WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has completed its highly anticipated evaluation of the environmental impact of the world’s first genetically modified (GMO) fish for human consumption, and authored a document supportive of its commercialization on the U.S. market.

This fast-growing Atlantic salmon is called AquaAdvantage and was engineered by a Massachusetts-based company called AquaBounty Technologies. This company has engineered and bred more than 10 generations of AquaAdvantage.

The assessment of this salmon is expected to be released to the U.S. public soon. Final release of the report is likely to spark further controversy over the fish since many environmental groups, as well as several members of Congress, oppose the farming and sale of such fish. Many are worried about their impact on the environment, on other species and on the existing fishing industry.

This evaluation is now under review at the White House’s Office of Management and Budget. Many are worried a U.S. approval will trigger corporate plans to produce GMO salmon eggs in Prince Edward Island, Canada.

There is plenty of support for the GMO fish. “The FDA has extensively studied this fish and has declared it exactly the same as any other Atlantic salmon,” said Ronald Stotish, AquaBounty Technologies CEO and president.

“There is no difference between the flesh of this fish and that of Atlantic salmon consumed every day. In characteristics, physiology, behavior, this is an Atlantic salmon. It looks and tastes just lie an Atlantic salmon.”

AquaBounty generated a construct that includes a “gene cassette” from the Pacific Chinook salmon it can splice into the Atlantic salmon to give it instructions to grow large.

There is plenty of opposition as well, drawing persistent complaints from activist groups such as the Center for Food Safety, Friends of the Earth U.S., Greenpeace and Food and Water Watch.

“Critical information about the whole process has been kept from the public and organizations that focus on these issues,” said Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food and Water Watch. “There’s a transparency problem.”

Colin O’Neil, a regulatory policy analyst for the nonprofit Center for Food Safety, is leading a campaign to stop the fish from coming to market.

“The safety studies that evaluated the allergenic properties of the fish used too small a sample size, just six GE (genetically engineered) fish and six controls,” O’Neil said. “Frankly, that’s not a pool sufficient to determine if the fish poses allergic harm. If this is the rigorous criteria the FDA is using, we have numerous concerns.”

He said one concern is the fish could escape and mix with wild fish populations, even though Stotish has said that the risk of that is infinitesimal.

“The U.S. government should complete a comprehensive and independent environmental impact statement instead of fast-tracking approval based on an incomplete and misguided environmental review of corporate data,” said Eric Hoffman, biotechnology policy campaigner at Friends of the Earth U.S. “If the FDA approves this genetically engineered salmon, it will be ignoring evidence that these fish could seriously hurt wild salmon populations and marine ecosystems, all to benefit one small biotech company.”

Anne Kapuscinski, a professor at Dartmouth College and an international expert on the safety of GMO organisms, said she is uncertain how well the FDA is able to fully assess the risks to the natural world that my be posed by an organism created in a laboratory.

“If you put the top scientific researchers in this area into a room, they would have to work very hard together to figure out the conclusion for ecological risk,” Kapuscinski said. “This is very, very complex.”

“If these GE salmon are approved, it will be setting worldwide precedent because salmon is a global commodity. It will be the first GE animal approved for human consumption for wide-scale farming.”

The fish eggs would be produced on Prince Edward Island in Canada, licensed and purchased from grower clients and raised as sterile fish in double-barricaded, landlocked-based aquaculture systems designed to prevent their escape into the wild and ensure their genetic isolation.

GMO salmon raises many concerns, but according to the International Food Policy Research Institute, one-third of worldwide fish stocks are overfished or near extinction. It added consumption of fish doubled between 1973 and 1997.

Today, the group stated, the world consumes 110.4 million metric tons of fish each year and just over half of that was produced by aquaculture.