No permits yet in Gulf of Mexico
THERE have been no applications for fish farming permits in the Gulf of Mexico, despite the necessary legislation being in place for more than a year, said the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
The issue was raised at a meeting during Aquaculture America in San Antonio, Texas, reported Aquaculture North America.
Michael Rubino, director of the Office of Aquaculture at NOAA and a panellist at the meeting, said a lawsuit that the agency is facing is ‘delaying people from applying’.
Neil Sims, president of the Ocean Stewards Institute and co-founder of Kampachi Farms, said that as a potential investor he was intimidated by the ‘strident opposition from fishermen’ who would be displaced by the buffer zones around the facilities where they can’t go, and the ‘convoluted, multi-layered permitting process’ involving six agencies’. ‘No one has done this before, and so everyone is fearful.’