According to the fishery panel voting on allowing the first commercial offshore fish farms in US waters has been delayed deliberately. The panel said that it will take loner time to review potential effects on the Gulf of Mexico. Commenting on that a key congressman said that the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council had no legal standing to consider such a regulation and critics urged the council to wait for a national policy to be developed.
It is told that the council scheduled another vote for its next meeting in January. Advocates of offshore aquaculture operations in federal waters opined that it’s needed to compete with seafood imports, particularly from Asia, and the use of offshore farms is emerging in Central America, Japan and China. But conservation critics have their own reservation saying that underwater breeding pens could harm recreational fishing and the marine environment.
U.S. Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee that is considering aquaculture legislation, in a letter to the council urging against approving any “piecemeal regulation,” and questioned whether the council had the legal authority to set up an aquaculture permitting system. National Marine Fisheries Service regional administrator Roy Crabtree is of a view that the council acted on advice of its attorney in developing its proposal.
