MEDIA ADVISORY: July 10, 2007

(Anchorage, Alaska) – This Thursday (July 12), Congress will hold a hearing to review legislation that would authorize commercial fish farming in waters 3 – 200 miles offshore of the United States in the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). The National Offshore Aquaculture Act (H.R. 2010 and its companion bill S. 1609) was introduced earlier this year at the Administration’s request. The bill establishes a permitting process to allow industrial-scale farms in the open ocean. The legislation lacks specific environmental standards and comes before any thorough environmental or socioeconomic studies have been conducted.

Conservation, food safety, business and fishing organizations from across the nation have been urging Congress to take a tough look at the bill, noting that the proposed legislation fails to take adequate precautionary measures. They point out that the current version of the bill promotes the aquaculture industry at the expense of existing fisheries, marine ecosystems and fishing communities.

“The offshore aquaculture program as envisioned by the federal government poses unacceptable risks to wild fisheries and is very likely to harm America’s traditional fishing communities,” said Paula Terrel of the Alaska Marine Conservation Council (AMCC), a community-based organization whose members include commercial and recreational fishermen, related businesses, traditional subsistence harvesters, marine scientists and others.

The proposed bill fails to include specific environmental standards. There is no statutory language requiring protection for wild stocks from the potential dangers of invasive species, genetic contamination and disease. Nor does the bill include provisions to prevent pollution of the marine environment with fish wastes and excess feed or to ensure that populations of forage fish used to feed carnivorous farmed species are not over-exploited. The species being most seriously considered for offshore aquaculture are carnivorous finfish, such as halibut and black cod, which consume more fish protein than they produce.

Also of concern are the social and economic impacts that can be expected when a growing finfish aquaculture industry competes with an existing wild seafood economy. To date, no socioeconomic studies or analyses have been conducted to assess the impacts of this legislation to fishing families, local economies or the United States’ wild seafood industry.

“We don’t know what the exact impact of this legislation would be to our fishing communities, but we have a pretty good idea and it doesn’t look good,” said Terrel, who has trolled for salmon with her husband Dick Hoffman for nearly three decades in Southeast Alaska. Their family business, like many others in Alaska, is only just now recovering from the worldwide collapse of wild salmon prices caused by the proliferation of foreign salmon farms in the 1990s. “If we sit by silently while the federal government aggressively pushes its open ocean aquaculture agenda through this session of Congress, we could all be tied up at the dock,” said Terrel.

If Congress ultimately pursues legislation authorizing the permitting and operation of offshore aquaculture, the Alaska Marine Conservation Council maintains its position that any legislation must be based on the strongest scientific principles, adhere to the precautionary principle of “do no harm” and avoid negative impacts to the marine ecosystem and social and economic impacts to coastal communities.

“We should not promote a new industry at the expense of a viable existing one.  This is not good public policy or the path to economic prosperity,” said Terrel. One rationale put forward by the federal government to authorize offshore fish farming is to bolster domestic production of seafood in the face of some wild fish stocks being overfished. “Where there are problems with U.S. fisheries, we should resolve them with good management,” said Terrel.

Click here for more information about offshore fish farming. 

WHAT: House Natural Resources Committee, Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife, and Oceans will hold a legislative hearing on “The National Offshore Aquaculture Act” (H.R. 2010)

WHEN: Thursday, July 12, 2007 at 10:00 am (EST)

WHERE: Room 1334, Longworth House Office Building

The hearing will be webcast live at http://resourcescommittee.house.gov.