Dear Congress, While you Were out…
The federal government did not have the authority to grant Kona Blue a permit for offshore aquaculture, and they failed to adequately assess the environmental impacts of Kona Blue’s offshore aquaculture operations as required under federal law.
While members of Congress were busy dealing with the debt crisis and taking their summer break, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) was moving full speed ahead in opening up our federal waters to factory fish farming.
Back in July, the National Marine Fishery Service (NMFS) awarded the first permit for a commercial open ocean fish farm in federal waters to Kona Blue Water Farms Inc. The company is currently towing a cage full of Kona Kampachi in eddies off of the Western coast of Hawaii Island, Hawaii.
Food & Water Watch along with KAHEA, The Hawaiian Environmental Alliance, filed a lawsuit against NOAA, alleging that the federal government lacked the authority to grant the permit and failed to adequately assess the environmental impacts of Kona Blue’s offshore aquaculture operations as required under federal law.
A bill introduced by Representative Don Young (R-AK) to stop the Secretaries of Commerce and the Interior from permitting factory fish farms is needed more than even to stop such reckless permitting.
Food & Water Watch Executive Director Wenonah Hauter submitted an op-ed to The Hill’s Congress Blog calling on Congress to weigh in on the factory farm issue. We are re-posting it here…
Congress Must act now to Stop Filthy Factory Farming of the sea
By Food & Water Watch Executive Director Wenonah Hauter
It’s not every summer that a fish lands on the cover of TIME Magazine. But that’s just what happened this July, signaling that the future of our nation’s fisheries has become a pressing issue to be seriously debated among the federal government, environmental and consumer groups and of course, fishermen. Unfortunately, this debate was heating up at a time when Congress was mostly focused on issues like the debt ceiling – and right before they left town for congressional summer vacations.
Now that the summer is over, it’s time for Congress to weigh in.
“There’s no denying that aquaculture [fish farming] can be messy,” the TIME story acknowledged. “A badly run near-shore farm of 200,000 salmon can flush nitrogen and phosphorus into the water at levels equal to the sewage from a town of 20,000 people.”
Shocking statistics like this are central to the debate on fish farms. True, the world is eating more fish, but farming those fish sustainably to feed our appetite for seafood is no solution. Unfortunately, ocean factory fish farms, like the one mentioned in the magazine piece, tip the scale towards extreme pollution and raise concerns for consumers.
Factory fish farms cram thousands of fish into open net pens and cages. These fish are eating and excreting waste into the sea. Like factory farms on land, growing animals in such close quarters often leads to filth and disease. This necessitates the use of sometimes harmful pesticides, antibiotics and chemicals – toxins which not only flow into the surrounding marine environment, but can also end up on our plates. Moreover, caged fish can escape and overtake or interbreed with wild fish, harming native fish populations.
Unfortunately, the historic mismanagement of our nation’s fisheries has left many to wrongly believe that the only way to meet consumer demand is to pack our oceans with these filthy, industrial-scale factory farms. Indeed, this summer, the federal agency charged with regulating our nation’s fisheries, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) was busy moving unilaterally to advance this type of fish farming, modeled after dirty factory farming on land.
In June, NOAA and the Commerce Department issued a brand new federal policy calling for more ocean factory fish farming. To add insult to injury, NOAA announced that it would begin moving forward with these farms in the already oil-battered Gulf of Mexico. The government’s plan could allow more than 8 .6 million farmed fish to escape unreported annually.
Then in July, NOAA awarded the first permit for commercial ocean factory fish farming in the federal waters off the coast of Hawaii, leading my group, Food & Water Watch, to file a lawsuit against the federal agency, as it is questionable whether they even have the authority to issue the permit. If the Hawaiian fish farming company that obtained the permit moves forward with its business venture, no doubt many others like it will rush to scale up operations throughout our waters. NOAA’s permit sets a dangerous precedent that allows these fish farming operations to inundate our oceans with pollution, without any real oversight in the future.
Exactly who is behind NOAA’s policies towards fish farming? Not consumers, whose valid health concerns are being ignored, and not organizations that are legitimately concerned with our environment or the interests of working fishermen. No, it appears that NOAA’s policies cater to the corporations that are pushing big aquaculture to the detriment of us all.
The good news is that fish farming does not have to be dirty. Instead of focusing on the more destructive open ocean farms, NOAA could and should be promoting innovative, low-impact aquaculture systems that are land-based and self-contained.
But NOAA seems to be ignoring this option. In fact, the agency has been pursuing a bigger budget to allow more ocean fish farming. The government has already spent over $44 million in support of the troubled industry. And the Obama administration’s proposed 2012 budget allocated another $8.4 million for funding programs related to factory fish farming.
It is unfortunate that, at a time when Congress is pushing to trim the federal budget, NOAA continues to request money for this unnecessary, polluting industry – money that could be spent supporting more sustainable industries, job creation and economic growth.
Fortunately, Congressman Don Young from Alaska recently introduced a bipartisan bill that would stop federal agencies like NOAA from permitting ocean fish farming until Congress expressly gives them the authority to do so.
This autumn, Congress has an opportunity to put the breaks on these destructive factory farms of the sea. The questions is, will they seize this opportunity by supporting common-sense legislation like Congressman Young’s, or will they continue to allow other federal agencies to dictate our fisheries policy on behalf of corporate interests?
Fish have been excreting into the ocean since the beginning of time. As long as the fish farm is sited and managed properly the ecosystem is able to assimilate those added nutrients. In much of the ocean these are welcome additions and serve to boost overall productivity.
Your criticism of fish farming is too broad brushed. Even salmon aquaculture has eventually learned not to self pollute. Offshore aquaculture, by design puts fish in more secure containment in high energy conditions that prevent the degradation of the surrounding waters.
If you are not preaching that we stop eating fish then what do you propose. Currently we are forced to consume fish from countries with lax environmental standards. We could solve our seafood trade deficit by utilizing less than 0.05 percent of the US EEZ, achieve some measure of food security, and generate thousands of domestic jobs. Instead, you advocate the status quo – importing 80% of our seafood – and the ocean and consumers suffer.
Contrary to your assertions, the factory fish farming industry has failed to demonstrate that it is environmentally sustainable or financially or technically viable on a commercial scale. Therefore your claims that all that is needed is proper siting is belied by actual experience in Hawaii and elsewhere. For example, site sampling at a Hawaii fish farm between 2001 and 2004 indicated that the facility had “grossly polluted” the seafloor and “severely depressed” some types of sea life. “Despite the open ocean location and alongshore currents, the effects of fish feed and waste on the [seafloor] community were evident,” the study found, and the ecosystem had been “drastically changed,” with the effects spreading beyond the area beneath the cages.
Such problems will only be exacerbated at the scale of fish farming you envision. You argue that offshore fish farming could “solve our seafood trade deficit.” But our recent report, Fishy Farms, found that the United States would need to produce 200 million fish each year to offset the $10 billion seafood trade deficit. Assuming that these fish produce a similar amount of waste as farmed salmon, this volume of production would lead to as much nitrogenous waste as the raw sewage from a city of over 34 million people — nearly nine times the city of Los Angeles.
Ocean factory fish farms won’t reduce pressure on wild fish populations. The aquaculture industry is already the world’s largest user of fishmeal and fish oil, consuming 80 percent of the world’s fish oil and more than half the fishmeal each year. Closing the seafood deficit would require more than 1.2 million tons of fishmeal — or 41 percent of the current estimated global supply — to feed this many fish.
Rather than contributing to domestic and global food supplies, open ocean aquaculture facilities will likely produce an expensive product that is out of reach for many U.S. consumers. It may even contribute to food insecurity in populations that are dependent on the small fish species used in fishmeal and oil for protein.
We recommend the use of recirculating aquaculture systems, which are land-based, closed-looped and biosecure aquaculture operations, as the best option to meet our country’s need for a clean, green, sustainable, healthy seafood source to supplement our wild fisheries.