FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 24, 2007

CONTACT:
Dave Bard,
202.486.4426

Statement by Andrea Kavanagh, director, Pure Salmon Campaign,

on the introduction of the Bush administration's open-ocean aquaculture bill

Washington, D.C. — Today, at the request of the Bush administration, Congressman Nick J. Rahall (D-WV), chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, introduced the administration's National Offshore Aquaculture Act. This bill would allow industry to establish fish farms in ocean waters three to 200 miles offshore. Though Rahall introduced it at the request of the administration, he has stated that he does not necessarily support it.

"This bill fails to require that the threats posed by escapes, disease and marine mammal deaths be eliminated. Recent reports from fish farms in Canada, Chile and Norway highlight those dangers and provide further support for raising farmed fish in systems that separate them from the marine environment.

"The administration tried this once before and failed. This time, they've changed the paint job, but the bill's still a lemon.

"Instead of turning our oceans into giant corporate fish farms, the administration should work to stop overfishing and help rebuild our wild fish populations."

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The Pure Salmon Campaign is a global project of the National Environmental Trust. It has partners in the United States, Canada, Europe and Chile all working to improve the way salmon is produced. For more information, go to www.puresalmon.org.

Background

Within the past few weeks, we learned that sea lice had overrun several Chilean fish farms, forcing those companies to abandon their farms and move to new sites, the Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries revealed that in 2006, one million fish escaped from Norwegian open-net pens costing the companies $7 million, and in Canada, Creative Salmon announced that in one incident alone, 51 California sea lions were found dead - drowned in nets that surround a single farm.