WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries and Coast Guard held a hearing on Thursday to consider potential environmental issues that could be caused by genetically engineered salmon.
Subcommittee Chairman Mark Begich of Alaska and Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine led the proceedings, voicing concerns about unknown environmental effects if a genetically modified fish were to escape into the wild, and the precedent that would be set if the U.S. Food and Drug Administration gives AquaBounty Technologies approval to sell a breed of genetically modified salmon for human consumption.
“The stakes are high. If these fish were to get out into the wild they could wreak untold havoc on our marine and fish water ecosystems,” said Begich. “Although the company that has created the fish says that they have taken precautions to make sure the fish don’t escape, the prudent, responsible approach for us to take here is to assume the fish will escape. We have plenty of examples where nonnative fish have escaped into the wild and wreaked environmental havoc.”
The GE Atlantic salmon, dubbed the AquAdvantage Salmon, has a growth hormone gene from the Chinook salmon, combined with a separate gene from the ocean pout fish, which causes it to grow twice as fast as conventional Atlantic salmon.
The first witness, President and CEO of Aquabounty Technologies Ron Stotish detailed the precautions taken by Aquabounty to prevent escape.
“Our hatchery is designed with multiple redundant physical barriers that prevent escape of any life stage. We’ve operated this hatchery for over 15 years, been inspected on multiple occasions by a variety of federal agencies from two countries and never lost a single fish.”
In addition, Stotich said the fish are all female and bred as triploid to prevent reproduction; can be raised on land; and even in the case of escape, cannot breed with Pacific or Alaskan salmon populations.
The three other witnesses that testified before the committee, John Epifanio, Illinois Natural History Survey, Paul Greenberg, journalist and author, and George Leonard, aquaculture program director at Ocean Conservancy, all showed concern for potential hazards of approving a genetically engineered species.
Greenberg said that there isn’t a time horizon to adequately assess the long-term effects of GE fish, pointing to the unrecognized environmental problems that the synthetic insecticide DDT caused until the 1970s.
Greenberg questioned whether the development and propagation of this genetically engineered salmon was worth any potential risks, even if those risks are ultimately proven to be minor.
“I think the real essential question that needs to be asked is not ‘why shouldn’t we have this particular fish?’ but ‘why should we?’” Greenberg said. “What does this fish bring to the table?”
The witnesses all urged caution, noting that nonnative species have harmed marine ecosystems in the past; that it is unknown whether the GE salmon could become a top predator if it escaped into the wild; and that there is a need for a public debate on the economic, environmental and societal costs of a GE fish.
This hearing was yet another move by Congress to push back against the potential approval of the genetically modified salmon. In October, Begich also introduced the bill “S. 1717: Prevention of Escapement of Genetically Altered Salmon in the United States Act” to prevent transporting genetically modified fish across state lines.
