California Aquaculture Association

Shellfish culture practiced in the coastal zone continues a long tradition of beneficial interaction between aquaculture and the environment. Nothing demonstrates the excellence of the marine environmental quality as the harvesting of shellfish that are consumed by satisfied customers that return repeatedly to fulfill their demand for high quality seafood at its best. The California oyster industry that harvests directly from the sea also represents the best of environmental stewardship; it represents a successful aquaculture industry that is a zealous steward of water quality and that provides a rural buffer between coastal development and the marine environment. California abalone growers likewise excel at producing these premium shellfish in a near pristine coastal environment. Almost all customers that frequent the shellfish farms on the California coast would submit that their visit was a high quality interaction with California’s coast.

Despite the immense marine resources in California, marine finfish culture lags far behind developments in other states with similar coastal assets. This situation is likely to continue with current regulatory climate at state and federal levels. Salmon culture is prohibited law in state waters by (SB 245, passed 2003). SB 201 (2006) provides a comprehensive regulatory framework for the regulation and permitting of marine aquaculture. We consider the marine aquaculture regulation so severe that it may eliminate consideration of commercial marine finfish culture in California. Meanwhile, the federal government still lacks a uniform policy for conducting aquaculture in Federal waters.

There is a hopeful exception to the status of marine aquaculture in California. The OREHAP funded California White Seabass Project conducted by the Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute in San Diego has developed a hatchery with the potential to significantly enhance a depleted white sea bass resource, one that once was one of the most valuable of California’s fisheries. The program, exempt from the regulation under SB 201, operates a hatchery in Carlsbad and rears fish in net pen cages at several offshore locations in Southern California where they grow to a size viable for release in offshore waters. This showcase program demonstrates positive interaction of aquaculture technology and environmental stewardship and the desirability of properly planned marine finfish aquaculture.

By 2025, at our current consumption rate with expected population growth, the U.S. will need more than 1.5 million metric tons of additional seafood worth more than 10 billion dollars to the US economy. With marine capture fisheries essentially flat and U.S. aquaculture growth now growing at relatively low rates, only marine aquaculture production has the potential to make a significant contribution to this challenge. The alternatives should be of great concern to every citizen of California. Either we will eat less fish or we will use a great deal of our money to finance the continued overexploitation of marine fisheries in the rest of the world. The California Aquaculture Association supports removal of barriers to marine aquaculture and its eventual expansion as a significant food production resource.