[See NMFS-NOAA Disapproval of Permit for Aquaculture Feasibility Study]
ST. PETERSBURG - Federal officials have rejected a controversial proposal by a Madeira Beach company to set up Florida's first offshore fish farm 33 miles into the Gulf of Mexico.
Florida Offshore Aquaculture's application included "numerous false statements" and plagiarized information from a study that the University of Miami did for a fish farm in Puerto Rico, officials said.
| Federal
officials cite environmental concerns and false statements and plagiarism in the Florida Offshore Aquaculture application. |
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Fisheries Service also cited serious environmental concerns, including water pollution from the fish feed.
In announcing the decision last week, the agency said it will spend the next two years studying the potential environmental impact of fish farms. No permits would be issued for any offshore aquaculture in the gulf during that time.
"We're toast," said company founder Joseph "Jody" Symons, a retired Motorola salesman. He said Monday he was unsure whether his company will appeal the decision or just give up.
Co-founder Tommy Powell, a computer expert who in the 1970s launched the Sound Advice electronics chain to launder drug smuggling profits, sounded a defiant note. In an e-mail, Powell contended that Florida Offshore Aquaculture did not get a fair hearing before federal officials, which he said violated the company's right to due process.
He declined to elaborate, citing his objections to previous St. Petersburg Times coverage of the company: "Anything I told you, you would twist it around to suit your quest for sensationalism."
Symons, Powell and a third founder, charter boat captain Tommy Butler, formed the company in 2002. Their plan called for raising thousands of cobia, amberjack, pompano and other species in cone-shaped net cages anchored to the sandy bottom 33 miles south-southwest of John's Pass. Once the fish were big enough, they would be sold to seafood companies.
But even aquaculture enthusiasts wondered whether the project could work. The cages would be farther from shore than any previous aquaculture operation in the United States, leading to questions about how closely Symons and the others could monitor what was happening there.
None of the three founders have any experience with aquaculture. Butler, the only one with any experience with fish, was on probation for growing marijuana in his home. He also failed to pay thousands of dollars in federal fines.
Environmental groups such as the Ocean Conservancy mounted a campaign challenging the project. The farm-raised fish could develop diseases that spread to wild fish, they said. Excess feed for the fish could pollute the water, they warned.
The campaign succeeded in generating more than 300 letters opposing the application from Florida Offshore Aquaculture, federal officials said. The only support came from the state agriculture department, which helped Florida Offshore Aquaculture officials draft the application.
Meanwhile, questions cropped up about the the company's application, which said the state fish hatchery at Port Manatee and biologists from the Florida Marine Research Institute in St. Petersburg would help tag the fish and check their health.
When a Times reporter contacted hatchery and FMRI officials in August, they said that was not true. Symons then promised to change the application.
In September, University of Miami professor Daniel Bennetti said Florida Offshore Aquaculture had copied, word-for-word, "entire sections and pages" of a study the university had done for a Puerto Rico fish farm.
Bennetti said the sections copied included the water temperature and salinity of the site, suggesting Symons' group did no research on their own proposed farm site.
Symons said Monday that they conducted a scientific study, but he inadvertently copied Bennetti's information.
Members of the Gulf of Mexico Fisheries Management Council posed more than a dozen questions to Symons in September. The council recommended denying the permit.
Initially, NOAA Fisheries found the project would have no significant impact, but the alleged falsehoods and plagiarism doomed the company's application. "The applicants have raised serious doubts regarding their credibility," a NOAA Fisheries attorney, B. Michael McLemore, wrote in November in an internal memo.
- Times staff researcher Cathy Wos contributed to this story.
source: http://www.sptimes.com/2003/12/30/Southpinellas/Agency_sinks_proposal.shtml 5jan04
A federal fisheries council voted Wednesday to recommend turning down a permit allowing a Madeira Beach company to start an offshore aquaculture operation in the Gulf of Mexico, 33 miles southwest of John's Pass.
Members of the Gulf of Mexico Fisheries Management Council raised more than a dozen questions about the application from Florida Offshore Aquaculture, including who would clean up any pollution and whether the principals had any expertise.
The council then voted to recommend that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration turn down the application, the first such offshore aquaculture project ever proposed off the Florida coast and one of the first in the gulf. The company proposes to raise cobia, amberjack and other fish species in conical net cages anchored to the gulf's sandy bottom.
The NOAA fisheries office is awaiting recommendations from other federal agencies before making a decision.
The project is the brainchild of three men - a retired Motorola salesman, a charter boat captain on probation for growing marijuana in his home and a computer expert who in the 1980s served six years in federal prison for smuggling drugs. None has any experience with aquaculture.
source: http://www.sptimes.com/2003/09/11/State/Panel_recommends_deni.shtml 5jan04
A new Madeira Beach company is on the verge of becoming the first in Florida to operate a commercial fish farm in the Gulf of Mexico.
Florida Offshore Aquaculture Inc. would be one of the few marine fish-farming businesses in the country if regulators grant the company an Exempted Fish Permit.
The privately held company plans to establish a fish farm composed of huge underwater cages placed 33 miles west-southwest of Johns Pass.
The idea is so new that if a permit is granted, the project would serve as a basis for creating regulations, monitoring guidelines and law governing marine fish farms.
The permit would authorize using the farm as a two-year study of growing commercial quantities of fish in an offshore environment.
For the company, the project's business model aims at double-digit profit percentage and eventual employment of about 20, said Jody Symons, one of three Florida Offshore Aquaculture partners.
The firm has three support vessels for the project and now is courting investors.
"A $6-million investment would be a Cadillac, but I think we can get by at the start with $3.5 million," Symons said. "We're not fishermen, we're farmers. We're going to have a product that is consistent in size and quality and in great demand."
Each cage -- made of Spectra fiber netting -- is 2,900 cubic meters. Each costs about $120,000 installed.
The company expects the biggest overhead to be fish food, which will cost about $80,000 per harvest. Divers already employed by Butler's commercial and charter fishing operation will do the underwater work on the farm.
Florida Offshore Aquaculture is consulting with distributors for marketing harvests.
Symons said sales to the West Coast, where cobia would bring at least $4.50 per pound, will be more profitable than local markets. Cobia grow to about 16 pounds in a year.
Overseas distribution is under consideration to maximize the company's return, he said. Sushi-grade amberjack sells for up to $15 per pound in Japan.
The company plans to start with four cages and eventually use eight, Symons said. The cages will be stocked with juvenile cobia, mahi mahi, greater amberjack, Florida pompano, red snapper and cubera snapper.
The 1-square-mile farm is part of a 6-mile area of sandy bottom in water 109 feet deep. The cages would be anchored and submerged 50 feet deep, protecting them from hurricanes.
Currents in the area will flush the cages with 1.2 billion gallons of water daily, which Symons said studies show would alleviate any potential for pollution.
"We'll be under strict monitoring guidelines," said Tommy Powell, another partner. "They have regulations in other countries, and we need them here."
The partners have spent two years gathering information and presenting their project to state and federal regulators.
The National Marine Fisheries Service is seeking public comment on the project. The Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers also are reviewing it.
"This type of aquaculture is a common practice elsewhere in the world," said Joe Hendrix, an aquaculture consultant in Texas and a gulf council board member. "The U.S. is way behind in this technology. From a business standpoint, this is a new industry for the U.S., and it offers a lot of advantages."
Federal statistics show the United States imports $9 billion more in seafood than it exports. U.S. commercial fishing is becoming more limited as species' populations decline.
"With this deficit, we need every pound of fish that can be produced in the U.S.," Hendrix said. "There is a lot of real economic opportunity here."
Tommy L. Butler, a Florida Offshore Aquaculture partner, is a commercial fisherman at Johns Pass. He has received more than 50 calls from fishermen interested in farm employment, he said.
"We're not going to infringe on traditional fishing areas and won't hurt commercial fishermen," he said. "We're not selling fish they catch."
The company would be state-certified as an aquaculture business, said Kal Knickerbocker, an environmental administrator at the Florida Department of Agriculture. The fish will be identified as farm-raised when sold.
"If this is successful, others will try it," he said. "This is a way to supplement wild products and put less pressure on wild fish."
To reach Jane Meinhardt, call (813) 342-2476 or send your e-mail to jmeinhardt@bizjournals.com.
source: http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/InNews/gulffarmers2003.htm 5jan04
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