Bush Proposal Seeks to Cultivate Fish Farming in Federal Waters, LA Times

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Bush Proposal Seeks to Cultivate Fish Farming in Federal Waters, LA Times

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Bush Proposal Seeks to Cultivate Fish Farming in Federal WatersThe offshore

expansion is proposed to reduce imports and boost the industry. Critics worry

about threats to wild fish and shorelines.By Kenneth R. Weiss, Times Staff

WriterTo feed America's growing appetite for seafood, the Bush administration

Tuesday proposed a dramatic expansion of fish farms into offshore federal waters

to grow salmon, tuna and other fish that now mostly come in as imports.The

proposal is designed to help fish farming expand from a $1-billion to a

$5-billion industry in the next 20 years, and to reduce America's reliance on

imported seafood and shrink the U.S. trade deficit. More than 70% of seafood

eaten in the United States is imported. But the U.S. lacks regulations governing

fish farming in federal waters, and the proposal left questions about how to

protect America's remaining wild fish stocks, coastal waters and shorelines from

disease, pollution and other threats that have bedeviled fish farms

in other countries. " We know there are issues, both environmental and economic,

and we would like advice on solving these things, " said Michael Rubino, manager

of aquaculture programs for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

" This is a beginning. We think there is a great future in offshore

aquaculture. " Most U.S. fish farming focuses on freshwater catfish and tilapia,

although ocean farms dotting the coasts raise shellfish such as oysters,

mussels, clams and some shrimp.The federal government and entrepreneurs want to

get into the lucrative business of raising farmed salmon, sea bass and red

snapper, as well as catching wild tuna and fattening them in oceanic

feedlots. " We're the only country that I know of that isn't into tuna culture, "

said Orlando Amoroso, president of the Southern California Commercial Fishing

Assn. He says he is frustrated by bureaucratic delays. His group of 30

purse-seine vessels in San Pedro wants to set up a tuna ranch anchored to

offshore oil

platforms and supply the sardines to feed them.The administration's proposal,

given to Congress as recommended legislation, would put the secretary of

Commerce, who oversees the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, in

charge of issuing permits for fish farms in federal waters, which stretch from

three miles to 200 miles offshore.The legislation, hamstrung by years of

internal debate, sets out a framework for expediting aquaculture permits through

a maze of federal and state agencies. It leaves it up to the Commerce secretary

to come up with specific environmental rules " if necessary. " Jane Lubchenco, a

marine ecologist from Oregon State University, said she was disappointed with

the " we'll deal with it later " approach to environmental concerns instead of

spelling out safeguards. " I'm not anti-aquaculture, " Lubchenco said. " I think

it's an increasingly important source of seafood. " But it's important to do it

right from the outset and not wait until we have the counterpart

to the massive collapse of fisheries we've seen or massive pollution from hog

farming. " She and other scientists were disappointed that federal officials

dismissed their recommendations for specific standards. They point to a bill by

California state Sen. Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto) — SB 768 — that is being

considered by the Legislature as a model for federal legislation. Among other

things, it requires fish farms to guard against escaped fish, protect ocean

habitat and minimize the use of drugs and chemicals in the farming process.In

recent years, scientists have chronicled problems of disease and parasites that

spread from farms to wild fish, and of farmed fish escaping to compete or

interbreed with wild cousins. They also have been studying the accumulation of

chemicals, drugs, excess feed and fish waste in coastal waters.Rebecca Goldberg,

a biologist with the advocacy group Environmental Defense, and Rosamond Naylor,

a Stanford economist, estimated in a recent paper that a

$5-billion fish-farming industry in U.S. waters would produce as much nitrogen

discharge as untreated sewage from 17.1 million people, or as much as the entire

North Carolina hog industry.Goldberg said she was dismayed that the proposed

legislation didn't make any areas off limits to aquaculture, including those

designated as national marine sanctuaries. " It would be like putting industrial

hog farms in national parks, " she said.Alaska, protective of its wild salmon

fishery, has outlawed most types of fish farms in state waters. The

administration's legislation would require that fish farms proposed for federal

waters be consistent with state laws. But Rubino said it did not go as far as to

say Alaska could block fish farms proposed for federal waters.Commerce

Department officials Tuesday cited a number of projects as success stories, such

as growing mussels and halibut off New Hampshire, and other types of fish raised

in submerged pens off the coasts of Puerto Rico and Hawaii.All

aquaculture is not the same, scientists say. Shellfish such as oysters and

mussels clean seawater as they filter microscopic plankton from the ocean to

feed themselves. Yet many of the high-value fish such as salmon, shrimp and cod

that are grown in close corridors can pollute waters.Scientists and fishermen

say that raising carnivorous fish, such as salmon and cod, may not be the

long-term solution for feeding the world. It can take as much as three pounds of

wild fish, ground up and added to the feed, to produce one pound of farmed

salmon. " This creates a seafood deficit, " Zeke Grader, head of the Pacific Coast

Federation of Fishermen's Assns. " It doesn't fix it. "

 

 

 

 

 

 

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