Carlsbad Aquafarm is leaving Agua Hedionda Lagoon for other environmental enterprises after the property owner, NRG Energy, discontinued the lease on the site.
“We have other things,” owner Tom Grimm said Tuesday. “We are pivoting our business model to living shoreline projects … such as using oyster shells to create reefs and nesting areas.”
Oyster shells have been used to create nesting areas for endangered bird species such as the snowy plover and the California least tern on the shore of the lagoon, at Coronado Island and elsewhere in Southern California, he said. The shells also can be used to prevent coastal erosion.
Grimm also is president and CEO of a business called Phycovax, which creates processes such as a way to use industrial carbon emissions to grow algae in large quantities for use as livestock feed.
Contributing to Grimm’s departure is what property owner NRG calls “the changing landscape” of nearby lagoon activities.
“For many years, Cabrillo Power LLC (an affiliate of NRG), has allowed Carlsbad Aquafarm, Inc. limited use of five acres in the outer Agua Hedionda Lagoon and along the south shore adjacent to the former Encina power plant,” said a statement released by NRG.
“In recent years, the landscape of the property has changed rapidly,” it said. “Among other things, the Encina power plant has now been removed, the ocean desalination plant is installing a new water intake structure and the Encina site now hosts temporary Fire Station No. 7 for the city of Carlsbad.”
As a result, Cabrillo/NRG “is discontinuing Carlsbad Aqua Farm’s license to use the property, and has allowed ample time for the farm to remove its facilities and vacate the premises,” NRG officials said.
Grimm said his lease on the property has always been tenuous, essentially month-to-month, and that he sees the change as a chance for him to move to other ecological projects.
All of the buoys, rigging and other equipment in the lagoon and some of the temporary structures on the shore will be removed.
“My focus is to do stuff that will have the biggest benefit for the world,” Grimm said. “The theme of my life has been about that.”
Shellfish are filter-feeders, pulling algae and nutrients from the water. Each oyster can filter up to 50 gallons a day, Grimm said, which has ecological benefits, such as helping to keep the water clear and attracting other marine life.
The aquafarm was founded in the 1960s as an aquaculture research facility and morphed in 1990 into a commercial business. Grimm took over about 12 years ago and at times employed as many as 20 people, depending on the season.
For years, the Carlsbad-grown oysters were sold across San Diego County, with some going to Orange County and a few to Los Angeles, mostly through Whole Foods markets and the King’s Seafood chain of restaurants.
SDG&E and later NRG made space for the aquafarm, which cultivated oysters and other shellfish, such as mussels and scallops. At times, octopuses, sea horses and abalone also have been raised there, though only in small quantities.
The reason Agua Hedionda is a lagoon at all, and not just a shallow marine estuary, is that the former owner, San Diego Gas & Electric Co., dredged the coastal inlet to create a steady supply of water for an oil- and gas-fueled power plant built in the 1950s.
The original power plant, and its 400-foot-tall smokestack, has been demolished, replaced by a new, more efficient power plant that went online in December 2019. The new power plant works without seawater, but not the Claude “Bud” Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant completed in 2015.
The desalination plant’s owners, formerly Poseidon Water, now Channelside Water Resources, is now responsible for dredging and maintaining the lagoon.
The future of the old power plant property remains undecided.
NRG still owns about 90 acres of the old power station site, all west of the railroad tracks and east of Carlsbad Boulevard. That includes the desalination plant, which has about 11 acres, but not the new power plant, which is east of the tracks.
NRG has said it will work with the city and community members to determine what might happen next on the available land within the guidelines of the city’s general plan.
Carlsbad has been negotiating with SDG&E and NRG Energy under an agreement reached in 2014 that was originally to bring the city as much as 16 acres of the property as a condition of the city’s approval of the new power plant.
If no agreement is reached, NRG is required to pay the city $10 million under the terms of the 2014 settlement.
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