This could have major impacts on the amount of Puget Sound shorelines converted into vast geoduck farms. Also the use of floating pens of seaweed etc. could be included in this. While we love to see aquaculture where appropriate, the scale of geoduck farms springing up all over the South Sound in particular has drawn criticism and lawsuits from homeowners and environmentalists alike. There has never been a public debate over how much is enough when it comes to conversion of our shorelines into industrial seafood farms. Now is a good time to consider this.
But in a presentation at a Commerce Department “Vision Setting Summit” this month, Rear Adm. Timothy Gallaudet, the agency’s acting administrator, suggested a change to that mission statement, as well as a new emphasis on tripling the size of the U.S. aquaculture industry within a decade and moving to “reduce the seafood trade deficit.”