Author: Audrey Fox

AQUAA Act paves the way for industrialization of marine waters, threatens local fishing businesses and ecosystems

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Representative Collin Peterson (D-MN) has introduced a bill that would authorize the federal government to issue permits for industrial ocean finfish farms. These facilities would use giant floating cages to cultivate fish in ocean waters all around the U.S. coast. Chemicals, diseases and untreated waste from these farms flow into the open ocean and pose environmental hazards and health risks to people and wildlife and threaten the livelihood of local fishermen and coastal communities.

For many years, powerful corporations, assisted by the very U.S. agencies tasked with protecting and managing our ocean resources, have collectively been pushing for development of industrialized fish farms off the coasts of our shoreline communities.

Proposed offshore finfish farm would threaten ocean environment, local economy

SARASOTA, Fla. – During a public hearing held by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today, Sarasota community members and the Don’t Cage Our Ocean Coalition spoke out against plans to allow what would be the only offshore finfish farm cage operation in the U.S. waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

Originally posted in The Chilliwack Progress

It was just one sentence about removing open-net fish farms from B.C. waters by 2025.

The PM’s letter pledges to: “Work with the province of British Columbia and Indigenous communities to create a responsible plan to transition from open net-pen salmon farming in coastal British Columbia waters by 2025, and begin work to introduce Canada’s first-ever Aquaculture Act.”

Originally published in the Herald Tribune

Florida’s coast is in trouble: One of the worst and longest “red tides” in state history ran from 2017 to 2019, killing hundreds of marine mammals, turtles, and fish, and now it’s back; we also are experiencing the biggest Sargassum “seaweed” bloom in the world; and a devastating widespread coral die-off continues.

All of these are suspected to be related to pollution, as too many chemicals from sewage and other wastewater flow into ocean and coastal waters around Florida.

As the ecosystem struggles to recover, a new threat looms — one that will dump even more pollutants into marine waters and worsen the impacts of the red tide. It is a threat most Florida residents are completely unaware of: industrial ocean finfish farming.