IV-543 



Louisiana, Texas, California, and Alaska. These operations exist 

 both in the estuaries and out on the continental shelves with the 

 governing criterion for location being the location of reserves. 



Recovery of minerals from submerged estuarine zone bottoms by 

 surface mining, i.e., dredging, is primarily directed toward sand, 

 gravel, and oyster shell production. Sand and gravel operations 

 are universal throughout coastal areas wherever suitable deposits 

 and a market exist. 



Oyster shell is an extremely useful construction material in the 

 Gulf of Mexico biophysical Region. Twenty of the twnety-two 

 million tons of annual U. S. production are in the Gulf States with 

 Texas and Louisiana producing the vast majority of it. 



Phosphate rock is an important estuarine Mineral resource; about 

 75 percent of the total U. S. production is in the estuarine zone 

 of Florida and North Carolina, particularly around Tampa Bay and 

 Pamlico Sound. 



AQUACULTURE 



The great fish and shellfish resources of United States coastal 

 waters have adequately supplied the seafood demands of the increasing 

 population for over three hundred years. Now, however, the demands 

 for some products is so great that the normal fishina grounds and 

 fisheries are in great danger of being exhausted, both from overfishing 



