A pilot project for the first large-scale fish farm off the Gulf coast of Sarasota County has received federal approval.
Hawaii-based Ocean Era will create pens 40 miles offshore, where 20,000 red drum — also known as redfish — will be raised for a year.
The company's founder, Neil Anthony Sims, said dwindling stocks of fish make this an alternative to overfishing in the Gulf.
"Somewhere between 85 and 90% of the fish that we eat comes from other countries. And we have no control over how it is grown," he said. "It can be fed who knows what and grown in God knows where, and we just buy it. That's not a system that I would like to see us scale up. I think we need to take more responsibility for our own seafood."
Sims said any environmental impacts will be minimized by being far off shore. He described the one-year pilot project as being in 130 feet of water, with a submersible net pen designed to be able to take a hurricane straight over the top of it, anchored by a "robust" mooring system.
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"As you move into deeper water, better water movement, and over a bare sand substrate, the potential for any ecosystem impacts is significantly reduced," he said. "We're still going to have challenges with aquaculture, be it near shore or offshore, but we are getting a lot smarter really quickly at how to do that."
Opponents, such as Marion Cufone of the nonprofit group Recirculating Farms, said there are a host of problems associated with offshore aquaculture.
"Some of the issues we've seen are escapement of fish. Farmed fish are different behaviorally than wild fish, and them escaping might mean a change in wild fish behavior there," Cufone said.
"We're also concerned about pollution from the projects, excess feed that can go through the mesh cages and end up in the wild, any antibiotics or chemicals that might be used on the cages, the fish, will end up in our waters."
Cufone's group filed an unsuccessful challenge with the federal Environmental Protection Agency. She said they might appeal.
It has taken eight years for the pilot project to wind its way through the federal regulatory process. Sims said the Marine Aquaculture Research for America Act (the MARA Act), has been introduced in Congress. It would authorize the federal government to speed up permitting similar demonstration offshore projects.
"You look at the entirety of the Gulf there and also the Southeast, the potential around the Keys, around Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands — there's phenomenal opportunity there for us to be able to be growing our own seafood and being less reliant on imports," Sims said.
But it could be awhile before the first pen is built. Sims said they need more matching funds to replace a grant they received when they first filed for the permit eight years ago.
