The federal government continues to take full advantage of an unprecedented time for America to push forward controversial and shameful corporate agendas. As we face uncertainty in all aspects of life, from physical and mental health to the economic crisis and ongoing racial injustice occurring across the country, it is nothing less than unethical for the government to maintain any sort of ‘business as usual’ attitude toward legitimizing offshore aquaculture in the U.S.
Category: Frontpage
Trump admin ignores public process requirements to push forward destructive industrial projects
WASHINGTON — The White House issued another sweeping Executive Order last week stripping key protections for people and our planet to rush forward development. The order will help greenlight projects that disproportionately impact communities of color, even amid national protests over systemic racism and police violence.
Trump Exploits COVID-19 Crisis to Advance Corporate Aquaculture Agenda
Today, amid the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, the White House issued a controversial Executive Order to streamline offshore aquaculture permitting and gut other protective regulatory processes. The move threatens our ocean ecosystem, local fishing communities and coastal economies.
The Executive Order on Promoting American Seafood Competitiveness and Economic Growth mandates federal agencies to craft a program for rapid authorization of industrial offshore aquaculture facilities, which use giant floating cages to cultivate finfish, allowing toxic pollution to flow into open waters.
WhyHunger Podcast: Don’t Cage Our Ocean
In honor of Earth Day, our latest episode has us speaking with fellow member of the Don’t Cage Our Ocean Coalition, Hallie Templeton on behalf of Friends of the Earth, on protecting our food and waterways from the impact of industrial aquaculture & how you can get involved.
House Bill Would Carve Oceans into Floating Factory Fish Farms
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.
International examples offer US a blueprint for aquaculture regulation in 2020
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.
Sarasota Community Members, Experts Speak Out Against Proposed Offshore Fish Farm
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.
Fish farm foes take heart from pledge to take aquaculture out of B.C. waters
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.”
Off Sarasota’s coast, a new industrial threat
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.
Broad coalition applauds new bill banning industrial ocean fish farms
Congressman Don Young’s “Keep Fin Fish Free Act” protects oceans from floating factory farms
WASHINGTON – U.S. Congressman Don Young (R-Alaska) introduced the Keep Fin Fish Free Act (H.R. 2467), which places a moratorium on commercial permitting of marine finfish aquaculture facilities in federally controlled areas of the ocean. These facilities routinely cause massive farmed fish spills – like the August 2017 spill of more than 260,000 non-native Atlantic salmon into Puget Sound – which threaten wild fish stocks by spreading pests and disease, and increasing competition for food, habitat, and reproduction. Facilities also directly discharge a slew of toxins like untreated fish waste and pharmaceuticals; attract and entangle marine mammals and seabirds; and marginalize wild-capture fisheries and coastal economies.