Last week, on behalf of our clients Food and Water Watch, Recirculating Farms Coalition, Center for Food Safety, Sierra Club, Healthy Gulf, Suncoast Waterkeeper, and Tampa Bay Waterkeeper, we filed a lawsuit challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s (“EPA”) issuance of a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (“NPDES”) Permit to Ocean Era, Inc., for the Velella Epsilon offshore aquaculture facility to be constructed and operated in federal waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Specifically, this lawsuit alleges that the EPA failed to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”) when issuing the NPDES Permit. The Velella Epsilon is the first fish farm in federal waters off the contiguous United States, and is a pilot project expressly intended to demonstrate the feasibility of commercial offshore aquaculture and spur its further development in federal waters. Yet, in issuing this precedent-setting permit, the EPA failed to conduct a rigorous review of the environmental impacts associated with the construction and operation of an offshore aquaculture facility. Nor did the agency meaningfully examine the impacts of expanding offshore aquaculture in federal waters. EPA thus failed to take the hard look at environmental impacts that NEPA requires. A copy of the Petition can be found here.

Photo Credit: NOAA Fisheries