Garrett King, a deckhand on the commercial fishing boat Alice Mae, pours one of many baskets of Vermilion snapper from the ship's storage into a larger bin to have weighed on Thursday, Mar. 31, 2016. The boat was dropping off it's catch at Katie's Seafood Market located in Galveston, Texas. Commercial fishing boats like the Alice Mae and its operators are facing challenging times since the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), for the first time, issued regulations allowing industrial aquaculture in the ocean and especially in the Gulf of Mexico. Fish farming has been controversial and under study for years. Fish farms can have huge floating net cages beyond 3 miles offshore. Recently, a suit was filed in U.S. District Court in Eastern Louisiana to stop it. Two are fishing organizations in Texas, in the Galveston area. Worries are several: One is the economic impact of big outfits taking up to 64 million pounds of fish annually out of the Gulf. Another has to do with the environmental impacts of farming the ocean, including the various chemicals used to protect the fingerlings. Theres also concern about escaped fish and genetic impacts; plaintiffs say there have been thousands of escapes from shore-side pens. On the other hand, factory trawlers are fast depleting the ocean. (Kin Man Hui/San Antonio Express-News) Photo: Kin Man Hui, Staff / San Antonio Express-News / ©2016 San Antonio Express-News