Fish farmer hopes law will open his options

GOUVERNEUR — Fish farmer Donald J. Sadue sells thousands of his rainbow trout every year for school aquaculture programs and for stocking, but he can't offer his wares to restaurants or grocery stores.

"Most of the ones you see in the stores come from Idaho," Mr. Sadue said. "New York hasn't wanted fishermen catching sports fish and selling them to a restaurant. It's like saying you can't sell maple syrup that's made in New York, that you have to get it from Vermont."

A pending state bill would legalize the sale of hatchery-raised food-size trout and black bass to third-party vendors. If the bill passes, Mr. Sadue plans to raise 50,000 to 60,000 fish for the restaurant trade and assumes other small operations would open up.

"There are people who would like to get into it, but not with the limited market of stocking," Mr. Sadue said. "My priority is to get this law passed. That opens up so many opportunities."

The bill is supported by Farm Bureau and is sponsored by state Sen. Darrel J. Aubertine, D-Cape Vincent.

"We think it's a great idea," Mr. Aubertine's spokesman, Andrew G. Mangione, said. "This is a bill that will create a new market."

The bill isn't on a committee agenda yet, nor is there a similar bill in the Assembly.

The legislation faces opposition from some sportsmen's groups that think it might interfere with recreational fishing, but Mr. Sadue said the intent is to establish a tracking system that shows the fish sold are hatchery-raised.

Whether the bill becomes law or not, Mr. Sadue is set to expand his business that started out as a hobby in his basement at 236 Stammer Road about 15 years ago.

At the time, Mr. Sadue was running Empire Livestock, which participated in various school programs, and David E. Sipher, a Gouverneur resident and Potsdam High School agriculture teacher, talked to him about providing the fry for an aquaculture program he was starting.

Mr. Sadue still provides fish to the aquaculture program at Potsdam High, as well as at Edwards-Knox Central School, Russell. He sells to other hatcheries, various stocking programs and individuals. Besides Mr. Sadue, there is a commercial hatchery in Chateaugay and one south of Utica.

Over the years, Mr. Sadue sold two of his family's three farms and left the dairy business and his job as a salesman for International Paper, but he kept adding tanks of fish, first on an outside deck, and, more recently, in what was a heifer barn.

"We just got more and more and more," he said.

Last spring, he bought used equipment from Cornell for a more elaborate setup and installed an automatic generator Wednesday that will provide emergency power to circulating pumps within 30 seconds of an electrical outage. Other improvements are planned for the barn.

"He's very motivated and passionate about this," said Mr. Sadue's wife, Barbara V.

Over the next few weeks, Mr. Sadue will sell upwards of 25,000 fish, and start 40,000 more in early May.

"Right now, it's just rainbow trout," Mr. Sadue said. "We can get certified for other species."

The Sadues unwittingly stumbled into the perfect location for a fish hatchery when they bought the farm in 1976. It had a one-time iron ore mine on it that shut down because operators couldn't keep up with the water that kept filling it.

The endless spring-fed underground water source is what keeps the fish thriving.

"It was a diamond in the rough," Mr. Sadue said. "You work with what you've got."