Can Deepwater Aquaculture Avoid the Pitfalls of Coastal Fish Farms?

An open-ocean fish farm in Hawaii. Courtesy of Bryce Groark

Near-shore fish farms have created a host of environmental problems. Now, U.S. aquaculture advocates – backed by mainstream conservation groups – are saying that locating well-run operations out in the ocean could produce sustainable food and protect wild stocks from overfishing.

Donna Lanzetta has a big idea: She wants to grow striped bass on a deepwater fish farm, about eight miles off the coast of Southampton, Long Island, where she was born and raised. A lawyer who knows real estate and politics, Lanzetta has garnered the support of local and state officials. Marine scientists and aquaculture experts advise her startup, which is called Manna Fish Farms. She has purchased an automated feed system that can be operated from shore, and plans to rely on hatchlings that are identical to wild striped bass, to ease concerns about escapes.

Now all she needs to do is raise a couple of million dollars, persuade a half-dozen or so federal agencies to grant her a permit, and, quite possibly, get an act of Congress to exempt her business from a law, aimed at protecting wild fish stocks, that makes it a crime to possess striped bass in federal waters.

“It’s not easy to be blazing the trail,” says Lanzetta. Nothing is easy about developing aquaculture projects in U.S. federal waters, which cover the area between three and 200 miles offshore. U.S. fish farmers […]

Full article: Can Deepwater Aquaculture Avoid the Pitfalls of Coastal Fish Farms?

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