West Coast Aquaculture Permitting: Trials of a convoluted regulatory Environment  

Permitting allows for review of potential beneficial and negative impacts in order to balance protection and utilization of important resources. While permitting generally serves important objectives, the current regulatory framework for aquaculture is frequently inefficient and overly complex, creating significant uncertainties and disincentives for siting new farms. This framework stymies national and state goals to expand the country's aquaculture production and provide nutritious seafood for a growing population. We provide three examples of challenges currently faced by West Coast shellfish farmers in order to illustrate inefficiencies with the current regulatory system and identify potential solutions.

First, aquaculture operations are subject to review and approval by numerous agencies, many of which analyze the same issues but require different methods for analysis. For example, there are currently numerous and evolving methods for delineating native eelgrass (Zostera marina). The level of detail and approach currently required by different agencies can result in significantly different calculations, and some methodologies do not scale the level of effort with the potential to actually impact the eelgrass bed. Depending on the size of the project area, this can result in extensive cost for projects that ultimately avoid eelgrass habitat. Projects reviewed by federal, state, or local authorities should have one standardized approach to habitat surveys.

Second, regulatory attention sometimes strays from the big picture. Regulatory programs typically have key, overall objectives, such as protecting water quality or ensuring no net loss of ecological functions. Frequently, however, regulatory attention on aquaculture projects has increasingly focused on whether there will be any changes to a single habitat type (e.g., eelgrass). Extensive monitoring and mitigation is required, regardless of whether changes to that habitat would be a significant or even meaningfully impact to protected species. In addition, potential ecological functions and services provided by shellfish beds have largely been disregarded because there is no accepted method to evaluate these services in relation to baseline habitat. Refocusing attention on the net environmental impacts of the proposal can save significant time and resources, streamline the regulatory process, and increase certainty.

Third, the regulatory framework for aquaculture as a whole is overly complex and duplicative. Aquaculture is not simply regulated by numerous agencies, but many of the same agencies are analyzing the same impacts and sometimes have conflicting opinions. Since approval is required from all agencies, a single "no" can prevent an entire proposal from moving forward. Even when all approvals are obtained, this framework encourages appeals that can add hundreds of thousands of dollars in costs and multiple years of delay. Consolidating and streamlining the permitting process can significantly reduce unnecessary obstacles, costs, and uncertainties.