President Trump's order on aquaculture draws environmental concerns for Gulf fisheries

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American Seafood Competitiveness and Economic Growth was signed May 7 and, among other items, proposes to remove “outdated and unnecessarily burdensome regulations” and streamline aquaculture permitting.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.”

Previous coverage:Proposed fish farm in SWFL first of its kind in federal waters, draws concern, comments

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 …”

Under the order, a single lead agency will be responsible for “navigating the project through the Federal environmental review and authorization process.” The order names the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as the entity overseeing aquaculture proposals.

“It just seems like again we have the administration trying to circumvent Congress and the big problem is that NOAA does not have authority to permit finfish offshore aquaculture,” Templeton said.

More on this subject:Sarasota opposes controversial fish farm proposal for Gulf of Mexico

Identifying NOAA as the lead agency will help “avoid protracted fiascos like Rose Canyon, in (Southern California) where no agency took the lead role for years,” Sims wrote.

Rose Canyon is a proposed aquaculture facility that’s been trying to get permitting off the coast of San Diego.

Templeton and NAMA’s Neil worry that centralizing authority under NOAA undermines the agency’s mission.

“It goes against (NOAA’s) mission of ocean conservation and ensuring healthy fisheries,” Neil said. “That is a major concern. I think it is paving the way for more and more pollution of the ocean and the introduction of pests and diseases.”

Under the new executive order, Aquaculture Opportunity Areas would be set up in federal waters. The order insists that two geographic locations in the U.S. be identified within a year for commercial aquaculture. These areas will also be subject to the shortened, two-year environmental impact statement.

Each of the following four years, two more locations need to be identified, creating six commercial aquaculture zones in federally controlled waters.

Because NOAA is within the U.S. Department of Commerce, Templeton said she had concerns about a potential conflict of interest.

“It’s like the fox guarding the henhouse,” she said. “If you want the industry to succeed, you may not pay attention to the environment.”

Neil said she thinks the opportunity areas will have devastating effects for everyone except the big companies that would profit.

“Now you have companies that are privatizing the ocean,” she said, noting that they are controlling ocean space to grow fish. Under the new regulations, “companies are free to exploit U.S. fisheries to the maximum extent without any proper restrictions.”

Past coverage:Still time to comment on controversial finfish farm in Gulf of Mexico

Sims said the areas will still require an applicant to comply with any environmental impact statement provisions “and will still probably require applicants to submit an environmental assessment." He also said that, from an environmental standpoint, the world needs more aquaculture.

“This is an environmental imperative that we cannot ignore,” Sims wrote. “We cannot feed 9 billion people with animal protein based on terrestrial animals — there’s not enough land, or freshwater, and there’s too much (greenhouse gas) emissions.” 

Because there is no mention of research or pilot projects to test the sustainability of aquaculture farming in federal waters, Templeton said that the obvious goal of the executive order is profit.

“We need to watch the money and see where it’s going and be careful putting commercial operations out in the ocean without knowing more first,” she said.

Karl Schneider is an environment reporter. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter: @karlstartswithk, email him at kschneider@gannett.com