home.htm
Alaska Department of Natural Resources
A DNR has an annual lease fee based on the size of your farm. This is the agencie a farmer actually pays to lease the farm from the State. Most of the forms that a farmer sends to ADNR are also sent to other agencies in what they call a "Joint Agency Form" which does save us a little bit work.
Your lease itself will be a good size file. With maps, site desings and verious legalese. We are not going to go into the whole lease but we will show you an example of a lease amendment to the Ruddy farm when they wanted to add some work rafts inside thier lease site. To Amend the lease with additional area such as a hardening beach is much more complex. The farmer must submit for the amendment by January 1st of the given year so that is can go up for a 6 month or more joint agency review.
Ruddy Lease Amendment for Raft
To learn more about the ADNR as it relates to Mariculture http://www.dnr.state.ak.us/mlw/aquatic/index.htm
