A controversial proposal to harvest oysters off the Westport coastline using suspended cages goes before state regulators next week in a scaled-down version, according to the New Haven Register.
The newspaper said the proposal by Westport-based Mariculture Unlimited will be submitted to the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) Dec. 15.
The company earlier this year applied to conduct operations on 366 acres of waters off of Westport and 155 acres off of Milford.
The reaction was swift and mostly negative. Westport boaters said it would seriously jeopardize their recreational activities on Long Island Sound.
The DEP told the firm to scale back its plan and, on Dec. 15, the revised proposal gets put on the table.
The revisions are substantial, said Peter Francis, a DEP analyst.
The Westport portion of the project is down to 91 acres and the Milford area is down to 83 acres, the newspaper said.
And unlike the original application which called for the deployment of all of the cages all at once ח the new proposal calls for the oyster cages to be submerged just below the surface of Long Island Sound over a three-year period, Francis said.
Mariculture is now proposing setting out 20 acres of oyster cages in Westport in the first year, about 25 acres the second and 46 acres in the final year.
The Milford deployment would be 15 acres in the first year, 12 acres in the second year and 56 acres in the third, the newspaper said.
