Fishers Island is located at the eastern end of Long Island Sound. Long a summer enclave for the wealthy, it may soon become known for a seaweed farm in Fishers Island Sound.
When my three-year-old grandchild was upset because the seaweed snacks were all gone, I knew the world had changed. Seaweed snacks? Yes, indeed. Seaweed has become big in the US. It’s not considered an exotic food anymore.
At the Connecticut newspaper the Day, Joe Wojtas wrote recently about one of the many entrepreneurs moving into seaweed.
“A local man is seeking approval from state and local agencies to run a sugar kelp farm in Fishers Island Sound about one mile southeast of Enders Island.
“Thomas Cooke of LionMind Ventures LLC is seeking a permit from the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection to install up to 10 long lines, each 500 feet long and anchored at each end and in the middle. The kelp seeds are embedded in the ropes when they are put out in the water and then harvested six months later after the plants have grown to 12 feet or more. Cooke said the work will begin in late October and end in May, which means it will not occur during the busy recreational boating season in Fishers Island Sound. …
“Cooke, who now lives on Masons Island and is an attorney, director for a professional choral group and the former Simsbury town administrator, … said he learned about kelp farming a few years ago, when he heard a program on the popular TED Talks series about a New Haven-based organization called Greenwave and its executive director, Bren Smith, who farms kelp in the Sound.
“ ‘It’s really good for the Sound,’ Cooke said about kelp farming. ‘It removes nitrogen and carbon dioxide and leaves a much healthier body of water.’ …
“The uses for nutrient-filled kelp include food — growers like to call it sea greens and not seaweed — cosmetics and fertilizers, just to name a few. Cooke said Greenwave works with kelp farmers to provide seed, find buyers and provide technical advice.
Everyone says it’s the new kale but I think it tastes better,’ he said.
More at the Day, here. I blogged about a Rhode Island kelp farmer here.
Photo: NOAA Fisheries
Here’s what sugar kelp looks like. There are different kinds of kelp, but this is the kind mentioned in the story.
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