MARINE AQUACULTURE FACES GROWING OPPOSITION

On its face, it seems like a perfect solution.

Instead of focusing on wild stocks of fish to feed a still-growing human population, why not do what we did with terrestrial animals long ago, and abandon the hunter-gatherer approach in favor of fish farms?  That way, the problem of fishing down natural populations can be largely avoided (although recreational fishermen will still take a large toll on some), and the process of providing fish for human consumption could become more certain and more environmentally and economically viable.

Unfortunately, things are rarely as easy as they seem.

They found that out in the State of Washington, when salmon pens maintained by Cooke Aquaculture collapsed, probably due to poor maintenance, and released over a quarter-million non-native Atlantic salmon into the environment, where they could potentially colonize local streams and compete with already badly depleted Pacific salmon runs.

Washington regulators decided that Atlantic salmon farming posed such a potential threat to native Pacific salmon that they later outlawed the practice in state waters, with Hilary Franz, the state’s Commissioner of Public Lands stating that

“As we’ve seen too clearly here in Washington, there is no way to safely farm finfish in open sea net pens without jeopardizing our struggling native salmon,”

and acting to end the practice.

The Washington legislature concurred.

In Seattle, a jury awarded the Lummi Nation of Native Americans $595,000 after the tribe sued Cooke Aquaculture for the value of the work done catching escaped salmon and removing them from Washington’s waters.

Across the border in Canadia, the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans, and the Canadian Coast Guard announced earlier this year that open net pen salmon aquaculture will be banned in the waters of British Columbia, beginning June 30, 2029.  On July 1, 2024, the Canadian government stopped issuing new licenses to operate such aquaculture facilities in British Columbia.

In taking such action, Minister Diane Lebouthillier said,

“The government is firmly committed to taking concrete steps to protect wild Pacific salmon.  Today, I’m announcing the essence of a reasonable, realistic, and achievable transition that ensures the protection of wild species, food security and the vital economic development of British Columbia’s First Nations, coastal communities and others, as we keep working toward a final transition plan by 2025.”

Taleeb Noormohamed, a member of the Canadian Parliament who represents the Vancouver Granville region of British Columbia, endorsed such remarks, saying

“Since 2019, Canadians have looked to the federal government to protect wild salmon—including regulating fish farming.  Ending open net aquaculture is a transformative shift that will make Canada a world leader in sustainable aquaculture production, and preserve BC’s pristine coast and fragile ecosystem for generations to come.”

Now, Representative Mary Peltola (D-AK) is trying to severely limit United States government support for aquaculture in federal waters by introducing the Domestic Seafood Production Act, which is intended

“To direct the Secretary of Agriculture and the Secretary of Commerce to incentivize domestic seafood processing capacity, to strengthen local seafood supply chains, to prohibit any Federal agency from funding or regulating commercial finfish aquaculture operations in the Exclusive Economic Zone in the absence of specific congressional authority, and for other purposes.”

More specifically, the bill provides that

“Beginning on the date of the enactment of this Act, notwithstanding any other provision of law, the head of a Federal agency may not permit, authorize, or otherwise facilitate offshore aquaculture; and the Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration may not award to any person a grant or other financial assistance for the purpose of carrying out or otherwise facilitating offshore aquaculture, except in accordance with a law authorizing such action that is enacted after the date of the enactment of this Act.  [formatting omitted]”

Rep. Peltola explained the reason for such prohibition:

“To ensure the heath of the marine ecosystem, this Act would not allow Federal agencies to permit, authorize, or facilitate offshore aquaculture in U.S. Federal waters in the absence of Congressional authorization.  Additionally, NOAA may not award financial assistance of any kind for the purposes of facilitating offshore aquaculture.  Already outlawed in the states of Alaska and Washington, finfish aquaculture will have a variety of harmful impacts on communities as well as the ecosystem.  Modern-day examples include pollution from fish farm chemicals contributing to harmful algae blooms; high fish density cages contributing to disease and parasite spread—both within fish farms and spilling out to affect wild populations; fish farm gear contributing to increased marine wildlife entanglements; the unsustainable harvest of ‘forage’ wild fish to convert into fish pellets to feed farmed fish (contributing to overfishing); and large farm buffer zones that would limit and displace commercial and recreational fishing, tourism, and other recreational uses.”

Although it is unlikely that Rep. Peltola’s bill will get a hearing in the current legislative session, as such session is approaching its end and elections loom, distracting legislators from their lawmaking duties, the concerns that underly the legislation remain very real, and not limited to the United States.

In Chile, where farming Atlantic salmon has become an important industry, fish farmers trying to expand into the relatively pristine waters of Patagonia are running into strong opposition.  There, opponents are concerned about

“the Chilean salmon farming industry’s extensive use of antibiotics and chemical pesticides (Over two-thirds of Chilean farmed salmon is rated red by the nonprofit Seafood Watch due to the high use of antibiotics,) the practice of covering the seafloor (underneath the farms) with organic matter causing eutrophication, large-scale escapes of farmed salmon that have a significant impact on native fauna, and trails of plastic trash and debris in the pristine Patagonian landscapes.”

There are also concerns that the farms deny marine mammals, including whales and dolphins, access to a portion of their historical habitat, and that fish farm workers sometimes kill sea lions found stealing food from the salmon pens.

The fact that many of the new Patagonian salmon farms would be sited in what are supposed to be protected areas such as the Las Guaitecas National Reserve and Kawesqar National Park, is of particular concern to the farms’ opponents.  In response to the opponents’ concerns, the Chilean government has issued new rules that there must be a management plan in place before salmon farms may be established in a protected area, which plan

“includes scientific data about the area, the barriers to sustainable development, and a series of required management practices.”

Applications for salmon farm concessions that lack such management plans will not be granted.

Predictably, the salmon farming industry was not pleased with the new rules.  A spokesman for SalmonChile, an industry trade group, focused on economic, rather than environmental, issues when complaining that

“It’s hard to understand why regulations are issued that cause uncertainty within a productive sector that contributes 2% of the country’s gross domestic product and is the second largest exporter…[Chile] needs investments and economic growth.”

But perhaps Chile, and other nations, do not need the environmental degradation that the fish farms can bring.  Two years ago, the permits of one fish farming company, Nova Austral, were revoked after

“an investigation that used sediment analysis, sampling and underwater filming to show that the company had caused environmental damage in the waters of Alberto de Agostini National Park after exceeding the maximum authorized production level.”

In Australia, The Guardian recently reported that

“Tasmania’s largest salmon company, Tassal [which, as a matter of interest, is owned by the same Cooke Aquaculture responsible for the pen collapse in Washington], 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.”

High antibiotic levels in farmed fish are, in themselves, a serious health concern, but when the farms’ use of antibiotics becomes so great that the drugs begin to contaminate wild populations…

And, of course, salmon continue to escape from their pens, not only in Washington, but in Iceland, Canada, and elsewhere that salmon are farmed, posing a risk to native fish populations.

And perhaps that’s why Argentina, Chile’s Patagonian neighbor, has decided that the downside of intensive salmon farming more than offsets the benefits, and so, in 2021, banned the practice in Argentinian waters, fearing that it would

“wreak environmental havoc, close down local fishing fleets and threaten the established nature-tourism  sector, which employs 16,500 people.”

And, perhaps, that’s why Congress ought to take a very long, very serious look at Rep. Peltola’s bill, should it be reintroduced in the next session, which starts early next year.