In the Gulf of Mexico, there has been much interest in innovation towards transforming unused offshore oil and natural gas platforms into fish farms. Some oil companies have experimented with platforms to anchor underwater pens.

This week a crucial step in this process has developed.  Authorities have approved the ardently debated proposal to allow large-scale fish farming in the Gulf of Mexico, creating the first federal regulations for a fledgling industry.

Opponents have cited concerns about damage to the Gulf’s environment, as well the effect on traditional fishing communities that have relied on catching and selling wild fish.

But supporters say the industrial-scale pens and cages could provide a new source of seafood, 80 percent of which now comes from imports.

Commercial seafood company owner John D. Ericsson favours the plan. He said the United States has fallen behind countries like Greece, Norway and Chile, where offshore farming has taken off.

Ericsson said his company, Florida-based BioMarine Technologies Inc., is looking at growing fish in cages that could contain up to 60,000 cobia, also known as king fish, and amberjack. He said it would take about $10 million to set up an offshore fish farm.

Despite approval Wednesday from the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council, a 17-member regional advisory body that sets fishing regulations in the Gulf, the fish-farming plan still faces a series of administrative hurdles, and needs approval from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Officials who developed the plan say it will be at least a year before anyone could apply for an open-ocean aquaculture permit, even with the necessary approval.

More than 100 environmental and fishing industry groups have signed on against the fish-farming plan, and many say they are hopeful the new Obama administration will quash the measure or send it back to the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council for revisions.

One of the main complaints has been that offshore aquaculture regulations should be developed by Congress on a national scale, rather than by a regional body such as the Gulf council.

The Gulf council’s plan calls for 10-year permits to set up offshore fish farms.

Officials set a total cap on farmed fish production at 64 million pounds, and they expect about five to 20 such operations to emerge within the next 10 years.

Drafters say they have addressed a number of ecological concerns in the plan: It requires an up-front environmental analysis from anyone applying for a permit, mandates the hiring of an aquatic animal health inspector, and lays out numerous record-keeping requirements regarding escaped or diseased fish.