Aquaculture companies seeking to cultivate finfish in the open ocean could soon have an easier path to approval under a nationwide permit issued by the Army Corps of Engineers last week, despite concerns from environmental groups. The permit, which could create an industry for aquaculture in federal waters, was written in response to a May executive order by President Trump calling on agencies to deregulate and expand seafood production in the United States.
The debate over whether to open federal waters to large-scale finfish aquaculture operations has lasted for years and pitted environmentalists and small-scale fishermen against the seafood industry. While previous attempts have been made to bring commercial seafood cultivation to the open ocean, just one company has been permitted to pilot such an operation.
Now, the approval process could get much easier for prospective ocean farmers. The Army Corps’ final rule, which was issued Jan. 13, authorizes the construction of finfish aquaculture in federal ocean waters, defined as the waters between three and 200 miles offshore.
While individual operations would likely still have to go through a permitting process, “my sense is that it will be much less rigorous than it would have been absent the nationwide permit,” says Rosanna Marie Neil, policy counsel at the Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance.
“When companies are applying for permits to build commercial aquaculture facilities in federal waters, they’ll have a much easier time getting a permit … because there’s already this nationwide permit,” Neil says.
The nationwide permit was drafted in response to President Trump’s “Executive Order on Promoting American Seafood Competitiveness and Economic Growth,” which sought to deregulate the seafood industry and called on the Army Corps to draft a “nationwide permit authorizing finfish aquaculture activities in marine and coastal waters.”
In its rulemaking, the Army Corps is clear that its authority only extends to permitting the structures involved in finfish aquaculture and not the “operational aspects” of the facilities. The agency received over 22,000 comments on a draft version of this permit and other proposed permitting changes.
Opponents of open-ocean aquaculture have expressed concern that these operations would introduce pathogens into native fish populations and threaten marine mammals, among other environmental issues. Because the industry is nascent in the U.S. and uncommon abroad, “the science really isn’t there” on the benefits and risks of finfish aquaculture, says Rebecca Loomis, a legal fellow at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
“By taking this general permitting approach, they are skipping some of the important environmental reviews that should be happening, especially because this is a brand-new industry,” Loomis says. “We want to take a step back and assess offshore finfish aquaculture, its implication for pollution, impacts on marine mammals and wild fish populations.”
Critics say the Trump administration has fast-tracked aquaculture industry issues and set a dangerous precedent for how the sector may proceed.
“Any industrial development in the ocean should be subject to a high level of scrutiny,” says Neil. “To have a nationwide permit that simply rubber stamps these kinds of activities, in this case finfish aquaculture, violates the spirit of [our] environmental laws.”
In his executive order, Trump settled a longstanding battle over which federal agency should regulate finfish aquaculture, placing control in the hands of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Yet some members of Congress have pushed for Congressional oversight of aquaculture permitting, while the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued the first-ever permit to a company seeking to pilot ocean aquaculture in October.
For its part, the Army Corps said in response to commenters’ environmental concerns that environmental regulation is outside the agency’s scope and that other agencies like the EPA would have to assess those risks.
Environmental advocates are now looking to the Biden administration to reconsider what they see as a rushed permitting process. The Army Corps permitting rule would not go into effect until March 15, giving a window for the new administration to potentially suspend it. The President-elect has not indicated his positions on aquaculture, though he has emphasized that science will guide his administration’s policies.
“We’re confident that the Biden administration will put the right people in charge, and they will assess offshore finfish aquaculture and make sure that it can be done safely,” says Loomis. “We really want to make sure that we get offshore aquaculture right.”