A state-run fish hatchery is seen in Anchorage. Alaska permits hatcheries for wild fish but has long forbidden fish farms, but that could change if a new bill becomes law. (Alaska Department of Fish and Game photo)
Gov. Mike Dunleavy on Friday introduced a bill that would partially reverse Alaska’s 35-year-old ban on fish farms. House Bill 111 was referred to the House Fisheries Committee for consideration.
If signed into law, HB 111 wouldn’t allow salmon farming, but it would allow the farming of “any bony fish belonging to the osteichthyes class.”
That includes things like tilapia, catfish or carp — the world’s most widely farmed fish. Any farmed fish would have to be sterile, unable to reproduce if they escape into the wild. They would also have to be contained by an escape-proof barrier.
Fish farms would be subject to regulation by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and subject to oversight by the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation.
Alaska already has a significant and growing number of shellfish farms.
In a letter accompanying the bill’s introduction, the governor said that “authorizing finfish farming would introduce a new industry to Alaska, creating jobs, creating food security for residents, and contributing to economic growth.”
Fish farming has been outlawed in Alaska since 1990, when lawmakers enacted a law that permanently extended a previous temporary ban.
The law followed a legislative investigation that concluded that fish farms posed environmental, social and economic risks to the state.
The investigation stated in part that the state’s reputation for wild Alaska seafood could be endangered if Alaska were to allow fish farming, and lawmakers concluded that few jobs would be created by a farmed fish industry.
“Avoiding harm to the state’s wild finfish, land, and water resources must take precedence over the development of a new speculative and potentially harmful commercial finfish farming industry,” the Legislature concluded at the time, stating, “the best interests of the state are served by prohibiting commercial finfish farming.”
Rep. Louise Stutes, R-Kodiak, is chair of the House Fisheries Committee and represents one of the state’s most prominent seafood-producing regions. She said on Friday that she had not read the governor’s bill and was unwilling to rule it out immediately, but that the proposal would have to overcome her skepticism.
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