Non-Decision By Obama Administration Opens Gulf Of Mexico To Industrial Fish Farming

[hatrack]

The Gulf of Mexico opened to industrial-size fish farms Thursday after federal regulators declined to oppose the plan. Although environmental and fishing interests objected to the proposal, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration allowed the Gulf plan to take effect by not ruling on it, citing an absence of U.S. regulations for fish farming in federal waters.

Officials said the federal agency will develop and implement a national policy for offshore aquaculture, a process that could take nine months. Until then, the farms could open in the Gulf — though as a practical matter it would take much longer to get one up and running. “Our options in a case like this are very limited,” NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco said in a statement. “I believe this is the best approach to the situation.”

The Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council, which regulates fishing in federal waters from Texas to the west coast of Florida, proposed the farm plan and forwarded it to NOAA for approval. NOAA had until Thursday to make a decision. The proposal, intended to help reduce the nation's reliance on imported seafood, calls for raising millions of pounds of amberjack, red snapper and other species each year in submerged pens three miles to 200 miles off the coast.

But the plan has raised concerns from environmental and fishing interests about how to protect the Gulf's waters and wild fish stock from disease, pollution and other threats that have troubled fish farms in other countries.

EDIT

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6601064.html

[Craftsman]

1. If the farms are run properly then this is a good thing, people need to eat

As a disclaimer I like in an area of Houston called Clear Lake, about 6 miles as the crow flies from Galveston Bay.

[hatrack]

2. The question is not how they're run, but what do the farmed fish eat?

If fish so farmed are carnivorous, then all this does is vacuum up the remaining wild stocks of fish and squid and krill (yes, we're already fishing for krill) all the faster in order to produce protein-based feed.

Then what?

[Metta]

5. Three pounds of wild fish to produce one pound of farmed fish.

http://www.alternet.org/water/142270/how_farm-raised_salmon_are_turning_our_oceans_into_dangerous_and_polluted_feedlots_/?page=3

[hatrack]

6. Quintessential shell game

nt

[Metta]

3. Turning the ocean into a feedlot and the beaches into toilets.

How well has industry done in policing the environment so far.

"If you've got unhealthy fish, what's a "farmer" to do? Well, if you follow the CAFO playbook, that means jack them full of all sorts of drugs. It turns out that salmon feed is loaded with antibiotics and other chemicals, some of which are outlawed in the U.S. for threats to human and marine health.


Squeezed into pens, the animals are fed the same diets, injected with antibiotics and other drugs to fend off the inevitable disease outbreaks, and their waste washes into waterways, causing widespread pollution. Fish farms are incubators of disease, and one particular parasite is common -- sea lice. While sea lice are naturally occurring in the ocean and pose no threat to healthy, full-grown fish, they are deadly for juveniles. And unfortunately, British Columbia's salmon farms, infested with millions of sea lice, are sited right where juvenile salmon (or smolts) must pass through as they migrate out of rivers and streams to the ocean.

http://www.alternet.org/water/142270/how_farm-raised_salmon_are_turning_our_oceans_into_dangerous_and_polluted_feedlots_/

[Metta]

4. Three pounds of wild fish to produce one pound of farmed fish.

http://www.alternet.org/water/142270/how_farm-raised_salmon_are_turning_our_oceans_into_dangerous_and_polluted_feedlots_/?page=3

[DCKit]

7. You can't farm fish in oxygen depleted waters, and this will deplete the O2 even further. n/t