Jerry Bidgood
Besides being tasty, mussels are an excellent option for seafood farming because they can filter up to 20 gallons of water a day, removing nitrogen from runoff and ensuring healthy marine life. Inspired by this benefit, Jerry used a series of screens, a settling pond and a solid waste recovery system to develop a waste water treatment plant for the processing of Aquaculture – rope grown blue mussels. This filtration system reduces the amount of suspended solid waste in the water by 90% before it is returned to the estuary, positively impacting water quality and allowing marine life around the plant to flourish. Jerry then recovered the waste and sold it as an organic fertilizer called “Aquagrow,” to local farmers. This process helped to control the spread of non native aquatic invasive species from entering their estuary and has allowed expansion into restricted areas.
