A company that restarted a failed fish farm off Hawaii island’s Kona Coast two years ago is proposing a major expansion that would more than double production of kahala, or almaco jack, sold under the brand name Hawaiian Kampachi.
Blue Ocean Mariculture LLC wants to increase the number and size of its underwater cages to boost annual fish production to 2.2 million pounds from about 900,000 pounds.
The company said its existing farm setup was designed to be a relatively small prototype operation and that the expansion is a "key next step" toward establishing a viable mariculture industry in Hawaii.
The effort by Blue Ocean is happening just as a company on Oahu is seeking to start up and raise moi after a previous moi farm off Ewa Beach, which was Hawaii’s first open-ocean fish farm, failed.
On Oahu, Randy Cates of Mamala Bay Seafood LLC plans to raise 1.5 million pounds of moi at a 75-acre site adjacent to Honolulu Airport’s reef runway in a $5 million startup venture projected to generate $6.3 million in annual sales at full production within three years.
Blue Ocean outlined its expansion plan in a draft environmental assessment recently submitted to the state Department of Land and Natural Resources and published by the state Office of Environmental Quality Control.
The company, which leases 90 acres of state waters just offshore of Kona International Airport from DLNR, is seeking approval to deploy up to eight cages instead of five. Each cage’s maximum size also would be increased to 8,000 cubic meters from 7,000 cubic meters under the plan.
Blue Ocean is not seeking to expand the area it leases, only to grow more fish within the area.
Last year Blue Ocean operated at its maximum permitted capacity, the environmental assessment said.
The company said in the assessment that increased production will increase the amount of fish poop and uneaten food affecting water quality but that the addition shouldn’t create a significant negative impact given the strong current, deep water and sandy ocean floor in the lease area.
"The production capacity of the farm site will remain among the smallest in the industry, and the farm site hydrology and bottom composition enable the local marine environment to safely carry more production than proposed," Blue Ocean said in the assessment.
Blue Ocean added that it has several years of water quality test results that show no detrimental impact on the environment and that it will continue such tests, which are reported to DLNR, the state Department of Health and the federal Environmental Protection Agency.
Open-ocean fish farms have attracted opposition from environmentalists and others, including Food and Water Watch.
Neil Frazer, a University of Hawaii at Manoa geophysics professor who has written scientific articles and a book about the industry, criticized open-ocean fish farming in a 2010 opinion article in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser on grounds that included the industry’s use of fishmeal to feed fish, ocean waste contributions and succeptibility to disease.
Frazer contended that Blue Ocean’s predecessor, Kona Blue Water Farms, had regular disease problems that put the company "on the road to drugs."
Kona Blue, which started commercial kampachi production in 2005, grew to harvest 1 million pounds of fish in 2008 valued at $8 million but ceased harvests in late 2009.
Blue Ocean, which acquired some Kona Blue assets including the ocean lease and resumed fish production in 2012, said in the environmental assessment that it is permitted by the Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to treat bacterial infections at its farm with approved antibiotics and that there hasn’t been an infection since February 2011.
Blue Ocean also said it uses a hydrogen peroxide bath to treat fish for external parasites.
Maria Haws, director of the Pacific Aquaculture and Coastal Resources Center at the University of Hawaii at Hilo, said in a letter to DLNR supporting Blue Ocean that the company and its predecessor have demonstrated over eight years that high-quality farmed fish can be raised in an environmentally responsible manner.
Haws, who commented as a private citizen and in her capacity as an aquaculture expert with more than 25 years of experience, noted that Hawaii imports over 50 percent of its seafood. "We cannot be certain that our imported seafood is produced sustainably and hence we as residents of Hawaii must take the responsibility to produce our own seafood using the best possible practices as determined by aquaculture and environmental science," she wrote.
Blue Ocean also received letters of support from customers including Seattle Fish Co., which sells Hawaiian Kampachi to Whole Foods and fine-dining restaurants.
Michael McNicholas, operations vice president for the U.S. subsidiary of Tokyo-based Uoriki Co. Ltd., said Blue Ocean’s kampachi is the "star" of a sales program it calls American Sashimi.
McNicholas wrote that his company buys 16,000 pounds of kampachi a month and conservatively could sell four times as much in the short term and 15 to 20 times more in the longer term.
"Blue Ocean Mariculture is an example of aquaculture at its very, very best," he wrote. "One need only look at the customer list to know this. Our customers consider this the best tasting fish in sushi and it has replaced imports."
Blue Ocean said last year it sold about 40 percent of its kampachi in Hawaii and exported the rest.
The company said it anticipates increasing its staff from 21 full-time employees to 30 and raising annual payroll to $1.7 million from $1.2 million.
Blue Ocean needs a DLNR Conservation District Use Permit and a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers permit to proceed with its expansion plan. Public comments on the environmental assessment are being accepted by DLNR until Aug. 7.
For more information and to comment, visit health.hawaii.gov/oeqconline.
