SAN DIEGO – Some 90 percent of seafood consumed by Americans is imported – a fact that the Obama administration vowed to start turning around by expanding fish and shellfish farms into federal waters.
Yet nearly two years since the first permit was issued, the United States still has no offshore farms.
The pioneers of offshore aquaculture say their plans have stalled or been abandoned because of the long and expensive federal permitting process that requires extensive environmental monitoring and data collection.
The applicant given the first permit for federal waters in 2014 has spent $1million and not seeded any mussels off Southern California. Another pioneer in Hawaii said there is too much red tape and plans to start his fish farm off Mexico and export to the U.S.
Meanwhile, investors are leery to jump on board with no offshore farms in the water.
“Those jobs could have been in the U.S., the investment could have been in the U.S., but there was no way I could talk to my board of investors when there are no clear regulations set up and the monitoring burden is so ridiculous,” said Neil Sims, CEO of Kampachi Farms…
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