Environmental advocates, fishermen, and residents of several states on the Gulf of Mexico appeared at a virtual hearing on Wednesday protesting a bill and other measures to expand ocean aquaculture, which has been the subject of months of litigation and hearings. Under the new legislation, an effort to settle a long-running debate over the future of aquaculture in the United States, fish farming would be allowed in federal waters.
The Advancing the Quality and Understanding of American Aquaculture (AQUAA) Act — introduced Sept. 24 by Republican Sens. Roger Wicker of Mississippi and Marco Rubio of Florida and Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii — would establish a regulatory standard for offshore aquaculture and a grant program to fund research and innovation in the sector. A companion bill was introduced in the House in March.
The bill arrives as the Trump administration continues to advance its agenda to deregulate and expand U.S. ocean aquaculture, despite protests from environmentalists and independent fishermen and an unfavorable federal court decision.
While aquaculture is already a major part of the U.S. fish industry, operations are now limited to the near-shore cultivation of bivalves, like oysters and mollusks, and some floating pens that are in state-controlled waters. The current debate is over fish farms that would occupy federally controlled ocean waters between three and 200 miles of the coast.
Wednesday’s event, which was organized by the environmental group Friends of the Earth, was timed to precede the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ expected permitting of the first finfish aquaculture facility in U.S. federal waters. The experimental pilot program, dubbed Velella Epsilon and proposed by the company Ocean Era, would raise 75,000 pounds of almaco jack in a pen about 45 miles off the coast of Sarasota, Florida. Since the Environmental Protection Agency first issued its draft permit for the pilot last August, there have been numerous protests and hearings debating the risks and opportunities of ocean aquaculture.
Speakers at the event were concerned about the potential pollution that could accompany farmed fish, and feared further disruption of an already precarious habitat.
“We know that climate change is real, and the waters are warming,” said Jean-Luc Pierite, a member of the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe of Louisiana and president of the board of the North American Indian Center of Boston. “Wastewater coming from these pens … would exacerbate the problem that we’re already facing.”
The ferocity of storms battering the Southeast this hurricane season, and the potential impact of future storms on open-ocean fish farms, also concerns local independent fishermen.
“I have a huge concern that these storms are going to come through and rip these cages apart, releasing these caged fish into our wild population in the Gulf,” said Kindra Arnesen, a shrimper in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana.
For months, federal authorities have been battling over which agency should oversee offshore aquaculture. The Trump administration planted its flag with a May executive order that placed that authority in the hands of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Yet NOAA lost a related legal battle in August when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that the agency does not have the authority under the Magnuson-Stevens Act — the federal “fish bill” — to oversee ocean aquaculture pending an act of Congress.
Despite the court ruling, NOAA and the Trump administration have moved ahead with plans, initiated by the executive order, to deregulate and facilitate the expansion of aquaculture. Shortly after the court ruling, NOAA announced the first of several “aquaculture opportunity areas” — locations that “have been evaluated for their potential for sustainable commercial aquaculture.” And the Army Corps of Engineers has continued its efforts to streamline the aquaculture permit process.
The approval of offshore finfish aquaculture in the Gulf of Mexico is concerning even to fishermen who don’t rely on the Gulf for a living. Several salmon fishermen from Bristol Bay, Alaska, the most productive wild salmon fishery in the world, spoke at Wednesday’s hearing about the risk they see if finfish aquaculture were to make its way to federal waters off of their state.
“[The Velella Epsilon project] would create dangerous precedent by allowing other similar operations around the nation,” said Verner Wilson III, a Bristol Bay fisherman.
For its part, the seafood industry cheered the AQUAA Act and its commitment to the expansion of offshore aquaculture, which industry groups have framed as an economic and food security issue.
“Expanding domestic aquaculture can help give a much-needed boost to the American economy,” said a statement from Tony Dal Ponte, vice president of Stronger America Through Seafood, an industry group. “A clear, predictable regulatory framework will benefit not just the seafood industry, but also the coastal communities who rely on it to support their local economies and provide stable, year-round employment opportunities.”
The bill has been referred to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. Meanwhile, experts say the Velella Epsilon project will likely face further legal challenges even if it receives all of the necessary operating permits.