Federal budget officials have given preliminary approval to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s commitment of $16.4 million over two years to aid Maine salmon farms in fighting infectious salmon anemia, a swiftly spreading disease that is deadly to the fish and potentially devastating to the people Down East who earn their livings raising them.

Predictably, this helping hand already is being attacked by aquaculture’s persistent critics as nothing more than a handout that will perpetuate bad habits. Within the familiar anti-aquaculture hyperbole is buried a kernel of truth. When it comes to fish farms, one person’s bad habits are another person’s economic necessity and in chronically impoverished Washington County, the heart of this industry, economic necessity carries an especially potent meaning. Call too many fish in too many pens too close together what you will, but the ISA virus has exposed current practice as something that cannot be perpetuated.

Although the details of the USDA plan have yet to be worked out, it will follow the models Scandinavian countries and Canada employed to combat their ISA outbreaks. The fish – the few that are infected and the millions that swam next to them – are slaughtered. The pens are pulled from the water and disinfected. The plots of ocean where the disease appeared, the pen sites, are left fallow for a year or two to starve the virus out. Then, the pens are put back in, the fish are restocked and the industry starts over.

The obvious flaw here is the industry is not the only thing likely to start over. Until the source of ISA is found and eradicated, or a vaccine is developed – neither of which are guaranteed – the virus is almost certain to reappear and the entire time-consuming and expensive ($50 million in New Brunswick four years ago) ordeal must be repeated.

Restricting the movement of boats and workers from one site to another and closer monitoring of both fish and water can help prevent the spread of the virus, but the strongest preventative measure is crop rotation – filling the pens every other year with species not susceptible to ISA.

Crop rotation makes sense from the husbandry aspect, but the economic reality is harsh – there currently are no other species to put in those pens. Maine’s salmon industry already operates on very tight, even nonexistent, profit margins and growth is severely limited by the increasing difficulty of obtaining new pen sites. With no other crop to rotate, this regimen essentially cuts the industry, including jobs and payroll, in half. This is something Washington County simply cannot afford.

There is hope. Dr. Nicholas Brown, a British scientist now working with University of Maine aquaculture research, says European fish farms are having great success expanding into non-ISA species such as cod, halibut and haddock, a species he believes is especially suited to Maine waters and American appetites. The hang-ups are the lack of economic analyses to quantify the potential and the lack of hatcheries to produce young haddock.

Another fast-moving development elsewhere but just in the nascent stage here is moving aquaculture onshore. Land-based fish farms with closed-loop water systems and constant monitoring that eliminate the possibility of ISA are proving successful with halibut and turbot in Europe, and a major onshore halibut farm is taking shape in Nova Scotia. Dr. Brown is heading up a small experimental onshore halibut project at the new Center for Cooperative Aquaculture in Franklin.

The start-up capital costs of onshore aquaculture are substantial and until now have kept it from being competitive. However, once the costs particular to ocean aquaculture are factored in – loss from disease, storm damage, predation and escape, not to mention workers’ comp claims that result from the ocean’s more hazardous working conditions and the increasingly expensive litigation brought by aquaculture opponents – the difference may well narrow. Again, proper economic analyses are needed.

The development of alternate species and of onshore aquaculture are moving forward in Europe and Canada because of government investment in everything from basic research to the underwriting of capital costs. The payback, of course, comes in the creation of jobs where they are most needed.

It is a lack of such investment that has put Maine salmon aquaculture in the dire condition of today, that has made it one of this state’s greatest missed opportunities to revive a region in economic decline. Since its start more than 15 years ago, political leaders at both the state and federal levels have touted aquaculture’s promise to Washington County but have failed, even during two economic booms, to make the necessary investments.

The first result of this neglect was that an industry that started out Maine-owned was so starved for capital it was easy picking for acquisition by large foreign corporations. Now, it is perilously close to being destroyed by something microscopic. The USDA aid is desperately needed, but it is only a start at truly starting over.