Court Stops Industrial Fish Farms in Gulf of Mexico

NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ — Yesterday, an unusual coalition of fishing and public interest groups, represented by the Center for Food Safety , won a lawsuit challenging the Department of Commerce’s rules that would have permitted, for the first time, industrial finfish farms offshore in U.S. waters.

"This is a landmark victory for protecting our oceans, for fishing communities and conservationists," said George Kimbrell, CFS Legal Director and lead counsel in the case. "Allowing industrial net-pen aquaculture and its known environmental harms in the Gulf of Mexico was a grave threat. Very simply, as the Court properly held, aquaculture is not ‘fishing.’ Such harm cannot be allowed under existing fisheries law never intended for that purpose."

The rules challenged in the lawsuit focused on the Gulf of Mexico, but also could have paved the way for fish farm permits all around the U.S. The Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana ruled that existing fisheries management laws were never intended to regulate aquaculture (the farming of fish in pens or cages), concluding that the Department of Commerce "acted outside of its statutory authority…"

Marianne Cufone, local counsel and Executive Director of the Recirculating Farms Coalition (RFC) said, "This ruling makes clear that existing fisheries law cannot be manipulated to develop and expand marine finfish farming in the Gulf or other U.S. waters. Now we can focus on stopping Congress from passing new laws to promote this outdated and unnecessary industry."

Since the 1980’s, Congress has periodically attempted to […]

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