Kampachi Farms is angling to launch one of the first offshore fish farm projects in the Gulf of Mexico, bringing its patented pen technology – first proved in Hawaii – east to federal waters off the coast of Florida.
Kampachi Farms’ Velella Epsilon Mariculture Project pilot proposal is next step for a novel fish pen technology Time Magazine named as one of the 50 Best Inventions of the Year in 2012, according to company co-founder and CEO Neil Anthony Sims. The pilot project, which was given a conditional permit under the Clean Water Act from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on 30 August, will farm up to 20,000 Almaco jack (Seriola rivoliana), also known as yellowtail or amberjack.
However, local fishermen and environmental groups oppose the project and have filed several lawsuits in an attempt to stop it. Hallie Templeton, senior oceans campaigner for Friends of the Earth, told the southwest Florida National Public Radio affiliate WGCU the project could harm ocean health and wild-catch fisheries.
"The EPA is failing coastal communities everywhere by allowing this project to move forward in the Gulf,” she said. “This fish farm will not only hurt Sarasota’s local economy and communities, it will impact the entire Gulf ecosystem and harm native fish throughout the region.”
When he tested his first offshore pilot project in the waters near Kona, Hawaii, Simms ran into similar criticism from local fishermen and environmental interests, he told SeafoodSource. For the Velella project, he is asking the local fishing and boating and diving communities in Sarasota to give his team “a chance to show them the minimal impacts of an offshore net pen array, and phenomenal benefits to be gleaned.”
“The local community in Kona was also previously skeptical, but they are now some of our most ardent supporters,” he said. “The primary goal of the demonstration project is to help the local communities in the Gulf of Mexico to understand the ancillary benefits that offshore aquaculture can bring to fisheries and to recreational tourism.”
Sims said not all ocean environmental groups are against net-pen fish farms in federal waters outside state waters in the U.S. exclusive economic zone, which stretches from 12 miles out from shore to 200 miles out.
“The first is to note that the leaders in the science-driven environmental community – as exemplified by WWF, Conservation International, and The Nature Conservancy – are all now strong advocates for expansion of responsible aquaculture, and they recognize that offshore aquaculture – if sited and managed properly – is one of the least impactful means of animal protein production,” Sims said.
The Velella Epsilon will use a SUBflex submersible net pen system made by GiliOcean Technology, on a single-point mooring, which allows the net pens to pivot as the current direction changes, according to a project outline on Kampachi Farm’s website.
Using top-line technology, and inviting recreational fishermen and snorklers to take advantage of the pen’s function as a fish aggregating device, are ways to allay fears the project will alter or threaten the status quo in the area, Sims said. That’s important to Sims, because its vital this project be successful in order to fulfill his grander vision of growing aquaculture’s role in satisfying domestic seafood demand. That, in turn, will require a more streamlined permit approval process, which will only happen once resistance to aquaculture lessens in the United States, he said.
“Once the Velella Epsilon has demonstrated the technology and benefits of offshore aquaculture to the local communities, then we will engage them in the discussions about how this industry might move forward,” he wrote in a company blog post in 2017. “We will also work with the various agencies to identify areas needing further regulation or clarification of agency requirements, or areas where we could eliminate any redundancies. And, we will make our documentation on this process readily available for future aquaculture industry applicants to use as a template.”
Photo courtesy of Kampachi Farms
