NAFTA: No Arkansas Fish Travel Allowed

From December 17, 1993 (update #19)

LITTLE ROCK, Ark.- The Baltimore Department of Public Works passed a regulation last year prohibiting the use of "live aquatic bait" in three of its water supply reservoirs, according to Arkansas State Aquaculture Coordinator Ted McNulty. McNulty has been following this issue because Arkansas supplies 80 percent of U.S. baitfish.

The regulation was enacted to prevent zebra mussels from being shipped along with baitfish and ending up in the city's reservoirs.

McNulty said that the Baltimore City Council is currently considering a revised regulation permitting the use of bait from "certified" suppliers who raise baitfish in ponds. Certification will require that ponds be inspected and that their water supply come from well water. They must also use brood stock fish as a source of eggs. A federal inspection system is under consideration as part of broader aquaculture legislation.

ID: 19931217-10.

The Zebra Mussel Update was a 4- to 8-page quarterly national newsletter published by the University of Wisconsin Sea Grant Institute from May 1990 through May 1997. The ZMU documented the spread of the zebra mussel -- an exotic nuisance mussel -- through North America's freshwater environments, especially the Great Lakes, and on efforts to control it.