Fish Mining

See here a new US effort to open Federal Waters for aquaculture. This is being received with a lot of apprehension. There's the depletion aspect as well as the fact a lot of our terrestrial pollutants end up right in that area. 'Mining' a resource usually refers to the idea of exploiting all there is to take and then moving on as quickly as possible, which certainly should be a concern with this news with respect to the environment rather than the product itself as is the case in wild caught stocks. Here we're talking about positional resources such as nutrients in the water (which likely come from land), space and impact to top tier predators. It's a lot to consider, but does merit at least a hard look when looking ahead to a more sound environmental approach. Dealing with a trade deficit also is a two-way street; we might import a lot of fish, but we export any potential environmental damage to other nations as well.