An appeal challenging a permit issued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for the Velella Epsilon open-ocean aquaculture project has been largely rejected.
In a 6 May decision, the EPA’s Environmental Appeals Board ruled the EPA permit granted in October 2020 to Ocean Era for its Velella Epsilon project did not violate the Clean Water Act, National Environmental Policy Act, or the Endangered Species Act.
However, the board asked the EPA regional office in charge of permitting the project to update the language in the permit to allow for minimal impact to aquatic ecosystems and marine species in the Gulf of Mexico as a result of discharge from the farm.
The Velella Epsilon farm would be located 45 miles southwest of Sarasota, Florida, U.S.A. and would farm 20,000 almaco jack, a fish native to the Gulf of Mexico, in one net-pen.
The appeal of the EPA permit was filed in November 2020 by a coalition that included the Center for Food Safety, Recirculating Farms Coalition, Friends of the Earth, Center for Biological Diversity, Food and Water Watch, Healthy Gulf, Suncoast Waterkeeper, and the Tampa Bay Waterkeeper.
“This decision is … a sound refutation of the appeals. The EAB found the appeals to be baseless,” Ocean Era CEO Neil Anthony Sims said in an email to SeafoodSource.
The appeal argued the Environmental Protection Agency failed to evaluate potential harm of the project in regard to antibiotics, excess food, light pollution, escaped fish, pathogens, and parasites. The appeals board rejected all of those concerns, ruling they were either sufficiently addressed or that they fell outside the scope of the permit review.
The only area where the board found fault with the permit was its contradictory language on the issue of wastewater; One portion of the permit requires permitted discharges to “not cause unreasonable degradation,” while a separate section concludes that unreasonable degradation is “not likely” to occur.
“EPA admitted that it made inconsistent statements in its decision to approve the first-ever offshore finfish aquaculture facility,” Center for Food Safety Associate Attorney Meredith Stevenson said. “As the appeals board noted, EPA needs to determine with certainty that the facility will not harm the marine environment. If it does, we will continue to watchdog EPA to ensure it meets legal requirements for its assessment of this facility, as well as any others in the future to protect aquatic ecosystems, species, and public health.”
Marianne Cufone, the executive director of Recirculating Farms and the co-founder of the Don't Cage Our Oceans coalition, threatened further legal action if the EPA fails to meet what her group determines to be legal requirements for the project.
"It is good news that the Environmental Appeals Board recognized shortcomings in the EPA permitting process,” Cufone said. “We hope the agency will take time to review and acknowledge the dangers associated with offshore finfish aquaculture, and we will not need to pursue future legal action."
Sims said Ocean Era is committed to the Velella Epsilon project despite threats of further legal action by anti-aquaculture groups.
“We persevere,” Sims said. “It’s worthwhile reminding this is meant to be a demonstration pen, a single cohort of one batch of fish in one pen. It’s pretty definitively clear that there will be no significant impact from one cohort of fish 40 miles offshore.”
Sims said he doesn’t understand why so-called environmental groups are fighting against a project that is directed at addressing several United Nations sustainable development goals and that advanced the U.N. High Level Panel on Global Climate Change in the Oceans’ recommendation that humanity transition to eating more marine sources of foods.
“We feel that it’s a moral imperative on several levels,” Sims said. “Because we can’t increase wild-fish capture sustainably any more, the difference has to come from aquaculture. From a moral perspective, we cannot continue to rely on imports of seafood – that’s just eating everybody else’s lunch, and there are environmental concerns from that as well … From a global perspective, from a U.S. economic and environmental perspective, and from a consumer health perspective, it’s imperative that the U.S. starts to produce more seafood.”
Ocean Era still doesn’t have a timeline for actually beginning farming operations at Velella Epsilon, Sims said.
“We don’t know when [we’ll start],” he said. “We have every hope but no great expectations that it will be within this year.”
Photo courtesy of Ocean Era
