Institute Seeks to Use Retired Oil Platform Off Ventura for Commercial Fish Farm
A San Diego firm announced Thursday that it wants to use an old oil platform off Ventura County to create a commercial fish farm, the first of its kind on the West Coast to specialize in fin fish.
The nonprofit Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute wants to use Venoco Inc.’s decommissioned Grace platform, in waters about 10 miles west of Ventura, to build an experimental operation that could produce up to 300 tons of fish annually.
The proposal comes amid ongoing debate among federal officials on how to best lower a multibillion-dollar seafood trade deficit by increasing domestic fish production.
The five-year plan would allow Hubbs to grow and sell California yellowtail, bluefin tuna and striped bass raised in four underwater cages, and use deck space on the platform to raise cod, halibut and abalone that would be released into the ocean to increase fish populations.
No fish would be taken from the ocean’s natural stocks as part of the plan, Hubbs officials said. Fish eggs would be hatched into larvae at the institute’s Carlsbad facility and raised to a certain size before being shipped to the platform operation.
Although market prices vary, one ton of fish raised in the operation could fetch $7,000 or more, making 300 tons worth more than $2 million annually. Any profit from the operation, Hubbs officials said, would be used for marine research.
Critics of the proposal, including the Minneapolis-based Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, argue that while fish farming -- known as aquaculture -- is necessary for increasing fish populations, such offshore operations would open the door to privatizing parts of the ocean.
“I just don’t think we need offshore aquaculture in our oceans. It has ominous implications,” institute director Mike Skladany said in an interview. Skladany’s organization supports small, onshore hatcheries, particularly family-owned farms in rural communities.
In a report the institute released this week, Skladany asserts that a bill pending in Congress that encourages the use of decommissioned oil rigs for aquaculture would, if passed, be bad policy and create a “new giant bio-polluting industry.”
Don Kent, a marine biologist and president of the Hubbs project, said that offshore farming was a responsible way to increase fish stocks and that such commercialization was no different from any entity obtaining a legal license to fish for commercial or recreational purposes.
“We are either going to learn how to do this with these experimental programs or we’re going to pass this off to other countries and say, ‘You grow it for us and get it to our tables,’ ” Kent said.
The proposed Hubbs facility would be the first for fin fish in federal waters on the West Coast. Federal jurisdiction extends from the three-mile state limit to 200 miles offshore. About 14 commercial pens for white sea bass dot the coast between San Diego and Santa Barbara, but those are in state waters. Abalone, oyster and mussel farms also span the West Coast.
The Hubbs proposal must pass review from several state and federal agencies. Kent said that if approval came quickly, construction could begin by the end of the year.
