Aquaculture America 2024

February 18 - 21, 2024

San Antonio, Texas

ENVISIONING OUR AQUACULTURE FUTURE: A DESCRIPTION OF OCEAN ERA’S PROPOSED OFFSHORE FISH AND SEAWEED FARM (O’AHU, HAWAI'I)

Jennica Lowell Hawkins*, Neil Anthony Sims

Ocean Era, Inc

 73-970 Makako Bay Dr. #202

Kailua Kona, HI 96470

jennica@ocean-era.com

 



 Development of a domestic offshore aquaculture industry remains nearly stagnant. Only Maine and Hawai’i have food fish farms in their coastal waters. As an isolated Island State, Hawai’i is almost completely reliant on transocean imports for  nearly everything,  staple foods, fossil fuels (for energy and transporation ), building materials and consumer goods.  With an eye to make our home more self-sufficient , while nurturing our incredible ocean resources, Ocean Era will be applying for the requisite State and Federal permits to install and operate an open ocean fish and  seaweed  farm off O’ahu’s south coast.

The Nation’s first open ocean fish farm (HOARP, later Hukilau Foods) was  operated from 1999 - 2014, close to our proposed location.  We propose to raise a variety of marine finfish that will serve our local seafood market, as well as be exported to the  Continental US. The fish species  that will be included in the permit application  include Nenue (Kyphosus vaiginesis) , Moi (Polydactylus sexfilis) ,  and Kanpachi (Seriola rivoliana) . Since th e waters offshore of O’ahu  at our prosed site are  too nutrient poor to support seaweed growth, the seaweed lines will be added to the system after two or three cages are stocked with fish.  Caulerpa lentilifera , Halymenia hawaiiana and Gracilaria parvispora are the types of seaweed under consideration for production.