Tuna Cage Project off Kohala Coast Wins Conservation District Use Permit

posted in: December 2009 | 0

A company trying to grow in cages fish that are being pillaged to near commercial extinction in the Pacific received Conservation District Use Permit (CDUP) approval from the state Board of Land and Natural Resources on October 24.

In a 4-1 vote, the Land Board brought Hawai`i Ocean Technology, Inc. (HOT) one step closer to achieving its plans to grow several thousand pounds of yellowfin and bigeye tuna (a.k.a. ahi) in 12 giant, deep-water “oceanspheres” off the Big Island’s North Kohala coast.

Concerned that the untethered cages – which will be held in place, HOT says, with thrusters powered by ocean thermal energy conversion – have never been tested, the Land Board limited HOT to three cages; any more would require seeking further approval from the Land Board. (According to HOT representatives, three cages is the minimum number needed to be profitable.)

HOT must also get an effluent discharge permit from the state Department of Health, a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Section 10 permit, and an ocean lease from the Land Board before it can install the cages. It may also have to contend with contested- case hearing requests from Kale Gumapac of the Kanaka Council and O`ahu’s Michael Kumukauoha Lee, both of whom claim that the project will impact native Hawaiian rights and traditions.

“This is unacceptable,” Gumapac said after the vote. Whether the Land Board will grant Lee and Gumapac a contested-case hearing remains to be seen.

Should the project proceed as planned, HOT’s tuna farm will cover 247 acres of ocean west of Malae Point. Twelve oceanspheres, each 165 feet in diameter, will be spread throughout the area and be submerged 65 feet below the ocean surface.

The company, founded in July 2006, plans to install one cage next year, two more in 2011, four more in 2012, and the last five in 2013.

At University of Hawi`i at Hilo’s Pacific Aquaculture and Coastal Resources Center, HOT plans to grow tuna fingerlings from eggs collected from two to six captured broodstock or from wild tuna. HOT expects to produce 1,000 tons of ahi by 2011, 3,000 by 2012, and 6,000 by 2013, according to a report to the Land Board by the Department of Land and Natural Resources’ Office of Conservation and Coastal Lands. Most of the production is intended to be exported, according to HOT’s business plan.

At the Land Board’s meeting, OCCL administrator Sam Lemmo admitted that the project was “a little bit science-fiction” in that raising ahi from eggs has never been done commercially and the OTEC-powered cage engine is an unproven technology. Lemmo also said the project’s environmental impact statement identified a number of unresolved issues, including the source and makeup of the project’s feed, and a lack of benthic information and a marine mammal plan.

With regard to concerns raised by the public during the environmental impact statement review and CDUP process about diseased fish infecting wild populations, Lemmo said it’s difficult to mitigate an epidemic before it happens. “If there’s a huge disease outbreak, then we can jump on it,” he said.

Regarding the project as a whole, Lemmo recommended board approval on the condition that HOT complete benthic surveys and a marine mammal plan before cage installation.

“We never really know the absolute truth [about impacts]…There will always be an amount of risk,” he said.

According to HOT CEO Bill Spencer, there are no risks involved in the project. When asked by O`ahu board member John Morgan what the project’s worst-case scenario might be, Spencer said, “We don’t see a worst-case scenario.”

He said that the state’s two open-ocean aquaculture operations – Kona Blue Water Farms, LLC, and Grove Farm Fish & Poi, LLC (originally Cates International, Inc.) – haven’t had had any disease and seem to have had minimal to no impact on the benthic habitat.

The sea floor is 1,300 feet below his proposed project, he said, much deeper than the sea floor below the two other farms. He added that the state Department of Health’s National Pollution Discharge Elimination System Permit will address water quality and that the ocean currents will ensure that effluent from the cages will never reach deeper than 500 feet.

Local oceanographer and HOT consultant Ricky Grigg added that he had surveyed the sea floor around the project area decades ago while looking for coral and “didn’t find very much” marine life. The bottom was mostly flat sand with a few rocky outcrops, he said.

Spencer said that his cages will be so large that the stocking density and flushing issues that have led to disease in fish farms elsewhere will not be a problem.

“Hawai`i is known throughout the world as the Silicon Valley of aquaculture” and open ocean aquaculture is “our best new source of protein,” Spencer told the board. He added that meeting the world’s demand for fish is a more pressing problem than global warming.

Opposition

To several members of the public who testified against the project, the global need for fish was not Hawai`i’s concern. A handful of native Hawaiians who flew to O`ahu from the Big Island to testify described how Hawaiians fed hundreds of thousands of people for generations with their fishponds, many of which are unused today and have fallen into disrepair. Lee shared once-secret protocols his family used to prevent disease in fishponds they once tended.

“This,” he said of HOT’s proposal, “is a science fair project.”

Gumapac added, “It’s difficult to listen to these gentlemen when they haven’t come to seek our advice or counsel and they say they’re going to experiment in your water. Our kupuna did it in an environmentally sound way [incorporating a variety of animals into the ponds to prevent theft, control disease and fertilize the water]…Whose techniques should we be using?”

Gumapac and others also argued that the cages would affect Hawaiian gathering rights.

While HOT attorney William Tam assured the Land Board that the permit would exclude only other projects from the area and would not affect boats, access by the public or fishing, OCCL’s report to the board states, “HOT notes for safety all fishermen and boaters be kept 100 feet from each of the twelve oceanspheres’ buoy. Fishermen will be allowed to fish around the oceanspheres but not directly above or below them. No swimming or SCUBA diving would be allowed in the 247 acre ocean project site/lease area.”

(Two other testifiers – Solei Niheu and Donna Burns – expressed their discomfort with the presence of an armed Division of Conservation and Resources Enforcement officer, who had entered the board room after some heated testimony. Burns called it a “racist act” and stormed out after Kaua`i board member Ron Agor asked her if she was going to speak to the proposal or leave.)

Rob Parsons of the Sierra Club – Maui Group raised several concerns relating to the size of the project in his written testimony.

“This is not a farm,” he told the board. “This is an industrial feedlot.”

Since one percent of the fish from all the cages was expected to die before harvesting, Parsons asked what percentage of those fish would be tested for disease and how the “morts” (as many as 2,400 at full capacity) would be disposed of.

He added that HOT has been vague about its expected yields “by a factor of 100 percent! They contradict earlier statements of 6,000 tons yearly projection by stating that production will vary between 6,000 or 12,000 tons, ‘depending on the final system design.’ That is an incredible amount of uncertainty and wiggle room.”

Parsons also noted that the harvesting of millions of tons of baitfish (sardines, herring, anchovies, menhaden, krill) to make fish food impacts ecosystems throughout the world and robs wild fish of food sources.

“Therefore, aquaculture operators are continually seeking substitutes to feed their caged stock. Kona Blue (which raises kahala) has substituted soy protein and chicken trimmings to offset the percentages of fish meal and fish oil. Top level piscatavors (fish eaters) like ahi are not expected to have the same growth characteristics as wild fish if they are fed land-based proteins. HOT acknowledges they, ‘have not identified the best diet yet,’ ” he wrote.

HOT has not selected a fish food vendor and has said only that it has no plans to use GMO soy and will seek local alternatives, Parsons said.

“Considering they are projecting the need for 12,000,000 pounds of feed annually, this language is incredibly vague. There must be full disclosure and understanding of the components of the fish feed, the sources from which they are derived, and the impacts from withdrawing them and importing those resources to Hawai`i. Note that 100 percent of the feed would be imported,” he wrote.

Finally, Parsons suggested that there might be greater merit and more potential for sustainability in reviving Hawaiian fishponds, “or in pursuing land-based re-circulating aquaculture and aquaponics systems that utilize nutrient-rich fish waste to grow vegetables.”

Randy Cates, whose company was the first commercial open-ocean aquaculture operation in the state, testified neither for nor against HOT’s proposal, but did say he was bothered by any application focused on exporting fish.

“We export 50 percent of our wild caught fish and import 90 percent of the fish [we consume]…We should be focused on creating jobs in Hawai`i and feeding Hawai`i,” he said.

Setting a Cap

For Cates, it came down to one thing: Is the technology safe? He did not have an answer to that question, but asked the board to consider that before voting.

O`ahu board member John Morgan said he felt the technology would prove itself as the process moved along. While at-large member Samuel Gon was a bit more cautious about giving the green light to an unproven technology, “on the other hand, there are always the painful first steps and that involves a lot of talking to people,” he said.

Lemmo’s original recommendation to the board was to approve a CDUP for all 12 spheres, but require the Land Board chair’s approval for all but the first two. Given the concerns about the experimental cages, however, all of the board members wanted the authority to approve additional cages to rest with the entire board. While some board members wanted to allow HOT only one cage, in the end, the board gave HOT the ability to install three cages before seeking permission for the rest. Gon was the only board member to oppose the CDUP.

Regarding the concerns raised by the public, at-large member David Goode noted that the project’s final EIS, accepted months ago, was not contested. “There was a whole lot of opportunity to comment,” he said.

Ocean lease amendments

At the same meeting, the Land Board was scheduled to vote on a proposal that would allow the DLNR’s Land Division to be paid for managing the two existing ocean leases on behalf of the state’s Aquaculture Development Program (ADP). However, Land Division administrator Morris Atta withdrew the item because he said the Department of the Attorney General had issues with some of the language in a proposed agreement between the DLNR and the ADP, which is a program of the state Department of Agriculture. Under the proposal, the DLNR would reap a 25 percent management fee from the rent of both leases. Currently, that would total of $875 a year, but that amount would likely grow. In addition to three proposals for fish farms off Maui and the Big Island, Randy Cates, who operates Grove Farm Fish & Poi, told the board that his company, located in waters off `Ewa, O`ahu, plans to expand.

* * *
`Ahahui Malama I Ka Lokahi MOA

The Land Board approved a Memorandum of Agreement between DLNR’s Division of Forstry and Wildlife and the non-profit `Ahahui Malama I Ka Lokahi. The agreement will help both entities apply their resources to related projects in and around Kawainui Marsh in windward O`ahu. `Ahahui already has a curatorship agreement with the DLNR to care for Ulupo Heiau and Na Pohaku O Hauwahine, two historical sites located at opposite ends of the marsh.

— Teresa Dawson

Volume 20, Number 6 December 2009