January 2003
Rushing Waters
A Wisconsin Fish Farm
the Environment Loves!
by Brian Leaf
He steps on the dock and fish swarm near like a chicken flock. Peter Fritsch tosses handfuls of feed into the pond. The 49-degree water boils as several thousand frenzied rainbow trout rise for a soybean and herring snack that quickly disappears among fish and froth.
Watercress rings the earthen pond, one of 56 ponds at the idyllic Rushing Waters Trout Farm in Palmyra, Wisconsin. Some 800,000 rainbows live in ponds and tanks where they are hatched, raised, harvested and sent fresh on ice to grocers and chefs around the country.
That a farm two hours north of Chicago raises trout is hardly remarkable. But unlike most fish farms, Rushing Waters’ trout are raised chemical and drug-free. Quality, not quantity, is what matters here.
Not Part of the Nightmare
Horror stories about aquaculture abound. But Rushing Waters isn’t one of them. This 80-acre, spring-fed farm amid the woods and hills of Wisconsin’s Southern Kettle Moraine State Forest has rejected the notion of pumping up production for profit’s sake. Instead, it implemented sustainable agriculture principles four years ago to produce better, healthier fish.
Fritsch, the farm’s manager, dumped conventional wisdom by deciding chemicals weren’t needed to kill weeds and fish diseases. "A lot of the textbooks on trout farming [advise that] you use chemicals to treat fish," says Fritsch, a biology and aquatic ecosystems graduate from the University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point. "That’s the way it’s always been — until the past few years when people looked at alternatives to chemicals."
Now humans whack pond weeds, then compost them. Disease is fought naturally. Rushing Waters’ artesian water is so cold that Fritsch says it slows microbiological activity. Bacteria, viruses and parasites can’t gain a foothold so antibiotics aren’t needed. This is significant in that the Institute for Trade and Agriculture Policy estimates that U.S. fish farmers who apply conventional methods use between 200,000 and 433,000 pounds of antibiotics annually.
Ponds are dredged every couple of years to rid them of fish feces and organic material. Fish manure is spread on farm fields. A composting experiment is underway to recycle fish heads, guts and bones — by-products of processing fish — by feeding it to worms and bagging the nutrient-rich worm castings for fertilizer.
But while the farm is resource friendly, the fish aren’t organic.
"I don’t think not being certified [for organics] really holds us back." says Fritsch, who sells most of the 5,000 pounds of fish produced each week to Chicago grocers and chefs, packaged in dated bags so buyers know how fresh the fish is. "People are looking for a smart choice, a natural choice. That’s what we offer them."
On paper, aquaculture seems smart, too. The Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School estimates that some 100 fish species are over fished. So raising fish in tanks and ponds and floating cages seems like a path to salvation for a protein dependent planet.
Salvation has a price, though, and aquaculture’s tab has yet to be fully tallied. Critics say aquaculture is governed by a "gold-rush mentality" with little regard for the environment. They say some operators run floating feed lots leaving streams of fish feces, decomposing food, drugs and other chemicals needed for large scale production in their watery wake.
Biological pollution is, unfortunately, a by-product of conventional fish farms. When species are moved from their native ranges and put in new ecosystems such as ocean pens that are part of large bodies of water, some escape. With no natural checks or balances in new waters, escapees become fruitful and multiply, displacing native fish. For instance, managers of West Coast fisheries are worried that Atlantic salmon that escaped from ocean pens into the open waters of the Pacific and now breed in coastal streams will disrupt breeding grounds for Chinook, coho and other native salmon.
Fish farms have reshaped coastlands. Thailand’s mangrove forests have become shrimp ponds, ruining the hatching and nurturing grounds nursery for native finfish and shellfish.
Fish food is another flash point. Critics charge that more protein — derived from fish parts — is used to raise fish than is produced at harvest. Moreover, on inland farms, fish often live their lives in concrete raceways, stacked up like too many butter knives in a silverware drawer. They bump against the walls and against each other as they swim against the current, rubbing away fins and scales as they are buffeted about.
Health concerns have been raised about some farmed fish. The environmental journal, Chemosphere reported last year that a small sample of farm-raised salmon had much higher levels of contaminants such as PCBs, polybrominated diphenylethers (PBDEs), and organochlorine pesticides than a small sample of wild salmon. Scientists think farmers are feeding salmon contaminated food.
Another battleground is biotechnology. Genetic engineering could create superfish that would grow 10-to 30-times faster than native fish, resist disease and tolerate different temperatures. There’s no telling the environmental impact if they escape.
While genetically engineered fish have not been governmentally approved for sale in the United States, The Center for Food Safety says that genetically engineered carp in China and tilapia in Cuba are being sold to consumers.
Such concerns seem a world away from Rushing Waters, 25 miles northwest of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, on county highway H, where great blue heron and belted kingfishers looking for a fish meal are among the biggest threats to the fisheries. Nets keep the kingfishers at bay while a pair of Australian shepherds, Doc and Spot, convinces herons that there are better places to hunt than in these fish ponds.
Fish Farms Go Way Back
Growing fish in ponds started more than 2,000 years ago in China with the now ubiquitous carp. Traders brought methods to Europe and by the 1500s, Czechs were raising carp in hundreds of thousands of acres of ponds.
By the mid-1880s, carp were raised across North America. Escapees found fertile breeding grounds in lakes and streams and, with no predators or diseases to keep numbers in check, they flourished in the wild.
Rainbow trout, a West Coast native, became a farm fish in the mid-1850s. Trout adapted well to cold water lakes, rivers and streams. Many were released for fishermen to pursue.
Rushing Waters makes a splash
Rushing Waters was a traditional farm 70 years ago where cattle and chickens were the main livestock. But a trout stream and pond on the property attracted fishermen and drew city folk who rented a guesthouse on the property.
Among the regular fishermen was a Chicago restaurateur. Some of the fish caught on the farm ended up in his dining establishment. "That’s how it all started," says Fritsch. "To this day, Chicago is still our biggest market."
While fishermen are still welcome, today’s business model is decidedly different. Annual revenues are around $750,000. The farm employs 10 people, who raise and process the fish. While 80 percent of Rushing Waters’ trout goes to Chicago outlets, the remainder is shipped to restaurants and stores around the country.
Despite its nationwide reach, Rushing Waters is just a minnow next to large Western producers, especially Idaho, where three out of four trout destined for the plate are raised. Although Rushing Waters’ top weekly production is 5,000 pounds, the Idaho Trout Processors Company in Buhl, Idaho sends more than 200,000 pounds to market each week.
Our biggest competition comes from Idaho producers," says Fritsch. "Idaho produces probably 75 percent of all the trout consumed in the nation. But to get it to Chicago from Idaho, it’s trucked for three or four days. By the time it has passed through a distributor, it gets to the consumer’s hands in six to seven days. "Our fish are caught in the morning and delivered to Chicago the same day. So they can’t even come close to our quality."
Fritsch says that the farm’s fresh, chemical-free fish is a market niche that’s a hit. Since 1998 when it went chemical-free, production has increased by one-third, says Fritsch. Several old ponds were reconditioned, adding capacity to meet demand from consumers who pay extra for fresh, chemical-free food.
Freshness is a premium that nets Rushing Waters 50 to 75 cents more a pound for its fish. "I charge $18 to $19 a serving for that trout, so it has to be perfect every time," says Mark Mavrantonis, executive chef at McCormick & Schmick’s at 41 E. Chestnut Street in Chicago. "I get fish less than a day after it’s been harvested," he says. "I’m a big fan of trout and this is the best trout I’ve ever tasted. It’s the most consistent I’ve ever seen, which is largely because of the cold water."
Keeping it Clean
The cold water, mentioned earlier, that slows bacterial and other pathogenic growth also slows fish growth. Big producers raise mature trout in about nine months; Rushing Waters’ fish takes 18 months. It adds to the flavor, Mavrantonis says. "When you have a trout in 48 degree water, there is more fat on the outside of the fish to insulate it," he said. "It’s sweeter, richer in omega-3s. It’s got eatability!"
McCormick & Schmick’s menu lists Rushing Waters as the source of its trout, information that Mavrantonis says today’s diners want. Mavrantonis visited Rushing Waters and even drank water from springs flowing into the hatchery house where 125,000 kamloop rainbow trout eggs are hatched every three months. "Most farms I’ve been to, if you look at the water going in they have to doctor the water so the [young fish] don’t die," he says. "This water is beautiful."
Even beautiful water could turn ugly during a 12-hour journey from the hatching tanks through ponds and connecting streams to the small creek downstream of the farm. Water flows over gills, backs and backsides of several hundred thousand rainbow trout, whose excrement alone could seemingly turn gin-clear artesian spring into something that resembles Kaluaha and cream.
But waste is siphoned out of indoor tanks that hold young fish and it settles to the bottom of outdoor ponds, providing nutrients for watercress and other plants, small insects, and crustaceans that supplement fish food. The water stays clear, except in areas where workers in waders stir up clay as they harvest fish. A series of settling pools near the bottom of the farm insures that the water is glassy again as it falls a couple of feet into a tributary of Spring Creek.
Wisconsin has some of the nation’s strictest pollution rules and Rushing Waters complies with them. Water flowing out of the farm has a higher biological oxygen demand or BOD — a measure of how much oxygen is consumed by bacteria as it decomposes organic matter in the water. But Fritsch says BOD is lower than what is already in the receiving stream.
Bob Liska, a wastewater specialist with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, confirms its pristine quality, "We haven’t documented any impact on that stream."
Some fish do escape from Rushing Waters via the stream. But, in this case, considering the millions of dollars that Wisconsin spends on stocking state waters with trout for anglers, the escapees are welcome.
Brian Leaf is a freelance writer based in Rockford, Illinois. Contact him at bleaf38@yahoo.com.
Learn more about fish farming
Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
Center for Health and The Global Environment, Harvard Medical School
National Aquaculture Association
Mother Jones, Aquaculture’s Troubled Harvest
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