Ongoing research by the Consortium include legal and regulatory investigations for siting offshore aquaculture operations in the Gulf of Mexico; monitoring the engineering performance of both the cage and single-point mooring systems with respect to various seasonal oceanographic conditions; and gathering baseline environmental data on the benthic chemical and community structure prior to commercial scale grow-out of numerous candidate, indigenous aquaculture species.

In February, 2000, the Consortium held its first Gulf-wide workshop at Texas Sea Grant (Texas A & M University) to allow discussion and to form collaborative workgroups involving agency, regulatory, private industry, researchers, environmental, non-governmental and outreach personnel. As a result of this workshop, stakeholders and researchers created Workgroups to address topic-specific issues including Marine Policy, Ocean Engineering, Ocean Environmental, Hatchery Support Systems, and Marine Economics. The proposed research represents the continued commitment of the OAC to the development of environmentally sustainable offshore aquaculture.

University of Mississippi