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Federal court denies approval for large-scale aquaculture installations

UNITED STATES
Thursday, October 10, 2024, 00:10 (GMT + 9)

SEATTLE, WA — Last week the U.S. Federal Court for the Western District of Washington ruled that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers'(Corps) approval of Nationwide Permit 56 (NWP 56)—which authorizes industrial finfish aquaculture structures in federal ocean waters around the country—was unlawful. The court held that NWP 56 violated several core environmental laws, including the National Environmental Policy Act, the Rivers and Harbors Act, and the Administrative Procedure Act. 

"This is a vital victory in the battle for the future of our oceans," said George Kimbrell, legal director for Center for Food Safety and counsel for the plaintiffs. "We are gratified that the Court has commanded that federal regulators cannot unlawfully stick their heads in the sand about industrial aquaculture's significant adverse impacts and instead must rigorously analyze them before deciding whether to move forward."

The defendant agency acknowledged numerous adverse impacts of the large fish farm structures it was authorizing in the permit, but nonetheless unlawfully failed to actually assess them. As the court explained, the Corps lacked the "logical bridge between the multiple acknowledged adverse impacts"—including those described by the agency itself as "high risk"—and the agency's "conclusion that the impacts of NWP 56 would be no more than minimal or would be insignificant." The court concluded: "Because the Corps narrowed its [environmental assessment] to disclose but not account for many foreseeable effects of NWP 56, its findings of minimal effects and no significant impacts are insufficiently supported and explained." 

"We applaud the Court for ruling that this nationwide permit is unlawful, and for blocking a federal agency's misguided attempts to fast-track offshore aquaculture operations. This is a loss for corporate interests pushing to rapidly industrialize the open ocean; it is a victory for our members and all Americans who believe we should exercise precaution with a resource as precious as our shared ocean commons. Instead of dirty factory fish farms funded by venture capital firms, our coalition envisions and builds toward seafood systems centered on shared values and led by local communities," said James Mitchell, legislative director of the Don't Cage Our Oceans Coalition, a coalition of more than 50 fishing, farming, culinary, and environmental groups working to stop the development of offshore finfish farming in the U.S. while uplifting values-based aquaculture and seafood systems.

The Center for Food Safety considers this legal victory another significant rebuke to the federal government's ongoing attempts to establish aquaculture in U.S. ocean waters. In 2018 and 2020, federal courts overseeing the Gulf of Mexico struck down earlier efforts that aimed to introduce the industry there for the first time. Despite intense lobbying by proponents, Congress has never passed legislation authorizing industrial aquaculture in U.S. federal waters.

editorial@seafood.media
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