The intended site is six kilometres off the Xrobb l-Ghagin coast, limits of Marsaxlokk. This is the first time that such a site has been proposed in the south of Malta.

A planning application was submitted to the Malta Environment and Planning Authority (MEPA) on 7 January of this year by Dr Anthony Gruppetta, the director of the division’s Malta Centre for Fisheries Sciences (MCFS),.

The application was advertised in The Malta Independent on 5 June and MEPA will receive representations up to next Saturday.

According to the project description statement (PDS) submitted by the applicant, the decision to opt for a single aquaculture zone arose from the constant growth of inshore fish farms and their various impact on the areas involved.

Moreover, the limited available coastal waters are shared with a number of other stakeholders such as tourist operations, bunkering and maritime traffic operations and coastal fishing.

“In view of this and the ever increasing demand for more space for blue fin tuna farming, it has been decided to move these activities further afield in an attempt to minimise the impact they have on the other stakeholders of the coastal zone and in the search for better conditions where to grow the blue fin tuna,” the PDS states.

This move, though, will raise the costs for each fish farm.

“Investment cost(s) will escalate in view of the more costly and highly technological anchoring systems. Daily procedures will be more expensive due to the longer trips between the site and the harbour, more expensive labour such as specialised diving due to the deeper waters and less working days (due) to a higher susceptibility to inclement weather,” the PDS warns.

“The overall risk of these operations will definitely increase,” it stated.

Dealing with the viability of the project, the PDS states that “in view of the financial returns of the blue fin tuna farming experienced in the past three years it may be possible for these operations to absorb increased investment along with a concession fee that will be imposed for the use of the site”.

Indeed, a draft legal notice attached to the PDS is proposing that as from 1 January 2005, fish farms operating in Maltese territorial waters or waters under Maltese jurisdiction will be subject to an initial fee of 20c per square metre and an annual fee of 2c per square metre of concession for their operating licence.

Those fish farms already in operation will pay only the annual fee as from that date. All the fees will be reduced by 50 per cent in the case of fish farms yielding fish that are below six kilograms when harvested. Fish farms will be licensed on an annual basis.

However, the PDS states that the last season did not produce a satisfactory price at harvest and it appears that most operations did not make any profits this year.

Since the application was filed in the first week of January, it is highly probable that the reference to “this year” in the PDS is for 2003.

“This situation is considered to induce the survival of the bigger, more professional and more efficient operations. Should such a situation occur it would be feasible for these operators to function from the offshore site,” the PDS states.

Another potential problem at the chosen site is its overlap with a bunkering area designated by the Malta Maritime Authority. The PDS is proposing that the bunkering area is pushed further south in order to solve this overlap.

In spite of these disadvantages for the operators, the applicant believes that “overall the present situation will be improved since this application attempts to group together in a limited area aquacultural operations that involve large installations”.

The Fisheries Conservation and Control Division is expecting to house a maximum of four blue fin tuna fish farms with at least 1,200 metric tons of fish in each.

Past experience in Malta shows that operations with a smaller mass will not be economically viable given the increase in overhead expenses that will result from operating such an offshore fish farm, the PDS states.

However, in view of the fact that there is a quota as to how many blue fin tuna can be captured from the wild, the fish available for farming in this aquaculture zone would not exceed 5,000 tons, it added.

Each fish farm will be separated by a minimum distance of one mile so as to avoid the risks of transmittable diseases. Moreover, the PDS pledges that the offshore site will also minimise other drawbacks already experienced with the present inshore fish farms.

One of the major drawbacks of a blue fin tuna farm is the stench which emanates from the site that can also be smelt from a distance away.

The PDS promises that the distance of this aquaculture zone from the coast will mitigate this.