Pacific Ocean AquaFarms has begun the regulatory review process for an offshore yellowtail farm proposed to be located four miles off the coast of San Diego, California.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced Wednesday its intent to prepare an environmental impact statement (EIS) for the project. Earlier this year, President Donald Trump in a sweeping executive order designated NOAA as the lead agency for coordinating US offshore aquaculture permits.
The offshore floating farm, which would be the first of its kind in California federal waters, would take up around 1,000 acres and would include 28 submersible pens, anchors and mooring lines, and surface marker buoys. NOAA said the project would initially produce 1,000 metric tons of yellowtail ((Seriola dorsalis) annually and up to 5,000 metric tons if allowed to grow to full scale.
The project will initially only harvest yellowtail, which is native to California, and could later produce white seabass (Atractoscion nobilis) when it is operational under federal and state permit requirements.
Pacific Ocean AquaFarms is a collaboration between Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute (HSWRI) and California-based investment firm Pacific6, which is underwriting the project. Among its six founding partners is John Molina, formerly the CFO of Molina Healthcare.
As part of its notice of intent, NOAA identified proposed actions and alternative project ideas for Pacific Ocean AquaFarms.
Under the San Diego project proposal, dedicated vessels would haul feed, personnel, and harvested fish to and from the aquaculture facility daily from the Port of San Diego.
NOAA said the project will undergo a "public scoping process," where interested parties are invited to provide comments on the proposed project, its potential to effect the human environment, means for avoiding, minimizing, or mitigating those effects, the preliminary reasonable range of alternatives, and any additional reasonable alternatives that should be considered.
One alternative mentioned is constructing the project for half the scale in San Diego. Another would place it four miles southwest of Sunset Beach in Long Beach, California.
NOAA is holding two public meetings concerning the project in October, with written comments due by Oct. 26.
The facility still requires two permits, one concerning clean water, which will be reviewed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the other, a Section 10 Rivers and Harbor Act permit, will be reviewed by the US Army Corps of Engineers.
Pacifc Ocean AquaFarms anticipates that environmental review and permitting will take 18 to 24 months.
Once all applicable permits are obtained, construction of the aquaculture facilities will take approximately one year, according to NOAA.
Stocking of the cages would then occur sometime within the following year with the first commercial harvest occurring 18 to 24 months later, NOAA said. The anticipated maximum production of 5,000 metric tons per year would occur approximately three to six years after the project is constructed.
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