Moi are farmed in an underwater net in Hawaii
(photo courtesy of NOAA)

Roughly half of the fish the world consumes were not caught with a pole or even a net.  They were farmed.  That's right, in tanks on land, or nets suspended in fresh and salt water bodies.

As the human population rises, and fish populations become depleted, more and more people see aquaculture, or fish farming, as the only means to provide us with enough fish.  

Aquaculture is a booming global industry - worth roughly 70 billion dollars. And it's growing.

However, fish farms can have severe effects on the environment.  When kept in tanks in the open ocean, farmed fish produce a lot of waste, which contaminates the surrounding water column.  Farmed fish are also often given antibiotics to keep them healthy in their crowded environments - not unlike the treatments used on commercial livestock in the U.S. Salmon farming in particular has proven problematic because salmon are omnivores, meaning that in order to farm them you have to feed them other (perfectly edible) fish.  As Alexandra Morton, a well-known marine biologist explains it, "That's like farming wolves by feeding them chickens."

This is not to say that all fish farming is harmful to the environment.  Farmed shrimp and shellfish, as well as bottom feeders like catfish and tilapia, can be farmed in tanks on dry land - thereby eliminating open ocean pollution.  However, shrimp farming practices in Asia have recently come under fire.  

Perhaps the most significant problem with the aquaculture industry is that it has remained almost entirely unregulated, despite the millions of tons of fish it produces each year.  The U.S. has no federal set of rules governing the basic permitting process and management of aquaculture in U.S. waters.  In that regulatory vacuum, regional fishery management councils are coming up with their own aquaculture plans.  

First up, the Gulf of Mexico.  Earlier this year the fishery management council from that region submitted an aquaculture plan to NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.  Under the Magnuson-Stevens Act, NOAA has a certain amount of time to respond to regional proposals for fishery management.  If they don't, those proposals can be enacted, without federal involvement. As of this week the Gulf of Mexico is open to industrial fish farming, free of any federal regulation, because NOAA failed to respond within the allotted time.

The plan submitted by the Gulf Coast Fishery Management Council will allow millions of pounds amberjack, red snapper and other species to be farmed in submerged pens three miles to 200 miles off the coast of Texas, but it opens the door to other types of industrialized aquaculture as well.  

In a Congressional testimony, Dr. James Balsinger, an associate administrator at NOAA, said that if NOAA comes up with a national policy and regional plans, like that of the Gulf of Mexico, are not consistent with that policy NOAA "...will consider appropriate action, which could include seeking an amendment or withdrawal of the plan through the Magnuson-Stevens Act process."

Jane Lubchenco, the Obama-appointed head administrator of NOAA and a well respected marine biologist, has questioned some aquaculture practices and yet somehow failed to step up to the plate on the Gulf of Mexico plan.

Several environmental groups have raised concerns about the risks of regional regulation of aquaculture, as opposed to centralized federal regulation. Chris Mann, senior officer at the Pew Environment Group, was not satisfied with NOAA's move, or lack thereof. "This action causes me to question NOAA's commitment to national standards because at the same time that they express support for national standards, they have gone ahead and approved non-national standards - the regional approach."  PEW and other groups are anxiously waiting to see what form NOAA's federal regulations for aquaculture may take, and when they will be enacted.

Mann went on to say that the regional approach to fisheries management isn't all bad. "It's not so much that we think there needs to be a one size fits all approach, we can see a justification for some regional tailoring... but we want there to be a set of national standards from which it might be possible to come up with more customized regional plans."

The Magnuson-Stevens Act, under which NOAA will regulate the aquaculture industry, was intended for the regulation of wild fisheries. Some environmentalists and biologists say the practices of aquaculture more closely resemble industrial agriculture, causing many concern that NOAA may not indeed be the best group to regulate the fish farming industry.
"It's not just that they're doing it regionally, which is a problem, they're doing it under the wrong authority. You wouldn't use a blender to trim your hedge. The results might be of similar quality," Chris Mann added.

This week NOAA said they will begin work on federal regulations for aquaculture but the administration has not set a date for when those regulations might be put into effect, leaving the door open for industrial aquaculture in the Gulf of Mexico in the mean time.