Offshore Fish Farming

Maybe someday off Maine or BC, but never off Alaska. Fish farming is banned by law in Alaska to protect wild fish stock genetics from escaped inferior farmed fish.

By the way, Solyent Green is a movie reference. Can’t think of the name of the 40 year old movie at the moment. A significant component of the food source Solyent Green was human remains.

Soylent Green is People!!!

OK I had to google it. I’m not a film buff.
Why do you guys keep on referring everything to films and TV series, as if it is the best thing since sliced bread?

[QUOTE=ombugge;195986]OK I had to google it. I’m not a film buff.
Why do you guys keep on referring everything to films and TV series, as if it is the best thing since sliced bread?[/QUOTE]

see also: culture. See also: shared experience. See also: mythology. See also: story telling

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Ok, not offshore but onshore in Main:


Provided nobody start a “not in my backyard” campaign that is.

Maine has a lot of aquaculture, including salmon. Cooke Aquaculture (Canadian) is a major player in Maine, as they are in Norway and the rest of the world.

Cooke Aquaculture also owns Icicle Seafoods in Seattle and Alaska (wild salmon only in Alaska, no salmon aquaculture allowed), and Omega Protein (wild caught Menhaden based fish meal in Louisiana and Virginia).

NIMBYs are a problem everywhere in the US.

http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/aquaculture/docs/economics_report/econ_report_all.pdf

Just an old-ish little study by NOAA on this subject. I guess, as with everything else, it’s a supply and demand issue in the US. Farmed salmon is viewed as “unhealthy” and “does not taste good”. Otherwise, the aquaculture stuff going on all over, from Maine to the Chesapeake Bay to the entire West Coast is based around what people want and what are they willing to pay for it.

Another more recent article concerning this issue in the US. http://www.takepart.com/article/2016/01/15/seaworld-fish-farm-environment

There is a concept that has been worked on by a company called Roxel Aqua based in Stavanger Norway.It looks an expensive option but if all countries adopt the same principle of offshore aqua culture it should even the playing field.
https://youtu.be/P1fuxns_Xkw

The key to the proposed Nordic Aquafarm project in Main is that it is HIGHTECH and ONSHORE, not floating cages or earthen dams.
They will be with full control of the water quality and temperature to optimize the conditions for the fish at all stages, from hatching, larvae and smolt stages to the growing out basins.

That eliminate many of the problems associated with fish farming, such as pollution and spreading of sickness to wild fish population.

But it add one problem; the fish will loose natural resistance to viruses and bacterias, thus the need for absolute cleanliness, otherwise the risk of sickness is acute.

In the crippeling shipbuilding and repair crisis in the 1980’s Mitsubishi came up with a way of using their large dry dock in Singapore.
They started hightech Prawn rearing at what today is Keppel FELS Pioneer Yard. Great success at first, but when a virus got into the system they lost the entire stock , from seed prawns to ready for market.

A lot has been learnt since then, but it is still a potential problem. (Not only for Prawns and fish, but for over protected humans as well)

Newfoundland and Labrador’s Department of Municipal Affairs and Environment, has said ok to Bergen-based Grieg Seafoods plans to make the largest aquaculture project in Canada. This article presents the supporters’ and the critics’ views. I’m finding critics to be more compelling at the moment.

Not for long if the Gang of Orange have their way: