SHOULD NOAA STOP PROMOTING FINFISH AQUACULTURE IN COASTAL WATERS?

About a month ago, I read an announcement declaring that

“NOAA SEA GRANT DEVELOPS 5-YEAR AQUACULTURE INVESTMENT PLAN.”

The website on which the announcement appeared went on to declare,

“Sea Grant is committed to supporting aquaculture development across the nation, as a means of enhancing economic resilience and nutritional security in American communities…

“Sea Grant is committed to supporting the American seafood industry.  Aquaculture plays an increasingly important role in seafood production in the U.S.  For over 50 years, Sea Grant has been a leader in promoting safe, strategic and sustainable aquaculture through supporting research, education and extension…

“Starting in fiscal year 2024, annual funding will be available for National Aquaculture Initiatives (NAIs).  Specifically, in even years, an NAI funding competition with the goal of improving aquaculture production will be offered.  In odd years, an NAI funding competition with the goal of supporting aquaculture businesses through projects that address topics including food quality, business planning, economics and education, literacy and workforce development will be offered.”

That seems fine on its face, until you realize that it more or less skips over an important threshold question:  Whether promoting aquaculture in all its various forms is consistent with the greater public interest, or whether such aquaculture may bring benefits to certain people, companies, and communities, but only at the cost of substantial damage to marine habitats and living marine resources that the federal government holds in trust for the benefit of the public as a whole.

It's a little troubling that the focus of the Sea Grant efforts will be on “improving aquaculture production,” “food quality, business planning, economics and education, literacy and workforce development,” while apparently placing little emphasis on topics such as “preventing escapes of non-native fish,” “avoiding damage to marine ecosystems,” “preventing the release of antibiotics into coastal waters,” etc.

The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration is, after all, the parent agency of the National Marine Fisheries Service, which declares itself to be

“responsible for the stewardship of the nation’s ocean resources and their habitat.”

It’s hard not to perceive a conflict of interests when the same parent agency responsible for the stewardship of marine resources and habitat is also promoting activities that could do those resources and habitats harm.

For one has to admit that the history of marine aquaculture, both in the United States and elsewhere is, at best, checkered.

Perhaps the most notorious domestic example of harmful aquaculture activities occurred in the State of Washington in 2017, after Cooke Aquaculture, a Canadian company, failed to perform needed maintenance on the net pens in one of its Puget Sound fish farms, and so allowed about a quarter-million non-native Atlantic salmon to escape into Washington’s coastal waters.

As reported in the Seattle Times,

“Cooke Aquaculture Pacific vastly underrepresented the scope of a catastrophic Atlantic salmon net-pen spill at its Cypress Island farm…and misled the public and regulators about the cause, according to a new report by state investigators that blames the pen collapse on company negligence.

“The investigation found that Cooke lowballed the number of escaped fish by more than half, and did not do essential maintenance at its farm, causing the escape.

“The company also misled agencies about the seriousness and cause of an earlier mishap at the fish farm…”

As a result, Cooke ended up paying a $2.75 million settlement in a Clean Water Act lawsuit, money that would go toward projects intended to improve the marine environment in Puget Sound, as well as to reimburse the plaintiffs for their legal expenses.  Washington also responded to the event by cancelling Cooke's remaining aquaculture leases and banning the farming of non-native fish in Washington waters.

But if the Cooke net pen collapse might be the most blatant example of how aquaculture threatens the public interest in the U.S., it is not the only one. 

In 2004, the United States Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit decided United States Public Interest Research Group v. Atlantic Salmon of Maine LLC, upholding a lower court decision which found that the defendants violated the federal Clean Water Act by discharging five categories of pollutants from their salmon net pens without having the necessary permits, including  

“non-North American salmon that escape from the pens; large quantities of salmon feces and urine that exit the pens; uneaten salmon feed containing a range of chemicals for combating infection and providing coloring; other chemicals to fight sea lice; and copper that flakes from the net pens themselves.”

Although twenty years has passed since that decision was handed down, similar problems seem to persist in Maine’s salmon farms.  The Conservation Law Foundation recently noted that

“This past summer, around 50,000 industrially farmed salmon wriggled free through holes in their pens into the waters of Machias Bay, Maine.  It’s possible the farmed fish survived their prison break to spread diseases that thrive in captivity to critically endangered wild salmon out at sea and upstream in the nearby Machias River…

“A ‘net pen’ is like an iceberg; not much is visible from the surface.  But beneath the waves, up to hundreds of thousands of fish crowd each floating pen.  The fish eat and grow at astounding rates—and defecate.  A typical industrial fish farm of several hundred thousand fish produces about one million pounds of waste annually.  That’s roughly the same amount of sewage generated by Maine’s largest city, Portland, in a year.

“Yet unlike city sewage, in North American fish farms, the poop is not captured or treated.  Instead, it floats out through the pens to pile up on the ocean floor.  The waste accumulates over time to form a layer of foul-smelling black sludge that is toxic to small bottom-dwelling creatures.  Eventually, the seafloor around an industrial salmon farm will transform into a lifeless landscape.

“Fish also produce a lot of nitrogen waste.  Nitrogen pollution mixed with warm water creates perfect conditions for toxic algae outbreaks.  The algae can grow out of control to form massive red tides that poison any fish, turtles, and shellfish in their path.  Nitrogen pollution also clouds the water, blocking eelgrass nurseries on the seafloor from essential sunlight…

“When salmon are forced to live packed together in the hundreds of thousands, they are vulnerable.  Contagious diseases quickly spread through the penned fish.  The salmon industry uses antibiotics to prevent disease, but that increases the risk of antibiotic resistance in humans who consume the farmed fish…

“…small crustaceans, known as sea lice, cling to salmon and eat their skin…in industrial salmon farms, they spread easily between captive fish, covering affected fish with open sores…To control sea lice, the salmon industry has historically used chemical treatments and pesticides—including some that kill crustaceans like lobsters…”

Of course, the fish-farming industry tries to argue that its operations do not harm public resources.  In a response to a 2023 New York Times article, which highlighted problems caused by salmon farms, the Maine Aquaculture Association alleged that

“The Times writes that salmon farming net pens face ‘severe crowding,’ ‘pollute the surrounding ecosystem,’ and ‘promote the spread of disease and pests like sea lice, resulting in the need for antibiotics and pesticides.’  The fact is that Maine is home to the only ocean-raised Atlantic salmon in America [ever since Washington banned such Atlantic salmon farming after the Cooke Aquaculture debacle], and our net pens contain less than 4 percent fish and more than 96 percent water, giving our salmon plenty of room to swim, grow, and mimic natural schooling patterns.  All of our farms adhere to rigorous environmental laws, including the Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act, National Environmental Policy Act, and Coastal Zone Management Act.  Farms are closely monitored using underwater cameras and divers to ensure that healthy environmental conditions in and near the pens are maintained at all times.

“…Maine farmed salmon are raised with little or no antibiotics under the watch of veterinarians…”

Make of that what you will.  However, problems created by fish farms have been well documented, and not only in the United States.  A paper published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B in 2009, titled “How sea lice from salmon farms may cause wild salmonid declines in Europe and North America and be a threat to fishes elsewhere,” concluded

“The evidence that salmon farms are the most significant source of the epizootics of sea lice on juvenile wild salmonids in Europe and North America is now convincing.  Farms may contain millions of fishes almost year round in coastal waters and, unless lice control is effective, may provide a continuous source of sea lice, although the amount of infestation pressure will vary over time owing to seasonal and farm management practices (e.g. fallowing).  If escaped farm fishes remain in coastal waters, they will be an additional reservoir of lice…Analyses that controlled for the effects of environmental conditions and fisheries found that salmon population declines were coincident with salmon farming in both North America and Europe.  [references omitted]”

Another case of salmon farms tainting wild marine resources was recently reported from Australia’s Tasmania, where The Guardian reported that

“Tasmania’s largest salmon company, Tassal, has revealed wild fish at one of its salmon farms contained antibiotic residues at almost five times the allowed level.

“In another case, there were low-level antibiotic traces in wild fish caught more than seven kilometres from another Tassal salmon farm…

“…There was no public notification when the antibiotics were used or when the monitoring reports were released.

“Sheenagh Neill, a spokesperson for Marine Protection Tasmania, said she was concerned about the continuing secrecy surrounding antibiotics use in public waterways.  ‘The community is still not being informed promptly despite the 2022 Legislative Council inquiry into the fish farming industry recommending the ‘timely’ release of information on the use of antibiotics,’ she said.  [emphasis added]”

Given the environmental issues created by the fish-farming industry, in the United States and elsewhere around the world, NOAA would do well to stop promoting such farming activities in coastal waters, unless and until Congress gives it regulatory authority to oversee the aquaculture industry.  

Currently, no such federal authority exists, forcing states to regulate fish farming within their waters on a piecemeal basis.  In federal waters, more than three miles from shore, there is no effective, unified regulation at all, although a handful of federal agencies may have some influence over aspects of fish farming operations.  Legislation has been introduced in Congress to create a regulatory framework, but has not made much progress.

Absent any established statutory and regulatory framework to manage the industry, the government would be wise to limit United States aquaculture to species that can be raised in isolated, land-based facilities, such as domestic catfish, tilapia, and hybrid striped bass, which provide little risk to native fish populations and cannot degrade coastal waters, and to mollusks such as oysters and clams which are native to the waters in which they are raised, create no threats to local ecosystems and, as filter feeders and animals capable of reproduction, can provide benefits to the area surrounding aquaculture operations.

Coastal fish farms have, and can continue to, put money in the pockets of a few large corporations and their employees, and can provide some employment in coastal communities.  But to date, those benefits have come at the cost of local ecosystems degraded by escaped fish, fish waste, antibiotics, and pesticides.

Until those problems are eliminated, if that is even possible, NOAA would be well advised to stick to its mission as steward of the nation’s marine resources, and to cease promoting activities contrary to its stewardship role.