FHLH taps Environmental Law Institute to recommend best practices for land-based aquaculture

We are pleased to announce that FHLH has retained the Environmental Law Institute (ELI) to investigate and recommend improvements in Maine’s process for regulating land-based, commercial-scale aquaculture projects. The centerpiece of the 15-month study is a White Paper highlighting a suite of “best practices” drawn from successful land-based projects and the regulatory requirements they met.

ELI’s investigators will define what “sustainable” land-based aquaculture means economically, socially, and environmentally. They will also explore the possibility of creating a ranking system for evaluating projects, using systems pioneered by other organizations such as the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch Program.

To test the utility of its “sustainable” definition, the ELI team will identify up to three existing land-based projects and evaluate them according to the proposed criteria in the definition. Atlantic Sapphire’s Florida facility and Finger Lakes Fish facility in New York are possible choices.

A significant portion of the ELI investigation will examine the federal and state regulatory programs for permitting land-based commercial aquaculture projects. The focus will be on the laws and regulatory authority at federal, state, and local levels with an emphasis on Maine’s current ability to promote, permit, and regulate sustainable projects as defined and exemplified in ELI’s work.