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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF ALTERNATIVE EFFLUENT TREATMENT OPTIONS FOR POND PRODUCTION OF HYBRID STRIPED BASS IN AURORA, NORTH CAROLINA

The focus of this article is the post-harvest treatment of effluent from hybrid striped bass (HSB) pond aquaculture to meet effluent discharge standards for Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD; 5 mg/L) and chlorophyll-α (40 μg/L) established by the North Carolina Division of Water Quality (DWQ). The specific application is to HSB pond aquaculture in Aurora, North Carolina. A variety of effluent treatment options were proposed and evaluated based on their efficacy in reaching the new standards on a 28.8-ha (72-acre) HSB farm. The economic feasibility of the proposed options ranged from positive $499 to negative $121,691 using the partial budget methodology. Our results indicate that retaining water on-farm for subsequent production cycles instead of discharging had the highest positive impact ($499) on annual farm budgets and may reduce production costs without compromising fish yields. Application of effluents onto existing or newly planted trees was also an attractive alternative because of the possible generation of additional income and the conversion of a point source discharge into a non-point discharge. By conversion of a point source into a non-point source the pond effluents would also benefit from the additional biological treatment and filtration of the effluents by the trees and the associated soil organisms.