Offshore aquaculture offers abundant opportunities to expand global food production and grow biomass for industrial use (feeds, fertilizers, industrial materials), with minimal impacts. In the U.S. the primary constraint to growth of offshore operations – either research, demonstration or commercial – is the ‘precautionary principle’ approach to the permit process, under both Federal and State jurisdictions. This presentation will review Ocean Era’s ongoing offshore aquaculture initiatives, and provide updates on permit status, anticipated deployment schedules, and recent pivots in project priorities. We then ask: what, really, is the most precautionary approach?
Our Blue Fields project – a deep-cycling macroalgae culture array at a site 8 nm offshore of Kona – is funded by ARPA-E, and is currently in design and permit stages. This array was originally proposed to be closer to shore, using a deep-seawater upwelling system, but an LCA showed that this would be very C-intensive. The current plan is for the array to descend to 200 m depth at night, to allow macroalgae to absorb nutrients, and to then rise to the surface during the day.
Our Velella Epsilon project is pioneering the permitting process in U.S. Federal waters for a single cohort of only 20,000 fish in a demonstration net pen array off Sarasota, FL, in the Gulf of Mexico. This demonstration project was initiated in 2017, under National SeaGrant funding, but permitting has been slowed by anti-aquaculture activists intervening at every opportunity. A recent mooring reconfiguration, and change of target species (from a single-point mooring for kanpachi, to grid-mooring for red drum), will further delay deployment to an unknowable extent.
Ocean Era is also applying for requisite Federal and State permits in Hawai’i State waters for a commercial fish and macroalgae operation off ‘Ewa Beach, Oahu, at a site further offshore from the previous moi farm operation. This project proposes to culture kyphosids (nenue: chubs or drummer - Kyphosus vaigiensis), Pacific threadfin (moi: Polydactylus sexifilis), and amberjack (kahala: kanpachi - Seriola rivoliana) in submersible Polar-Cirkel-style net pens, along with a range of macroalgae (limu) species. Community consultations have been in process since 2019.
The US is heavily reliant on imported seafood that is either fished or farmed under regulatory jurisdictions and food safety standards over which we have no control. Terrestrial animal proteins have significantly greater impacts on consumer health, land- and fresh water-use, and exacerbate the global climate crisis. Offshore aquaculture in Kona, Mexico and Panama has proven to have minimal impact on local ecosystems. The precautionary principle – i.e. the action with least likely negative impacts – therefore compels us all – pioneers, eNGOs, the public and regulators – to pursue research, demonstration and commercial production in US waters with greater alacrity.