A plan to convert one of the Santa Barbara Channel oil platforms into a fish farm is stirring up controversy among environmentalists. The project has funding from Chevron, Hubbs-Sea World Research Institute of San Diego. The permit request is to operate a fish farm and hatchery experiment for three years at Venoco’s Platform Grace, which is 11 miles off Ventura in Federal Waters.
The approximately one-mile-square Grace Mariculture Project would include four submerged pens around the platform for yellowtails, striped bass and blue fin tuna. Also there would facilities for a hatchery and rearing operations on 10,000 square feet of the platform itself for halibut and abalone. It would be the first facility of its kind on the US West Coast for finfish.