Hatchery Compliance Program
Hatchery products pose the lowest disease risk due to their young age, especially those only exposed to treated water. Starting here, the Hatchery Compliance Program outlines a voluntary process for hatcheries to improve and validate biosecurity, reducing the need for individual batch disease certifications. State participation is not guaranteed and will vary in the way they take advantage of the Program. To participate, a hatchery must first submit an application.
PARTICIPATION STEPS
The program has two parts: a facility component which confirms that a hatchery follows the RSSBP Best Management Practices (BMPs) to reduce disease risk and a product component that demonstrates the BMP plan is effective by documenting the health history of products and the absence of diseases and Pathogens of Concern.
Enrolled Facility
Hatchery practices listed on application are aligned with Program BMPs.
Listed as participant
BMP-Compliant Facility
Pass an annual, in-person facility audit which verifies the biosecurity practices are in place.
Listed as participant + Receive letter of compliance
Biosecure Product(s)
Required 3-year health history (specific to species and size) is in place. Products must be maintained on 1 um treated water (or other means) until transferred.
PARTICIPATION IS VOLUNTARY
HATCHERIES are encouraged to apply regardless if participating in seed transfers.
Adopt RSSBP best management practices (BMPs) to improve the facility biosecurity.
REGULATORS are encouraged to use the RSSBP tools to evaluate seed import requests.
- Use the RSSBP tools to help guide decisions about shellfish disease risk. Other important considerations, such as genetics, must also be taken into account by regulators.
RSSBP BEST MANAGEMENT PRACTICES
The BMPs are simple foundations of biosecurity that should be considered whether or not your hatchery facility participates in seed transfers or sales. Implementation will look different based on a number of factors such as facility size, floor plan, and business model. RSSBP welcomes facilities of all sizes and levels of sophistication. Please contact us if you have any questions about participation.
Find a detailed list of BMPs here.
Check out the different ways facilities may address the BMPs here
Water Treatment
Water treatment to prevent pathogen exposure during early life stage cultivation is required (1um or other demonstrated means).
Separation
Adequate separation of untreated and treated water areas to avoid cross contamination is required.
Record Keeping
Records should be kept for broodstock, spawning, and maintenance of systems used to eliminate POCs.
Heath Exams
Health examinations should be conducted on animals experiencing unexplained, atypical mortality.
Regulatory Compliance
Facilities must be compliant with all Federal, State and Local permitting requirements.
FACILITY AUDIT DETAILS
The audit process does not negatively impact industry commerce. It is an opportunity for dialog and to find ways to further improve biosecurity.
How/When?
Audits are set up by a member of the RSSBP team and can be held any time in the year depending on the facility operating schedule. Ideally, auditors will be onsite to see active operation, but will avoid peak production times.
At present, there is no cost to the hatchery for an audit.
Who?
The auditors are independent of the RSSBP; selected to maintain consistency across facilities and remove any perceived bias. Initial audits are conducted by at least two auditors to provide a comprehensive review of the BMP implementation.
What?
The audit consists of a detailed walkthrough of the facility.
Audits typically `follow the water’ starting where the source water enters, is
treated, and is distributed to other areas. An initial audit takes close to two hours, depending on the size of the facility and complexity of the systems.
Result
Auditors provide a recommendation to approve, deny, or conditionally approve
(pending a corrective action) facility BMP compliance. The Advisory Council (minus industry members) review, resolve any concerns, and make a final decision, within a few weeks of the audit. Hatcheries will receive a letter of compliance to share with state regulators and are listed on rssbp.org as a participating hatchery.
If for some reason the hatchery does not pass the audit, they will remain in the Enrolled status until correction is made.
BIOSECURE PRODUCT REQUIREMENTS
The product component demonstrates the effectiveness of the BMP plan via product health history evaluations documenting the absence of disease and Pathogens of Concern (POCs). Hatcheries can participate in the Program as verified BMP-compliant facilities while building the required product health history to attain Biosecure Product status (by species and size). The further the hatchery is in the process, the higher the level of biosecurity reducing risk of disease transfer.
Eligible Products being transferred under the RSSBP must be held on water treated to eliminate pathogens (e.g., 1µm filtered water or well water).
At this time, nursery products reared in untreated, ambient waters are not eligible.
Eligible Products must have records of health evaluations from an independent pathology laboratory that:
- cover the previous three years;
- with a minimum of two sampling events per species, per year during the production season (6 samples over the 3- year period);
- that demonstrate no detections of POCs. The sole exception is an acceptable level of Perkinsus marinus (Dermo disease) where it is ubiquitously distributed and persistent.