Representative Gwen Moore announced she secured $533,500 in federal funding for the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's Great Lakes Aquaculture Center in the Agriculture Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2007. The funds will be used for the expansion of the center, which is operated in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and for the research and development of aquaculture technologies and techniques that will increase the production of the area's seafood industry.
"Lake Michigan is invaluable to our area, providing Milwaukee with recreation, access to other cities around the world through our port, and a growing opportunity to become a major resource for the seafood industry," said Moore. "This funding will help UWM scientists figure out how to reap even more from the Great Lakes by fueling the expansion of our local seafood industry and the resulting job creation."
http://www.wisconsinagconnection.com/story-state.cfm?Id=642&yr=2006
Job creation is good and fine, but the fact this news release is posted on the "Wisconsin ag connection" is unsettling. Treating the Great Lakes as a fish farm will not promote their health -- especially if one thinks of the even bigger fish farms, the oceans, whose fish stocks are in many cases collapsing.
Posted by Dave at May 31, 2006 09:27 AM