Alaska's half-shell dreams: there's more demand for shellfish than Alaska nurseries can provide; however they are faced with higher costs of product due mainly to transportation issues.

• Author: Schneider, Doug

Inside the Alutiiq Pride Shellfish Hatchery in downtown Seward, seawater made green by billions of microscopic algae gently swirls through 5-foot-tall blue plastic tanks. Hatchery Director Jeff Hetrick dips a cupped hand into one of the tanks and scoops out a handful of oysters, each no bigger than a pencil eraser.

"We grow mostly oysters here, but also razor clams, scallops and geoducks," says Hetrick. "We are the state's only hatchery, and we are critical to the success of the state's shellfish-growing industry."

Within weeks, these baby bivalves, some 4 million in all, will be sent to floating shellfish nurseries along the coast, where they'll continue to grow to about an inch in diameter. From there, growers will "plant" the oyster "seeds" into specially designed cages lowered into the ocean at farms across Southeast and Southcentral Alaska.

After two years of eating a steady diet of oceanic plankton, fully-grown oysters will be shipped to grocery stores in Alaska and high-end restaurants in New York, Seattle, Los Angeles and elsewhere.

There are 58 licensed shellfish farms in Alaska, but only 29 reported production in 2003. Together they sent more than 1 million shellfish, mostly oysters, but also mussels, clams and scallops, to markets in Alaska, the Lower 48 and even overseas. The sales netted growers a modest $625,000.

But many industry-watchers believe the industry is poised for rapid growth. They say Alaska's shellfish farms, most of them small-scale operations tucked away in remote bays in inlets, could easily double or even triple production. Ray RaLonde, an aquaculture specialist with the Alaska Sea Grant Program, a marine science, education and advisory service of the University of Alaska Fairbanks, says that while the state produced about 1 million oysters last year, it imported another million oysters, as well as about 2 million clams.

"The industry is ready to grow," says RaLonde. "Right now growers are getting far more orders than they can fill. The time to expand is now."

Because of the unmet demand, industry experts say Alaska's shellfish industry is likely to expand with new farms, and increased production on existing farms. But others are more cautious in their predictions. They say what makes Alaska attractive also can be a significant disadvantage.

"Alaska certainly has more potential locations for shellfish farms, and much less polluted waters," says Howard Johnson, an industry consultant. "Alaska also has a mystique that plays well for consumers. But the farms are far from markets, and there is little infrastructure to get product delivered from remote farms."

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