New Gear Could Help Lobstermen Diversify Their Income

By Jim Leonard First published in Midcoast Villager

A dimly lit shed in Thomaston, Maine, may turn out to be the birthplace of one of the most important innovations in the aquaculture industry. Seascale LLC is located at the home of Charlie Walsh, who co-founded the company with longtime friend Jon Steuber. The two have embarked on a mission to help lobstermen diversify their markets by participating in aquaculture practices — while not impacting their primary business of lobstering.

Jon Steuber left, and Charlie Walsh with their scallop pots. Seascale LLC photo.

Seascale has designed, built and tested its “Maine scallop pot,” a thoughtful, fisherman-centered design meant to slot seamlessly into lobstering operations. It looks very much like a traditional lobster “pot,” but it’s used to grow and harvest scallops, and provide lobstermen with an additional income stream.

“It’s a market that doesn’t have a ceiling,” said Walsh of the scallop industry. “You can sell every scallop you land. It’s a really high-value product. It’s something that fishermen are already familiar with, and they’re already in water where you can set these [pots] and only touch them four or five times a year.”

The Maine Scallop Pot is also adaptable to other types of aquaculture operations, such as urchins or oysters. “At the moment we’re targeting scallops,” Walsh said. “Scallops live in) deep water, cold water, it’s where they want to be anyway — and there’s a proven track record of growing scallops in bottom cages.” Scallops grow to harvest size in four to five years, with the majority of growth occurring in the first two years. The shellfish are also able to reproduce after two years.

The Maine scallop pot opens from the side. Inside are three bags, or plastic mesh shelves, that hold the scallop spat. Spat are juvenile scallops that are looking to attach to a surface. Walsh says each bag could be seeded with 1,000 spat.

“You’re going to park this someplace where you’re not going to have to worry about fouling, you’re not going to worry about big temperature swings, and you only have to check on it four times a year.”

The University of New Hampshire is currently exclusively testing the Maine Scallop Pot, cultivating scallops. Seascale also has a working scallop pot on a leased site in the Damariscotta River. Seascale has a provisional patent on the Maine Scallop Pot, with a full utility patent anticipated by the end of the year. Each trap costs approximately $200, with each of the plastic mesh bags priced at $12.50.

“We think there’s an incredible market opportunity,” Steuber said. “It’s also an opportunity to participate in aquaculture that doesn’t interfere with [lobster] fishing, but it’s going to take a little bit of policy change.”

Steuber says Seascale has also reached out to the Maine Department of Marine Resources. “We’ve been in conversations with the Department of Marine Resources about the use of the Maine scallop pot,” he said. “DMR has been informative as we explore how this gear might fit into future aquaculture pathways that serve working fishermen and support the resilience of Maine’s coastal communities.”

Steuber graduated from Bates in 2008 and immediately established a project working with at-risk youth in South America with a friend named Wiley Todd, who happened to live in Thomaston and was friends with Walsh. Walsh offered to assist with Steuber and Todd’s project and the two have been friends ever since.

Both came back to Thomaston where Steuber accepted a sternman position on a boat out of Wheeler’s Bay and Walsh continued to work in the aquaculture industry. While recuperating from an injury, Walsh spent a day on Hupper’s Island. “I couldn’t walk around so I spent the day watching lobstermen.” Walsh noticed something standard on all of the boats he observed.

“The lobster trap comes out of the water, guy runs through it for 45 seconds to a minute and it’s back in the water. If you could go through operating aquaculture on the efficiencies of a lobster boat, both labor wise and infrastructure, there’s a big opportunity there.”

Walsh then sketched a Maine scallop pot prototype on a legal pad and showed it to Steuber. The pair began building the prototype last summer with one idea in mind. “Whatever we design, it doesn’t interfere with [lobster] fishing,” Walsh said. “This is a strategy for diversification, not replacement. We don’t think the future of the working waterfront in Maine is all aquaculture. Commercial fishing is still the horse that drives the cart; all the infrastructure is built around that.”

While building the prototype, Seascale also submitted a “one-page pitch” to the Gulf of Maine Research Institute’s Incubator Program. The pitch was accepted and the Institute awarded Seascale $6,000 — funds that allowed the pair to purchase more gear and hire a patent attorney.

The early reviews on the Maine scallop pot are favorable. “We think it’s exciting,” said Mark Brooks, who runs Brooks Trap Mill in Thomaston with his brother Stephen. “Making it compatible with lobster gear is smart and it also opens up a potential new market for us.” Trap mills and rope factories could also benefit from production of Maine scallop pots.

Steuber says Maine is uniquely positioned to benefit from this type of diversification. “The commercial lobster fishing fleet is Maine’s largest competitive advantage. We have 6,000 small businesses across the state that have their own boats and a way that they specifically do the job. All of these small businesses are innovating in different ways and they’re all owner operated. A lot of other fisheries are run by enormous corporations. Here, the money stays local.”

Seascale recently participated in a Business Accelerator Program through Dirigo Labs in Waterville. The program brought entrepreneurs from around the state together for workshops and information. It concluded with a pitch competition with three cash awards available. “We swept the awards,” Walsh said. While Walsh and Steuber were happy with the money, what mattered most was proof of concept.

As Seascale continues to work through regulatory hurdles, the entrepreneurs are receiving encouragement on all fronts. “The feedback that we’ve gotten from fishermen, from aquaculturists, from academics, from just about everyone is, ‘Don’t take your foot off the gas. You’ve got something here, it’s worth seeing it through.’”