 |
| Open Ocean Salmon Farm Pens |
Alaska Science Forum, June 27, 1990
Article #984: Fuss Over Farming Fish
"Otolith's sustainable seafood is always wild and never farmed. This article is shared for the purpose of understanding that Alaska's legislature in 2014 continues to debate the risks and benefits of wild vs. farmed salmon in Alaska's state waters within 200 miles of its coast. Wild salmon represent millions of years of evolutionary efficiency in their daily pursuit of food to fuel their life's journey and the growth of their size and weight. Their natural diet makes them especially healthful for human consumption and still incredibly affordable compared to other comparable quality nutritious foods that deliver a superior taste and enjoyment like wild salmon. Farming Alaska's salmon species will inevitably reduce the quality and healthfulness of the salmon and increase their price", Amanda Bossard, Director and Founder of Otolith Sustainable Seafood.
This article is provided as a public service by the Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska Fairbanks, in cooperation with the UAF research community. Carla Helfferich is a science writer at the Institute.
The right of Alaska's salmon to live free was one
of the battles engaging Alaska's legislators during the past
session--or so the debates over fish farming might have seemed to
someone catching only the occasional headline or sound bite.
Legislative action killed possible salmon farms for now, but some
Alaskans are still puzzled over the fuss.
Theoretically, the idea seems sound. Instead of
letting young hatchery-produced salmon run away to sea, they are
raised in big floating pens. Safe from natural predators and offshore
factory ships, they are fed and tended in a protected patch of sea.
The eventual result is a living for the fish farmer and a few hired
hands and a better supply of affordable and good-quality seafood for
consumers.
Of course, problems appear once fish farming gets
past the theory stage. Early this year, Science magazine gave
space to some controversies about the industry in Washington state
that echoed--and perhaps clarified--the arguments in
Alaska.
The business is not brand new. The Japanese have
reared salmon in floating pens for decades; Norway and British
Columbia saw their fish-farming businesses boom during the 1980s.
Those track records were cited by salmon farm advocates, who point
out Alaska's need to capture a market share for this kind of
seafood.
Opponents argue that the business is too risky.
Typical Puget Sound salmon farms concentrate 50,000 to 100,000 fish
in a two-acre space. A farm that size produces as much organic waste
in a year as does a town of 10,000 people. Alaska's waters are still
very clean, but how many such pollution point sources would it take
to ruin that? What about the health of bottom-dwelling organisms
forced to live under an underwater rain of fishy sewage?
Furthermore, uneaten food and fish wastes are
high-nitrogen pollutants--potential fertilizer for toxic algal
blooms. Though there's no hard evidence that salmon farms have caused
eruptions of deadly algae, toxic blooms have driven some Canadian
fish farms into bankruptcy. And, reportedly, the largest maritime
action ever launched in Norway was the towing of salmon pens away
from a slimy mass of toxic algae.
Imported stock could bring imported diseases,
which might spread into the free-ranging salmon populations. Fish
farming opponents noted the mysterious 1989 outbreak of a deadly
disease in two Pacific Coast salmon hatcheries: viral hemorrhagic
septicemia had never been seen before in North America. Again, no
hard evidence links the appearance of the disease to salmon farming,
but the nervous drew their own conclusions from the fact that
Scandinavian stocks of Atlantic salmon are the preferred source for
pen-reared fish.
Whenever animals live crowded together, risk of
disease increases. Just as feed-lot operators provide steers with
antibiotic-laced grain, salmon farmers spike their fish chow with
drugs to prevent or treat outbreaks of bacterial diseases. That can
promote growth of strains of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and not
just in the pens. Resistant organisms have been found near Japanese
fish farms, and the antibiotics themselves have been found months
later in sediments underlying the farms. The salmon farms thus could
lead to super-tough strains of the diseases already present in North
Pacific waters.
In Washington, these concerns led to an unlikely
alliance among fishermen worried about competition and potential
fishery damage, environmentalists, and owners of waterfront property
(who were as much concerned about their views being spoiled as about
water quality or sport fishing). Responding to those pressures, the
state commissioned University of Washington researchers to study farm
effects.
The scientists suggested using native rather than
imported salmon eggs for farm stock. They also recommended siting
pens in areas of high current flow, in effect falling back on the
saying, "The solution to pollution is dilution. " That was not enough
for the Sierra Club and the Environmental Protection Agency, who have
pressured the state to require discharge permits for the farms under
the Clean Water Act.
The fuss continues in Puget Sound, but the 13
salmon farms now operating there continue their annual harvest of
several thousand tons of fish. Washington state officials still back
the idea of continuing the farms and adding more; Science
magazine quotes Judith Freeman, of that state's Department of
Fisheries, as saying when hard facts do not exist, "all you can do is
talk to the researchers who know the most about the area." The state
thinks it's done that.
That absence of hard facts would trouble most
researchers I know. It may be just as well that Alaskans wait and
watch before we add salmon farms to our short list of potential
business opportunities.
Comments