A Community and Forum For Aquaponic Gardeners

Commercial Aquaculture/Aquaponics feasible in Oregon?

I'm planning to move to Portland/Area in about a year with my wife. While I'm still here in Illinois, I'm soaking up as much information as I can about the local (mainly Wisconsin) aquaculture industry. Just went to a Wisconsin Aquaculture Association Conference that had about 350 people at it. There are about 2500 aquaculture permits active in Wisconsin, with about 200-300 of them commercial facilities. Some of these are, of course, the well-known Growing Power, Sweetwater Organics, etc. that do aquaponics.

My goal is to start an aquaculture/aquaponics business in Oregon. I say both because I would like to produce fish at a level that may require separate filtering beyond just growbeds, so it may be some combination of RAS (recirculating aquaculture system) biofilters and nitrate filters, as well as growbeds. I still have much to learn, but working on it.

So, to my question: I see virtually no commercial aquaculture going on in Oregon. The Oregon Aquaculture Association website doesn't seem to have any info beyond 2010. It sounds like the regulations there are prohibitive in that the state has chosen to clamp down on aquaculture species in order to minimize ANY risk of introducing new species to waterways that may alter natural species. I gather this is not the case in Washington or Idaho. Am I looking at a dead end trying to get permits to start an RAS type facility in Oregon? Would they be more open to an indoor RAS facility? Seems like the concerns are more focused on outdoor pond aquaculture.

I realize I'm mixing aquaculture with aquaponics, but if I can't get past the regs for aquaculture, I won't be doing much aquaponics...

Any thoughts much appreciated!

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Jason Garvey on March 12, 2012 at 10:22am

Hi Claude,

I'd love to have a chat with you about this. Give me a call when you can.

Best,

Jason

Portland Purple Water

503-922-3583

Permalink Reply by Linda Logan on March 12, 2012 at 11:31am

Talk to Jon Thenhaus 503 681 2600. Very creative guy who has just gotten his manufacturing facility to build aquaponic systems. He will know about permits I believe and just a good person to work with. He can do large installations as well as small. I've forwared your post to him.

Linda

Permalink Reply by Brook Stevenson on March 13, 2012 at 8:09pm

Hi everybody,

Looking forward to hear a bit about your process going forward, Claude (if care to keep us up to date)!

I'll be living in Portland soon too and as a result my current architectural thesis is based there. This project is meant to leverage my economics background so I'm approaching it like an actual business venture and one of the big features integrates a greenhouse aquaponics farm. Currently pretty ignorant where aquaculture permits are concerned though.

Claude, regarding Oregon's use of aquaculture, this 2005 water use data, seems to indicate there's a lot of statewide aquaculture going on. This is up from 0 in 2000, as seen here.

Best regards,

Brook

Permalink Reply by Wayne Condit on April 6, 2012 at 7:32pm

Claude, I am in eastern oregon and am just beginning my aquaponic adventure. What I do know is that there are at least 6 Talapia farms around portland. Good ones too. You can get the names of the licensed fish operators in Oregon on the the dept of fish and wildlife website. To bring Talapia into Oregon or to buy them here ,you must have a $127 propagation permit and then when you get that, you must get the $27 transport license. They are considered an evasive species here in Oregon , even though there is no way they could survive here . Your operation must be up and running and they will want to inspect it. Mine is a 70 gal tank in my sunroom, so a picture sent by email was fine. The head guy, (no pun intended) is Guy Chilton. His email address is Guy.S.Chilton@State.Or.Us......He was very friendly and helpful to me.

Permalink Reply by claude saunders on April 9, 2012 at 9:27am

Hey thanks everyone for the info. The Tilapia permitting is exactly the same in Illinois - the fish and wildlife person comes out to inspect. Sounds like aquaculture is not a problem. But from what Jason Garvey said, it's not presently possible to sell aquaponics produce at the Portland public market. Not sure if that's the case elsewhere in OR. I'll be out to PDX this summer for a couple weeks, so hopefully I can seek out and visit an operation.