Environmentalists call for EPA to revoke permits for fish farm off Sarasota coast

VENICE – Opponents of Ocean Era’s proposed fish farming demonstration project offshore of south Sarasota County rallied Tuesday at Maxine Barritt Park to urge federal regulators to revoke permits for the operation because of planned changes in both type fish to be raised and the way the containment pen would be anchored to the seafloor. They want the operation to seek a new application from the Environmental Protection Agency.

The media event, which drew a crowd of about three dozen participants and speakers, was designed to underscore points made by attorneys for seven groups or nonprofit organizations already challenging the existing permits in federal court in a June 7 letter to the EPA.

Fear of the environmental impact of concentrated fish waste, as well as health impacts that could transfer to wild fish and the logistics of recreational fishermen who may damage the pens, has united environmentalists, working fishermen and representatives of local governments who fear the economic impact of an unexpected problem.

In the letter to the EPA, attorney William S. Eubanks II, owner and managing attorney at Eubanks & Associates LLC, offered to hold litigation on that suit while the agency considers planned changes by Ocean Era, from raising Almaco jack in a net pen anchored by one line mounted to a swivel to raising redfish in a net pen anchored at four points.

“Our basic argument is that this permit that we could litigate about for years longer should be revoked by the EPA and based on this new information, this new proposal, they should come up with a new permit application,” said Justin Bloom, founder of Sarasota-based Suncoast Waterkeeper.

Dennis Peters, executive director of Gulfstream Aquaculture and a partner on Velella Epsilon fish farm with Neil Anthony Sims, CEO of Ocean Era Inc., previously said that a manufacturer to create the swivel-point mooring system for a single net pen couldn't be found, which prompted the switch to the four-point system. The switch to redfish was market driven.

Suncoast Waterkeeper is part of a coalition that also includes Food & Water Watch, Recirculating Farms Coalition, Center for Food Safety, Sierra Club, Healthy Gulf, and Tampa Bay Waterkeeper, which are part of a suit in federal appeals court that challenges the EPA’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System Permit, issued in September 2020 and reissued in revised form in June 2022.

Cris Costello, senior organizing manager for the Sierra Club in Florida, called the permit change a “new twist” to the fight to stop the proposed aquaculture project.

“This is the moment, the new moment to wield our collective opposition,” Costello said. “That’s what we’re doing here today.”

Ironically Maxine Barritt Park was once a beachfront wastewater treatment plant that discharged effluent into the gulf.

Costello – who noted that governments in Florida have worked to curb the discharge of land-based nutrients that can feed red tide into the Gulf – said the proposed fish farm is even worse.

“This project represents a direct import of nutrient pollution, nitrogen and phosphorus into the water,” Costello said.

Environmental fears drive fish farm opposition

The proposed site for Ocean Era’s Velella Epsilon net pen project is roughly 45 miles southwest of Sarasota. Its specific latitude and longitude, according to the permit, would be west of Venice and north of Englewood.

Casey Streeter, a Matlacha-based commercial fisherman, noted that his group, Florida Commercial Watermen’s Conservation has long opposed what he called  “the industrialization of our oceans.”

“The negative consequences would really be irreversible,” he added, citing things like red tide, transmission of disease from the penned fish to those in the wild, and damage from hurricanes.

“If we have red tides, what is the responsibility of these companies to get the fish out of the water so they don’t further contribute to our red tides?" Streeter said. “We’re worried about genetically inferior fish getting into breeding populations."

Streeter contended that the water is too warm to farm redfish – which is farmed commercially on land-based operations in northern Gulf Coast states − and the weather too extreme.

Had net pens been offshore Fort Myers when Hurricane Ian hit, Streeter said, “I’d be cleaning these pens out of the mangroves.”

Siesta Key resident Dr. Neal Schleifer, seconded that concern.

“Imagine the potential problems if this facility was in place during Hurricane Ian and the subsequent massive red tide outbreak,” said Schleifer, who has also followed the project on a variety of webinars – including one that discussed concerns over a potential demonstration project off of Pensacola that would be operated by New York-based Manna Fish Farms – though Ocean Era is farther along in the process.

“This is a test case for opening federal waters to private, industrial fish farms, for giving away the public’s heritage with no benefit to the public,” Schleifer said.

‘Camel’s nose under the tent'

Bloom noted that while Ocean Era’s proposal is just one project, the bigger concern is a proliferation of fish farms up and down the Gulf Coast.

“It’s kind of like the camel’s nose under the tent,” Bloom said.

The United States Aquaculture Atlas, a document released in November 2021 by NOAA, identified potential fish farming opportunity areas, referenced the growing demand for seafood – which comprises roughly 20% of animal protein consumed – as the global population increases from an estimated 7.9 billion people to 8.5 billion people by 2030. It also documents overharvesting of a dwindling fish stock as a main reason to pursue offshore aquaculture.

The three most promising Gulf of Mexico areas are in federal waters off of Pinellas County, Sarasota County and Collier County.

Meanwhile the federal government continues to establish the framework to promote aquaculture in the Gulf and elsewhere.

On June 7, Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, reintroduced the bipartisan Advancing the Quality and Understanding of American Aquaculture Act, which would establish national standards for sustainable offshore aquaculture.

It would also make the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration the lead federal agency and have it oversee the federal permit system and develop grant programs to spur the industry.

“It’s unfortunate that we’re going to be the test site for this first one so any problems that are going to occur in this process are going to happen to us first,” Streeter said.. “And we will be stuck in the consequences.”

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Groups want EPA to revoke permits for aquaculture project near Venice