Debate over fish farming begins in Lansing

Public Radio 90, WNMU | By Peter Payette

Published February 3, 2016 at 9:57 AM EST

LANSING, MI (MPRN)-- State lawmakers will decide whether fish farming should be allowed in the Great Lakes.

A house committee held a hearing in Lansing Tuesday on a bill that would make it illegal.

Opponents of fish farming also released the results of a public opinion poll. State Senator Rick Jones says the poll done by EPIC-MRA was credible.

“Only 20 percent of Michiganders think it’s okay to put fish farms out in the Great Lakes,” he says. “This is overwhelming, overwhelming the people that say, ‘No. Don’t mess with our water.’”

Fish farmers say the problems with their industry are exaggerated and Canadians have been raising trout in Lake Huron for 30 years.

Other bills have been introduced that would create rules for a limited number of farms on the Michigan side of the Great Lakes.

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Peter Payette

Peter Payette is the Executive Director of Interlochen Public Radio and has managed the news department since 2001. For more than a decade, he hosted the weekly programPoints North and has reported on a wide range of issues critical to the culture and economy of northern Michigan. His work has been featured on NPR, Michigan Radio, Bridge magazine and Edible Grande Traverse. He has taught journalism and radio production to students and adults at Interlochen Center for the Arts. He is also working on a book about the use of aquaculture to manage Great Lakes fisheries, particularly the use of salmon from the Pacific Ocean to create a sport fishery in the 1960s.

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