Offshore Aquaculture: Bad News for the Gulf

Excerpt from the introduction:

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has been promoting offshore aquaculture — growing fish in nets or cages between three and 200 miles from shore — as the best way to increase U.S. seafood output.

Now, NOAA wants to establish this large-scale fish farming off the U.S. Gulf of Mexico coast. Since January 2007, the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council, one of eight regional councils Congress established to help manage U.S. fisheries, has been developing a plan to streamline the permitting and regulation of open water aquaculture.

Unfortunately, the Gulf Council‚ draft Generic Offshore Aquaculture Amendment fails to really consider, among other matters, the possible negative economic consequences of ocean fish farming, also known as open ocean or offshore aquaculture. The plan itself concedes that ‚the increased supply of aquaculture fish from the Gulf may tend to decrease the ex-vessel price commercial harvesters receive for their catch if the increased supply does not come on the market slowly, or if new markets for products are not created, or if the demand for seafood does not increase.” Yet, there is little further discussion of this issue.

Based on experience elsewhere, the practice of offshore aquaculture, combined with the influx of farmed fish imports, could threaten the economic wellbeing of the Gulf‚ active fishing industries. In 2006, the commercial fisheries there landed more than half a billion dollars worth of seafood. And from 2004 to 2005, Gulf recreational fishing pumped $5.6 billion, including expenditures on such items as hotels, food, and ice, into the regional economy.

Rather than pressing forward with this plan, the U.S. government would best serve the public interest by delaying any move toward offshore aquaculture in the Gulf of Mexico until completion of comprehensive, peer-reviewed economic and environmental studies showing that it will not harm the economy or environment of the region.