Ahab's Journal

House Moves to Ban Modified Salmon

In a potential blow to the future of the biotech industry, a handful of House lawmakers voted last night to bar the Food and Drug Administration from approving any bioengineered salmon for mass consumption.

A terse amendment (pdf) offered by Reps. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.) and Don Young (R-Alaska) would ban FDA from spending any funds on genetically engineered salmon approvals beginning in the next financial year. Less than a dozen lawmakers voted by voice to attach the amendment to an agriculture spending bill expected to pass the House this week.

The amendment is squarely aimed at preventing the approval of a fast-growing modified salmon developed by AquaBounty Technologies.

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Statement in Response to New Obama Administration Marine Aquaculture Policy

Reliance on nation’s fisheries law to regulate fish farms a significant concern for fishermen, conservationists

Matt Tinning, Executive Director of the Marine Fish Conservation Network, issued the following statement in response to the release of complementary marine aquaculture policies by the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and Department of Commerce on June 9th, 2011.

 “Fishermen and conservationists alike are gravely concerned that the policies released today could open the door to an unprecedented and premature expansion of open ocean aquaculture, which could impact the health of wild fisheries and the livelihoods of our fishermen. Furthermore, we disagree with the use of our nation’s fisheries law to authorize that expansion.

 “The marine aquaculture policies released today highlight a number of important goals relating to sustainability, advancement of scientific knowledge, and integrated planning. But they lack the force of law or regulation, and we fear they could pave the way for large-scale offshore commercial operations in US waters before adequate safeguards are in place.

New federal aquaculture policy paves way for Gulf of Mexico fish farms

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's national aquaculture policy released Thursday paves the way for the Gulf of Mexico to be the first region in the country to develop open-ocean aquaculture in federal waters, potentially reaping another 64 million pounds of seafood from the ocean.

Within a year, businesses could begin applying for permits to establish red snapper, grouper and other finfish-farms in Gulf federal waters, which in Louisiana extend from three to 200 miles offshore.

In 2009, the Gulf of Mexico Fisheries Management Council, a regional advisory body that sets fishing regulations in the Gulf for NOAA's Fisheries Service, established its Gulf fish-farming plan. But the plan has sat, officially in place but unusable, awaiting formal NOAA regulations.

The Gulf council's plan calls for 10-year offshore fish-farm permits with a total cap on farmed fish production at 64 million pounds. The council initially expected about five to 20 such operations to emerge within the first 10 years, but with start-up costs estimated in the $5 million to $10 million range, the level of interest largely is unknown.

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Commerce and NOAA release national aquaculture policies to increase domestic seafood production, create sustainable jobs, and restore marine habitats

The Department of Commerce and NOAA today released national sustainable marine aquaculture policies to meet the growing demand for healthy seafood, to create jobs in coastal communities, and restore vital ecosystems. Foreign aquaculture accounts for about half of the 84 percent of seafood imported by the U.S., contributing to the $9 billion trade deficit in seafood.

“Our current trade deficit in seafood is approximately $9 billion,” Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said. “Encouraging and developing the U.S. aquaculture industry will result in  economic growth and create jobs at home, support exports to global markets, and spur new innovations in technology to support the industry.”

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Maine Fishermen go Back to School--to the 'Cod Academy'

A handful of Down East Maine fishermen will soon become graduates of the nation's first ever, so-called "Cod Academy." That's the name of a program run by the Maine Aquaculture Association set up last year with the help of more than $180,000 in federal funding. The plan is to train fishermen to be fish-farmers and it's specifically designed to help commercial fishermen, or ex-fishermen, find a new way to make a living on the water.

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Open fish farm opponent feels efforts have failed

After almost two decades campaigning against open-net fish farms on B.C.'s coasts, biologist Alexandra Morton said Thursday that she's about ready to throw in the towel.

Speaking at the Association of Professional Biologists conference being held in Nanaimo this week, Morton said she feels she has "failed" in her efforts to change government policies and industry regulations to make the controversial fish farms more environmentally friendly.

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/Open+fish+farm+opponent+feels+efforts+have+failed/4744801/story.html#ixzz1LlS9aqsq

Another Side of Tilapia, the Perfect Factory Fish

Americans ate 475 million pounds of tilapia last year, four times the amount a decade ago, making this once obscure African native the most popular farmed fish in the United States. Although wild fish predominate in most species, a vast majority of the tilapia consumed in the United States is “harvested” from pens or cages in Latin America and Asia.

Known in the food business as “aquatic chicken” because it breeds easily and tastes bland, tilapia is the perfect factory fish; it happily eats pellets made largely of corn and soy and gains weight rapidly, easily converting a diet that resembles cheap chicken feed into low-cost seafood.

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Oyster aquaculture takes off in Virginia

Growing oysters in Virginia used to be a lousy business venture.

Only the most ardent farmers could steer the Chesapeake Bay delicacy past diseases, predators and other obstacles into adulthood.

That was before advances, most notably the creation of a genetically modified oyster, made cultivation easier… and profitable.

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Towed aquaculture fish pens break free

BY REED FLICKINGER | WEST HAWAII TODAY

Two towed pens being tested for offshore fish farming by Kona Blue Water Farms broke free from their tow vessel last week, said company co-founder Neil Sims. He said one pen sank in 12,000 feet of water, the other is floating and adrift.

Sims said gale-force winds and seas of 15 to 18 feet in the Alenuihaha Channel March 22 chafed and then broke tow lines bridled to the cages that would be used to raise fish.

Agriculture Research Service recognizes continued need for wild caught fish in aquaculture feeds

ARS Program Leader Jeff Silverstein says that there remains no economically viable or fully realized alternative to fish oil to ensure that farm-raised fish contain the omega-3 fatty acids that benefit human health.

 

WASHINGTON - March 22, 2011 - (Saving Seafood) With 60 scientists working in 15 labs around the nation, the little known U.S.D.A. Agriculture Research Service (ARS) is working to find alternatives to wild caught menhaden-based fish oil and ensure more efficient use of pelagic species-based feed, according its national program leader for aquaculture research, Jeff Silverstein. 

But while strides are being made, he told Saving Seafood that there remains no economically viable or fully realized alternative to fish oil to ensure that farm-raised fish contain the omega-3 fatty acids that benefit human health.

"What is really integral is the long-chain Omega-3 fatty acids which is not produced by fish but in the things fish eat," said Silverstein, a chemist by training. "The best source is (fish) oil."

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First Application For Factory Fish Farm in U.S. Waters Poised for Approval As “Fishing”

“NOAA’s approach is utterly reckless and legally very questionable. If this permit is approved it will set the precedent for factory fish farms to be deployed in federal waters nationwide. It could cause irreparable harm to coastal communities and the environment as well as further push our food system toward dependence on factory farmed products – something many consumers today prefer to move away from. In the absence of a Secretary of Commerce to keep NOAA in check, President Obama must step in to protect our public resources and to stop the agency’s irresponsible and uncontrolled promotion of the ocean fish farming industry.”

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Máximo Cangá Castillo is an Ecuadorian farmer and fisherman

Máximo Cangá Castillo is an Ecuadorian farmer and fisherman. He lives in San Lorenzo in the state of Esmeraldes on the border with Columbia. Not only does he contend with the Columbian drug cartel and the palm tree investors, both of which steal farmers’ lands to plant drug labs or plantations, but he also is constantly fighting the invasion of the shrimp farm industry. The shrimp farm industry razes mangroves to make way for shrimp ponds to export cheap shrimp to the United States, but the mangroves are life for the people of coastal Ecuador.

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Fish farms linked to sea lice infestations among wild sockeye

Like the bad smell that won't go away, another piece of research in the scientific jigsaw puzzle links British Columbia's salmon farms to sea lice infestations that affect migrating wild salmon.

This time the link is to the iconic wild sockeye stocks of the Fraser River.

Fraser River sockeye are the most important food and subsistence species for more than 40 aboriginal communities, the much-prized foundation for the province's most valuable commercial fishery and a growing target for sports anglers.

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Fish+farms+linked+lice+infestations+among+wild+sockeye/4263995/story.html#ixzz1Dkakvdw9

Commerce and NOAA Release Draft National Aquaculture Policies, Invite Public Comment

The Department of Commerce and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are seeking public comment on complementary draft national aquaculture policies that support sustainable marine aquaculture in the United States.  The deadline for comments on both policies is April 11, 2011.

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MSX strikes Maine oysters

A pathogen that has long plagued oysters in the Mid-Atlantic states caused an outbreak of disease in Maine oyster farms for the first time this summer, threatening a $3 million industry renowned for high quality and taste.

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Bill aims to shuck oyster law helping jobless watermen

State lawmakers last year unanimously passed a jobs measure that would set aside open waters of the Chesapeake Bay so down-and-out watermen could try their hand at oyster farming.

That way, watermen could make money off a seafood species other than blue crabs, whose numbers were in decline, and the Bay would benefit from more oysters being in the water and filtering pollutants, as they do naturally.

A great idea, right?

The Virginia Marine Resources Commission this week was poised to approve 15 public farming areas called "aquaculture opportunity zones," totaling more than 1,000 acres, from Tangier Island to the Peninsula.

But the program was put on hold and probably will be scrapped, at least for now, due to a bill currently sailing through the General Assembly. It seeks to repeal the jobs law from last year, arguing that maybe the idea was not so bright after all.

It turns out that oyster companies - already raising salty bivalves through farming techniques, in protective bags or cages, set upon leased bottom plots in rivers and creeks - were not so pleased with the proposed opportunity zones.

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Eat a ‘Peconic Pearl,’ help the Peconic Land Trust

This spring, shellfish lovers will have a unique new way to savor Peconic Bay oysters and promote the conservation work of the Peconic Land Trust.

Karen Rivara, who runs the Aeros Cultured Oyster Company at the trust’s Shellfisher Preserve in Southold, has recently trademarked “Peconic Pearl” oysters, grown by her company and three other Long Island shellfish farmers who belong to the Connecticut-based Noank Aquaculture Cooperative.

Fifteen percent of the proceeds from the oysters sold under that trademark will be donated to the land trust to promote its education initiatives at Shellfisher Preserve and other conservation programs.

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Pesticide use, lobster deaths probed in Down East waters

Parasites, pesticides, sick salmon and dead lobsters.

These four things have become an issue in Passamaquoddy Bay, and no one seems to be happy about it.

Not the salmon aquaculture operators, who are using pesticides to combat a damaging outbreak of sea lice at their fish pens in Passamaquoddy Bay and adjacent Cobscook Bay. Not environmentalists, who are concerned about the effect the pesticides might be having on surrounding marine life. And not lobster fishermen, who fear the use of pesticides has contributed to widespread lobster deaths in the past.

Officials in Canada are looking into the use of pesticides in and near Passamaquoddy Bay as part of separate investigations into the deaths of lobsters off Grand Manan Island in late 2009 and off Deer Island in early 2010. Both islands are located directly across the international border within easy eyesight of Maine.

Lobsters and sea lice, both crustaceans, are highly vulnerable to pesticides that salmon farm operators have been using and then disposing of in coastal waters, according to officials.

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Aquaculture Development Conference to be held Feb. 11-12 in Atlantic Beach

The conference includes presentations and workshops featuring local and national aquaculture leaders. A variety of topics will be discussed, ranging from global marketing and disease management to new technology and research updates.

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U.S. Department of Agriculture Official Spreads False Claims on Aquaculture and Menhaden Stock Health

WASHINGTON - Dec. 22, 2010 (Saving Seafood) - A recent newspaper column from a top public relations official at the Agricultural Research Service falsely made the claim that the use of plant-based fish feed in aquaculture is much more environmentally friendly than fishmeal, despite the scientific data proving otherwise and views of the agency's own scientists.  The column also inaccurately argued that menhaden, one of the primary sources of fishmeal, is in danger of being overfished.

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Cod Returns?

Beginning early in the 2000s, a cadre of aquaculture entrepreneurs, researchers and promoters launched a multi-million-dollar project intended to bring cod back to Maine’s inshore waters, as a farmed species. Riding a wave of government support for aquaculture development, experienced players in the fish farming industry focused their energy and substantial funding on the idea of re-establishing eastern Maine as a major cod producing region, and helping Maine fishing families become fish farmers.

But fishermen did not flock to the training program, and many, including Ted Ames, wonder if cod farming is a viable proposition. Ames, whose seminal work on mapping the historical spawning grounds of cod in Maine’s inshore waters won him a $500,000 MacArthur Grant in 2006, asked the fundamental question. “If cod are a dollar a pound on the market and cost two dollars a pound to grow, what’s the point? I think they’d be better served by putting this money into restoring the wild fishery and letting Mother Nature do the work for free.”

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Anglers claim fish farm firms bullied marine agency

Anglers have accused the fish-farming industry of “bullying” a Scottish Government agency into suppressing inspection reports.

The Salmond and Trout Association released correspondence that showed Marine Scotland decided to suspend publication of inspection reports on sea-lice infestations and escapes after being threatened with legal action by the Scottish Salmon Producers’ Organisation.

Read more: http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/2028652?UserKey=#ixzz16bEJ0Ty0

As costs of feed soar, NC fish farmers look to state program to help offset losses

BREVARD, N.C. (AP) — Fish farmers in North Carolina are looking to a state program to help offset the skyrocketing cost of doing business.

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Troubling Emails Reveal Federal Scientists Fear FDA Approval of Genetically Engineered Salmon: “Maybe They [the FDA] Should Watch Jurassic Park.”

U.S. Fish & Wildlife Emails Disclose Numerous Environmental, Procedural Concerns; FDA may Approve Genetically Engineered Salmon as Soon as Nov. 23

WASHINGTON - November 15 - After submitting a Freedom of Information Act request, the consumer advocacy group Food & Water Watch received numerous recent internal documents and emails from the U.S. Department of Interior’s Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) exposing startling concerns with AquaBounty salmon – a controversial genetically engineered (GE) fish the FDA may soon approve as the first GE food animal for human consumption.

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COD FUTURES

"Food Inc." is an interesting movie about the industrialization of our food supply. In an interview on Bill Moyers Journal on PBS (.org), the film maker Robert Kenner talked mostly about the centralized and industrialized raising of beef, chicken, corn, wheat, etc., for the fast food industry. Centralization, it seems, is necessary to insure a steady supply of cheap and uniform ingredients for fast food. There are however, huge invisible costs in this kind of system (jobs, small farms, quality of life, obesity/diabetes, public’s general health, etc). Cattle that are raised at close quarters and fed mostly sugary corn, makes them sick; and therefore the inferior and unsafe product makes us sick. It’s cheap meals at McDonald's; and big health problems down the road.

           

            Isn't this push for the industrialization/centralization of the small independent organic farm the same thing that’s behind the "race to farm raise fish"; raise the fish on pellets while they swirl around in a 100' cage?  The basic posture of the NOAA/NMFS leadership is hostile to independent small boat fishermen; the assistant director apparently believes that the “wild capture fisheries” (us fishermen) are over with; done. 

PetroAlgae Protein Concentrate Confirmed as Replacement for High Quality Fishmeal in Tilapia Farming by University of Idaho Study

PetroAlgae Inc., a leading renewable energy company that licenses its commercial micro-crop technology globally, announced today that a third party study done by the Aquaculture Research Institute at the University of Idaho has found that PetroAlgae protein concentrate (PPC) produced as a co-product along with the renewable fuel feedstock by the company's micro-crop technology system can replace menhaden fishmeal protein at levels up to 100% in feeds for tilapia.

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Floundering Fish Farm Flops Into Bankruptcy.

Hawaii’s oldest fish farm plunged into bankruptcy amid expansion difficulties, financial losses and a dispute between a company owned by AOL co-founder Steve Case and the fish farm’s founder, John R. Cates.

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New index measures impact of fish farming on environment

Salmon farming in ocean pens already is controversial in North America because of concerns that farmed salmon spreads parasitic lice among already-threatened populations of wild salmon.

But the index ranked other species of farmed fish as "far, far, worse," said Volpe.

"Nearly anything coming out of Asia is problematic," he said, because of unregulated use of antibiotics, spread of parasites, and a greater use of wild species caught without regulations.

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The lure for catfish farmers is sinking

Townsend Kyser looks over the 750 acres of catfish ponds scattered over his Hale County farm and wonders about the future.The 33-year-old is a third-generation catfish farmer. The family business started in 1969 when his grandfather, Joe Kyser, built some of the first ponds designed to raise catfish in the state. Now it's up to him, his father, Bill, and his brother, Ashley, to keep things going.It isn't easy, he says.The American catfish industry has hit hard times of late, largely because of two factors: the tremendous increase in feed costs and of cheaper Asian fish flooding the market, Townsend Kyser says.

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Salmon farmer facing prosecution after pesticide kills thousands of fish

One of Scotland’s leading fish farm companies may face prosecution after thousands of salmon were accidentally killed by an overdose of an unauthorised and highly toxic pesticide.

The Sunday Herald has learned that investigators found significant quantities of pesticides banned for use on fish farms, during raids on boats used by Hoganess Salmon, run by the Lakeland Group at Burrastow near Walls on the west coast of Shetland.

Excessive amounts of the pesticides, meant to kill the lice that eat away at salmon are thought to have been used to douse the fish, causing mass deaths and destroying other marine wildlife.

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Oyster changes opposition voiced

SALISBURY -- When the bottom of the Chesapeake Bay -- and the coastal bays for that matter -- becomes a vast shellfish factory, corporate-run and government-controlled, waterman Greg Price, who ekes out a living dredging oysters on the Tangier Sound, says he might not be alive to see it, but the world will recall his prediction:

"They're trying to get rid of us."

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Fish farming research to get real-world tryout

A technique developed by University of Maryland scientists for cultivating seafood indoors is slated to get its first real-world tryout under a licensing agreement with a newly formed Baltimore company.

The technique, in which fish destined for the dinner table are bred in captivity and raised in large tanks of artificial sea water, has been licensed to a biotechnology startup called Maryland Sustainable Mariculture, University System of Maryland officials say.

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Mysterious Disease Threatens Farm-Raised Fish

An infectious disease is spreading among farm-raised fish, and scientists are warning it could spread to wild fish coming in close proximity to marine pens

Read more: http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7019252771?Mysterious%20Disease%20Threatens%20Farm-Raised%20Fish#ixzz0tUwjUMDD
 

Mekong River Catfish

Watch Video Here

Will your next lobster come from a farm? Darden Restaurants hopes so

The Orlando-based owner of Red Lobster is trying to do something no one has ever done on a large commercial scale: Lobster farming.

It won't be easy and will take years to figure out. Lobsters are tough to raise in captivity. They take a long time to grow, eat a lot and are susceptible to a contagious, fatal disease.

But if Darden Restaurants can make its project work, it could revolutionize the way lobsters get to our dinner plates. Growing lobsters could make them a cheaper commodity, experts say, much like aquaculture did for shrimp and salmon. But it could also create hardship for lobster fishermen around the world.

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Environmental Scandal in Chile

CHILE - Scientists claim to have discovered the unknown impacts of Chilean salmon farms on coastal ecosystem.

The unexpected discovery was made by researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organisation and the University of Göttingen, who were studying acoustic communication among the native whales in the region. The researchers not only discovered that the salmon industry is rapidly spreading to the hitherto largely unspoiled south of the region; they also documented the previously unknown threat to the region's native sea lions.

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Senator introduces Aquaculture Bill to ‘provide relief to struggling gulf fisheries’

UNITED States Senator David Vitter yesterday introduced the Research and Aquaculture Opportunity and Responsibility Act, which would result in a three and a half year delay in the development of the US offshore aquaculture industry.

Vitter claims his Act would provide relief to struggling marine ecosystems, including those threatened by the recent Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, however a leading fish farming consultant criticised the move as an attack on a sector that could provide economic development for the region.

Vitter said: “It’s clear that the marine environment, particularly off the coast of Louisiana, cannot handle any more stress as it begins its recovery from the ongoing oil spill. My bill is a common-sense reprieve to these vital ecosystems that would allow us to step back and assess the potential effects on native species and recreational and commercial fisheries before moving forward with any further aquaculture programmes.”

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BIOTECHNOLOGY: “Rigs-to-Reefs”

The idea of Catch Shares might make sense to an academic economist; but it does not necessarily make conservation sense.  The fear for many in the fishing industry is that the push for this “asset commoditization” is nothing more than a strategy to clear off the outer continental shelf, get rid of small independent fishermen, plant cod farms between the oil rigs, and wrap up our fishing “catch shares” into some new exotic financial instrument. 

 

Sounds Wild, Outlandish, And Unreasonable? If you listen to the oil company ads, part of their public relations campaign is in the form of beginning to introduce the idea of getting valuable antibiotic and cancer curing drugs from the sea. What they're talking about (biotechnology is the code name for this) are oil rig platforms as artificial reefs growing various crustacean species, which suddenly have been discovered to contain miracle drugs, ---now that’s wild, outlandish, and unreasonable. Why existing artificial reefs, piers, and countless other underwater structures are not already yielding these phenomenal organisms, remains a mystery. 

Kona Blue Water Farms gets federal grant

Kona Blue Water Farms Inc. on the Big Island has won a $242,889 Saltonstall-Kennedy grant from the National Marine Fisheries Service to research alternative protein sources for aquaculture feeds.

Read more: Kona Blue Water Farms gets federal grant - Pacific Business News (Honolulu):

Activist walks the talk in anti-fish-farm campaign

Alexandra Morton has been a voice in the wilderness, literally and figuratively, for more than 20 years.

Way up in the Broughton Archipelago, off the northeast coast of Vancouver Island, the biologist has been sounding the alarm about fish farming since 1989.

Wild salmon stocks are being wiped out by sea lice from fish farms that sit smack in the middle of their migration routes, she warns. The fragile, inter-connected ecology of the coast is in peril. Morton isn't the only one sending this message, but it's her name that has become synonymous with the cause -- and the frustration of environmentalists who feel ignored by those in power.

So now she has left the wilderness, has spent the past two weeks walking down Vancouver Island en route to Victoria, where the Get Out Migration protest will culminate in a rally at the legislature tomorrow.

Read more: http://www.timescolonist.com/news/Jack+Knox+Activist+walks+talk+anti+fish+farm+campaign/2998004/story.html#ixzz0nKHG3QeT
 

Fish farms should be on land: report

A B.C.-based conservation group has put forward a business case to move salmon farms from their contested existence in the ocean onto land.

The SOS Marine Conservation Foundation, on Thursday, released a report that analyzes land-based systems and concludes contained tank-based farms, without ocean pollution concerns or fears of transferring sea lice to wild salmon stocks, would be profitable.

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Fish+farms+should+land+report/2997902/story.html#ixzz0nKFv0ZEc
 

B.C. First Nations take their battle against fish farms to the courts

VANCOUVER, B.C. — Several First Nations from British Columbia's Broughton Archipelago have set out on what could be an upstream court battle against the federal and provincial governments over fish farms.

The bands were in B.C. Supreme Court on Tuesday, seeking to certify a class-action lawsuit against the provincial and federal governments.

The legal battle comes after decades of inaction, said First Nations spokesman Chief Bob Chamberlin.

Natives in the archipelago, on the west side of the Queen Charlotte Strait on the central coast of B.C., have long worried about the environmental impacts of fish farms.

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NOAA launches aquaculture plan, economic incentives

The Obama administration next week reintroduces to the nation the rough outlines of an offshore ocean aquaculture policy dating back more than a decade, which while still lacking specifics, offers powerful economic incentives if environmental, technological and political problems can be solved.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, where the policy template has resided since the Clinton administration, announced a series of "listening sessions" in Rhode Island, Louisana, Washington state, Hawaii and California to be followed by a national call-in event on May 6.

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NOAA Holds Public Listening Sessions to Guide Drafting of New Aquaculture Policy

NOAA will hold six listening sessions in April and May to hear recommendations from the public that will help the agency develop a new national policy for sustainable marine aquaculture.

Drug Resistant Sea Lice Found in BC Salmon Farms

For the past month people have been telling me that Grieg Seafood is emptying salmon farms, due to a lice epidemic that cannot be controlled with drugs.  The public is increasingly coming to me, not government with their concerns.

In this case, the federal government seems immobilized and the provincial government seems unconcerned, assuring me there is “no evidence of drug resistance”, even though their own graphs indicate otherwise.  

Md. bill seeks to suspend fees for aquaculture

ANNAPOLIS — Raymond Combs and his family have been trying to get permits to raise oysters for the last three years.

They started growing a few oysters in a tributary near their home in Hollywood and would eventually like to have at least a 5-acre aquaculture site. But their plan stalled when they learned that just applying for an aquaculture permit is $750, and the application and impact fees could total $90,000.

Combs was one of a handful of people who testified Thursday in support of a bill that would suspend Maryland Department of the Environment application and impact fees for commercial aquaculture -- at least for a few years.

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Bluefin Tuna Wash Up On Imperial Beach

Pricey, disoriented fish likely escaped from Mexican aqua farm
 

Local photojournalist Robert Benson was house hunting last Friday when he got the call from a fisherman friend. 

“He was kind of out of breath," says Benson. "The first thing he said was, 'Benson – this is an emergency. What are you doing right now?' He told mehundred-pound tunas were washing up on the shore in Imperial Beach.” 

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Scientists and Industry Will Discuss Challenges, Solutions at 30th Milford Aquaculture Seminar

Restoring oyster populations on Martha’s Vineyard, fish and shellfish stock enhancement efforts in Florida, measuring the ecological impact of shellfish cultivation and harvest, and industry response to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) proposed ban on selling raw oysters grown in warm waters are among the more than 50 presentations and poster sessions to be featured at the 30th Milford Aquaculture Seminar Feb. 8 -10 in Shelton, Conn.

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New rules planned for fish farming in federal waters

WASHINGTON — Americans’ insatiable love of seafood is back on the federal government’s plate.

Five years after former President George W. Bush’s administration first proposed allowing fish farming in federal waters, the Obama administration is set to come up with its own set of rules for offshore aquaculture, including deepwater fish farming.

The new rules, which are expected to spell out a permitting process for offshore aquaculture operations, could come as early as this summer, said Michael Rubino, manager of the aquaculture program at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“We’re looking at this whole question of aquaculture in federal waters — how to go about it,” Rubino said.

Meanwhile, Rep. Lois Capps, D-Santa Barbara, has filed legislation that would establish a regulatory framework for aquaculture operations in federal waters, which begin three miles beyond the nation’s shores.

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N.C. Aquaculture Development Conference in Atlantic Beach: Jan. 21-23

The 22^nd Annual North Carolina Aquaculture Development Conference will be held at the Sheraton Atlantic Beach on Jan. 22 and 23, 2010.  Highlight topics this year include new horizons for marketing aquaculture harvests, such as quality certification programs and targeting sales to gourmet seafood buyers.

Leading researchers from US Department of Agriculture, the National Fisheries Institute, North Carolina State University and University of North Carolina Wilmington will make presentations, and a trade show will feature a variety of industry vendors.

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