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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 34 Number 9
June 2007
At the New England Fishery Management Council
Offshore aquaculture triggers fishermen concerns
MYSTIC, CT – Michael Rubino probably has heard it all by now, but he certainly got an earful when he traveled to Connecticut to present the Bush administration’s position on offshore aquaculture to the New England Fishery Management Council and an audience of commercial fishermen.
Rubino is manager of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Aquaculture Program, and he attended the council’s April 10-12 meeting in Mystic to outline NOAA’s approach to aquaculture and to talk about the National Offshore Aquaculture Act of 2007, which was introduced less than two weeks later into the US House of Representatives.
NOAA is supporting aquaculture because the US imports 80% of its seafood – almost half of which is farm raised – and this contributes over $8 billion to the US trade deficit.
“This current administration is firmly behind aquaculture,” said Rubino.
And, he added, “We have the technology. The real question is: Do we want to make room for it?”
But as soon as Rubino finished his overview, people began raising concerns. The first came from council Vice Chairman Rip Cunningham of Massachusetts, who, noting the proliferation of salmon pens in coastal waters, wondered about the impacts on the region of using important forage-fish species to produce feed for farm-raised salmon.
“I hope as some of this legislation is pushed through, people are thinking about things that will mitigate these impacts,” said Cunningham.
Fishmeal concerns
Rubino replied that aquaculture operations would not have a negative impact on wild stocks.
“First off, conservation of wild stocks and the environment are absolutes as far as NOAA is concerned, and the aquaculture industry depends on a healthy environment,” he said.
Rubino added that private industry was working on fish feed alternatives that included soy, grain products, algae, and animal byproducts, among other things.
“Salmon and other species don’t need to eat fish. They need to eat protein,” he said. “The market is taking care of this perceived fishmeal issue.”
Still, the use of fish in meal shouldn’t be a problem “if you’re managing wild stocks well and you’re not overfishing,” Rubino said, adding that much of the meal being produced presently is “going to China to feed carp, not salmon.”
Under the proposed National Offshore Aquaculture Act of 2007, the Commerce Department would be required to collaborate on research with the Department of Agriculture on “alternative feed formulas to reduce the use of wild fish in aquaculture feeds.”
“NOAA is very cognizant of these issues,” Rubino said.
Industry impact
New Hampshire council member David Goethel asked how the proposed aquaculture act would deal with displaced commercial fishermen.
To that, Rubino said, “On a practical level, none of these projects are going to go forward until you guys on the waterfront work these (conflicts) out. If you can’t work it out, I don’t think it’s going to happen.”
Maine council member Dana Rice said he witnessed the growth in density of salmon cages Downeast and had some concerns about moving these types of operations further offshore.
“It’s going to have a big impact on the Gulf of Maine and its ecosystem and its fishermen,” he said. “And it’s going to take big bucks to do it.”
Rubino background
Rubino is no stranger to aquaculture itself or the controversy that has plagued its development in the US.
At one point in his career, he was the chief executive officer of an aquaculture research and development company and a partner in a shrimp farm in South Carolina.
For a time he was vice chairman of Maryland’s Aquaculture Advisory Committee and, in the 1990s, he was at the International Finance Corporation, a private sector affiliate of the World Bank, where he developed renewable energy and biodiversity investment funds. Before joining NOAA in 2004, he was manager of New Funds Development for the World Bank’s Carbon Finance Group.
Rubino acknowledged that during the early development of aquaculture in the US, “A lot of mistakes were made.”
But he added that things have changed for the better.
“We’ve learned a lot about siting, and a lot of innovation has taken place over the years,” he said. “Market certification is becoming international and it’s pushing other countries toward best management practices.”
Potential pluses
Gear technologist and Fisheries Survival Fund representative Ron Smolowitz reminded the council that in 1996 it approved a scallop seeding operation under Amendment 5 to the federal scallop plan called the SeaStead Scallop Aquaculture Project.
Smolowitz, a principal investigator for the project, said it “led the scallop industry to accept special access programs” and rotational area management.
“We may be looking at seeding access areas in the future,” he said.
Rollie Barnaby of New Hampshire Sea Grant and the University of New Hampshire’s (UNH) Cooperative Extension program, talked about the successful offshore aquaculture demonstration project being led by UNH researchers off the Isles of Shoals.
They’ve experimented with raising haddock, cod, summer flounder, and halibut in submerged cages in 180' of water seven miles offshore. The site has been subject to the often-extreme weather of the Gulf of Maine.
“People from all over the world come to see it,” said Barnaby.
UNH also has put a considerable amount of energy into growing mussels on submerged longlines.
“We have 12 longlines – 600' long each – 35' below the surface, and their only contact with the bottom is two mooring blocks,” he said. “When it comes to aquaculture, everybody thinks of salmon, but think about 15,000 pounds of mussels on a longline that takes up the space of 12 lobster traps.”
The project has proved to be extremely successful, and Barnaby said, “I think within a year someone is going to be here asking you for a permit to put mussel lines in federal waters.”
As for the role of commercial fishermen in all of this, Barnaby emphasized, “UNH from the beginning pictured commercial fishermen being involved.”
Tough road ahead
Michael Rubino explained that, if passed by Congress, the National Offshore Aquaculture Act of 2007 would allow NOAA to create a regulatory framework for projects such as the ones Barnaby and Smolowitz described to move forward in federal waters.
The act would allow for the development of a streamlined permitting operation and direct NOAA to establish environmental requirements, develop enforcement provisions, and set up monitoring requirements.
“I think the federal government has given this aquaculture legislation its best shot. It’s not a perfect bill, but it’s a framework. It’s a start,” said Rubino.
NOAA and Congress have tried unsuccessfully in the past to enact a national aquaculture act, and scallop vessel owner Harriet Didriksen of New Bedford indicated that this newest legislation will continue to face some strong opposition.
“I think it’s a death rattle to fishing,” said Didriksen. “I would certainly lobby my senators and congressmen to not go forward with this.”
Janice M. Plante
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