The federal waters of the United States are free of aquaculture farms, but a new executive order from President Donald Trump could hasten attempts by fish farm companies to take the plunge.
Southwest Florida could be at the forefront of the push for more farms as a pilot program works through a permitting process. Environmental groups worry the order will greenlight offshore operations, creating concentrated sources of pollution and putting wild species at risk.
The executive order on Promoting American Seafood Competitiveness and Economic Growth was signed May 7 and, among other items, proposes to remove outdated and unnecessarily burdensome regulations and streamline aquaculture permitting.
Ocean Era, formerly Kampachi Farms, is waiting on permits for its pilot finfish farm, Velella Epsilon. The farm will be about 41 miles southwest of Sarasota in the Gulf of Mexico and raise 88,000 pounds of almaco jack fish each year.
Neil Sims, founder and CEO of Ocean Era, told the Daily News that the Velella Epsilon project will consist of a demonstration pen where the farmed fish will be held. The pen will measure 20 feet deep and 50 feet across. It will be able to be submerged about 7 meters, or 20 feet.
The executive order streamlines the permitting by placing a 2-year time limit on environmental review, rather than it being open ended, Sims wrote. This is not unreasonable, given that (California’s programmatic environmental impact statement) for offshore aquaculture in state waters is now about 12 years into the process, with no end in sight.
However, senior oceans campaigner for the environmental advocacy group Friends of the Earth said the administration should not cut corners on environmental reviews.
You can’t rush these. I think that’s a really big problem they’re trying to circumvent, Hallie Templeton said.
The president’s executive order is vague on what regulations it would remove or streamline, leaving policy counsel Rosanna Neil of the Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance worried the industry will expand without much oversight.
It’s not clear at this point which regulations they will roll back, but our sense is everything is on the table, Neil said. Conservation measures might just be completely erased and it’s extremely concerning that they are deregulating the fishing industry. It means that there will be less protection in place for marine ecosystems
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