Aquaculture – The Future is Here
by the Fishermen’s Voice Staff
Fish tanks, Australis Aquaculture, Turners Falls, MA. The company spent 30 years working to develop an indoor recirculating system that optimizes the habitat for the fish. Australis has found barrmundi to be appealing in the market place. Australis photo
Fin fish aquaculture in the U.S. has not developed the way it has in some parts of the world. That is expected to change soon and in a big way. What has developed in the U.S. is land based marine fin fish aquaculture. Three of the land based U.S. Fin fish aquaculture have all but eliminated the large controversial and expensive environmental footprint of open pen ocean fin fish aquaculture practiced in Norway, Scotland, Canada and Chile.
Since the 1980’s a few pioneers in U.S. fin fish aquaculture have worked to build a sustainable, profitable system on land. The corporate-goverment aquaculture alliance in Canada has released plans to expand the number of fish pens in Canadian waters. Lobstermen in New Brunswick, Canada, protested the existing pens because they threatened their fishing grounds. Grand Manan, Canada lobsterman Laurence Cooke said the problem is that the aquaculture industry insists on placing the open fish pens in protected harbors. Which, Cooke said, are where the lobster spawn and are therefore under the greatest threat.
Michael Chadwick has worked for the Canadian Federal Department of Fisheries and is now involved with the Canadian Atlantic Lobster Sustainability Foundation. Chadwick said marine fin fish aquaculture, “can’t be done on land, it’s too expensive.” The founder of the largest indoor aquaculture facility in the world, Bill Martin, said, “It’s too expensive not to do it.”
Fin fish aquaculture is not new, the Chinese did it on land 3,000 years ago. Marine open net pen fin fish operations on an industri- al scale in the ocean is new. Rais- ing large fish like salmon and the larger GMO versions are where the profits have been. However, critics of the model point to down stream fish and feed wastes dumped on other existing fisheries. The need to pour chemical pesticides and anti- biotics into open net pens create a threat to other species like lobster. It’s critics say mortality rates from disease, predators and storms are consuming the edge the marine open pen fin fish aquaculture industry has had from being able to use the public resource to dispose of waste products.
First of the sockeye salmon produced at Willowfield Farm, BC, Canada. The land-based water recirculating system uses no chemical pesticides, antibiotics or growth hormones. Fish and feed waste is used as on-site plant nutrient and recovered, dried and sold as fertilizer. Because they are anadromous fish salmon can thrive in fresh and salt water. Willowfield Farm photo
Long before marine fin fish aquaculture became controversial Josh Goldman was developing a Hampshire College marine biology project 30 years ago into what was then a futuristic vision for a sustainable, ecologically sound and profitable seafood supply business.
Australis Aquaculture is now hitting it’s stride raising Australis barrumdi, said CEO and founder Goldman. Using a closed, indoor recirculating water system in an industrial park in western Massachusetts, Australis produces live plate fish for domestic restaurant markets. Many of these are Asian restaurants where the fish are kept alive until minutes before being served. Live plate fish has long been popular in Asian and European markets. In Asia it’s roots are in the pre-refrigeration and available crushed ice era when only live meant documented fresh.
He has been producing barrumdi, a fish native to Australia and the Indo-Pacific region for the last ten years. Prior to that he said he tried several species with mixed results. Tilapia was one of the fish Goldman tried for a number of years. Getting to where they are today has been the result of working out the science, habitat, logistics and marketing of a select fish for an existing and in some ways a very particular market. This was by no means a no brainer.
Goldman said he has always been a proponent of land based fin fish aquaculture. “We are in a temperature climate. Fish are cold blooded animals and to maximize growth land based operations can control temperature through the building’s insulation. Water temperature can be controlled to maximize growth and year round spawning,” he said. On shore the tropical marine barrumdi in a temperature controlled environment will spawn year round. Every 45 days it will spawn new fingerlings. In 8 months they are live market ready at 1 ½ pounds. Plate size is about 80% of that weight. Goldman expects burrundi to become a mainstay for consumers.
Selecting the appropriate fish, the best technology and intended markets is difficult but essential. Goldman tried raising stripped bass for example, but found they were difficult in captivity. These migratory fish were not good for being tank raised, said Goldman. They would raise their dorsal fin spines and pierce the flesh of other bass in the tank.
Australis spawns barrumdi in its natural salt water habitat. When they are 4 weeks old fish are ready, as anadromous fish, to transition to fresh water and the next four stages of development. Learning to bring these barrumdi though the five stages of their natural development was a big part of the necessary learning curve. Filtering and pumping salt water is more expensive. “Capital costs are high and on shore saltwater fish farming is very knowledge intensive,” said Goldman. The anadromous factor was especially important because the salt water habitat was not a permanent requirement or cost.
Fingerlings are raised in what is more salt brine and then move to fresh water.
A system of filters make the fresh water in the system reusable. The first filters out fish waste. A second biological filter removes ammonia and nitrates. A third filter converts nitrates to harmless nitrogen gas and another removes carbon dioxide. A small amount of fresh water is drawn from wells to top up the system. This is necessary to dilute concentrations of some elements that are not filtered out.
Australis maintains water, environmental and habitat quality through technology and appropriate species selection. Goldman tried raising stripped bass, but found they were difficult in captivity. These migratory fish were not good for being tank raised, said Goldman. They would raise their dorsal fin spines and pierce the flesh of other bass in the tank. Barrumdi have a calmer disposition. They naturally migrate to rivers after spawning in salt water.
Willowfield Farm in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada sent the first of their anadromous sockeye salmon to market in early April 2013. Willowfield is 2 miles from the Pacific Ocean and 20 miles outside Vancouver. Like Josh Goldman at Australis, Don Read, Willowfield Farm owner and founder, has taken the long, research science based route to sustainably raised marine fin fish. Trumping the open pen industrial model with local market demand and a near zero impact on the environment, Read said he has sought to develop uses and products for what might have been seen as waste.
Read points out that he is not an opponent of open pen ocean finfish facilities, “Willowfield is just producing a different product,” he said. Read has been in the aquaculture business for 20 years. He has raised a range of different fish, including talapia. He said he settled on sockeye salmon because it is an anadromous fish that inhabits fresh and salt water at different times of its life. That made it seem a good candidate for land based rearing in a mostly fresh water habitat. Read said no one had tried raising sockeye because it was considered impossible.
Blue Ridge Aquaculture, Martinsville, Virginia 2012. The 80,000 square foot build- ing, right, is the world’s largest indoor producer of Talapia. Blue Ridge ships 10,000 to 20,000 lbs. of talapia a day and 4.4 million lbs. annually. Nearly all the waste is recovered. The two long white greenhouses, top center, produce hydroponic plants in the recirculated fish tank water. Blue Ridge Aquaculture photo
As did Goldman at Australis, Read invested in science and data at that would reproduce a natural habitat for the animals he was raising. A habitat that would support them, protect them, promote health and maximize development within the genetic context they have evolved over centuries. Recognizing the importance of serving the needs of the fish has been an important component in the move to land based fin fish aquaculture.
Willowfield Farm’s low environmental impact relies on a tiered gravity flow tank to tank system. Tanks are built into a hillside. Water from one flows into the next below. Fresh water from a 200 foot deep artisian well backs up the recirculated water that flows continuously through the tank system. After the last tank the water flows into a bio-filter settlement pond. There are no chemicals or antibiotics used in the system. Solids, fish waste and feed, settle out of the water in the pond. They become nutrients for plants growing in the pond. The sediment on the bottom of the pond is collected, dried and marketed as a dried plant fertilizer. The water is pumped and continuously reused. As the fish grow they are are sorted by size and moved from one tank to the next.
Sockeye salmon grow to market size in 2 years. Read said he has no plans to enlarge the Willowfield Farm to increase company profits. Larger scale means more water, additional land, greater and greater demand for all of the resources that make the system work. Expansion he said could happen by finding another suitable location on a hillside with adequate clean water and access to local markets.
Read said his strategy is to remain small and develop a lot of products. Small at this time is 10 employees with $30 million in annual sales.
Near the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains and 150 miles west of Chesapeake Bay in Martinsville, Virginia small is not the plan. Here the world’s largest indoor aquaculture facility and America’s largest talapia farm is in an industrial park on the edge of town. Blue Ridge Aquaculture is also about to become a major supplier of vannanei shrimp. The company uses no chemical pesticides, antibiotics or growth hormones and their fish contain no mercury, pollution or carcinogens, said owner and founder Bill Martin.
Martin has been in the business 30 years. He has seen aquaculture go through a number of transformations and what he might describe as leaps forward in those thirty years. Like some other land based operators, Martin has not only built his business, but helped build the industry. Through the use of new science, his own R&D and the use of other new technology he has overcome innumerable obstacles to his vision of sustainably producing aquaculture products with low environmental impacts.
Martin said he is not opposed to open pen finfish aquaculture, but he recognizes that it is the past. “Land based aquaculture is the future. It’s just practical. I’m not a tree-hugger or an environmentalist by nature. I am one because it makes this capitalism that you can see here work so much better,” he said
The scale of the Blue Ridge operation compared to it’s environmental footprint is the factor that most distances Blue Ridge from the Southeast Asian outdoor shrimp ponds and the Canadian and Norwegian open pen ocean operations. Blue Ridge produces 4.4 million pounds of talapia a year in an 80,000 square foot building. They also have a 20,000 square foot greenhouse operation where they maintain broodstock. The nutrient rich waste stream is consumed by plants. The closed containment system recirculates 85% of the water. The nutrient rich waste stream is consumed by greenhouse plants. It also contains feed solids that are fed to shrimp with the balance going to a septic system.
Martin said the future is in closed containment systems. The problems faced outdoors, disease, pests, and prey animals disappear indoors. Martin said the **** Blue Ridge has a mortality rate of 2%. Low by outdoor operation standards and phenomenal when compared to catfish ponds which often have to anticipate a 50% mortality rate. Referring to closed containment capital costs, “It’s not a mom and pop industry anymore,” said Martin.
NOAA Aquaculture Chief Michael Rubino said in a National Public Radio broadcast that, “The entire Norwegian production of salmon, a million tons a year, can be grown in an area about the size of the runways at JFK Airport in New York.” “Rubino is way off on those numbers,” said Martin. He also disagrees with Rubino on open net pen aquaculture. “Net pens have been catastrophic to the environment. Net pens served as a transition stage in the development of fin fish aquaculture, but they are the past,” said Martin.
“NOAA is stuck in the ocean, but the water is not stuck there”, said Martin. “Pumping ocean water 10 miles inland, using it, filtering it and returning it to the ocean is part of a logical progression.
Leaving animals standing still in ocean net pens means something will get them. Sea lice cannot catch up with swift moving wild migratory salmon, but in a net pen they are easy targets for lice and other predators and biological threats. It is time to move on from the net pens,” he said.
Indoor facilities reproduce an environment, without the survival stresses inherent in a wild environment, said Martin. To critics who say it is too expensive to pump sea water to raise marine fish Martin says “It’s too expensive to not do it. It’s the next logical step.” On the scale of efficiencies, Martin said he can “raise a pound of fish in one gallon of water. Low mortality rates are a part of what offsets the costs.”
Rubino, under the U.S. Department of Commerce is developing an aquaculture plan for the U.S.
It will include shellfish species that have evolved to not move around much. According to a NOAA website the plan includes offshore fin fish aquaculture development. How much inshore open pen fin fish aquaculture is part of the equation is not mentioned on the site. In Norway compounding problems with sea lice, escapees, viruses and high mortality rates have led to pressure for change there. Fishermen, environmentalists and other stakeholders here will be watching Norway as as the U.S. plan is evolving.
The gap between domestic and imported seafood is large. The aquaculture plan intended to fill that gap is expected to be large as well. Martin said, “NOAA is behind the curve on aquaculture.” NOAA, he said, is in the ocean business and questions their getting into the seafood business. Developing net pen ocean aquaculture is “looking at the world in the rear view mirror. Aquaculture is an evolving industry. Land based aquaculture is the next logical step. If we have a low impact on the oceans, the oceans can rebound. It is not right to mess up the water that belongs to everyone.”