Sustainable seafood far from the sea?

Is it possible to get sustainable seafood here in central New York?  To begin answering this question, I turned to Wegmans, the store here with the biggest selection of fish and seafood.

So is fish from Wegmans sustainable?  According to a Wegmans consumer affairs representative, all the fish in the fresh fish case is sustainable, and the store maintains a web page explaining their seafood sourcing philosophy, a seafood product chart, and their "Take Marlin off the Menu" pledge. (An aside: I used to shop at a store that used red, yellow, and green dots on their fish to denote which were sustainable, borderline, or not -- which made me wonder why they were carrying any fish with the red dots?!)

By email, I asked the Wegmans Consumer Affairs department a few questions, which I've recapped here:

Ithaca's Food Web: I've known about the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch sustainable suggestions for quite some time -- I was wondering why your product list uses verification by other organizations?

Wegmans responds: "The Monterey Bay Aquarium does very good work in the area of sustainability. However we have found it is in the best interest of our suppliers, our customers, and our own business to work with organizations that are in the seafood business. By doing this we are able to work closely with our suppliers as well as the certifiers to be sure the decisions made are based on science and business."

IFW: I noticed a few differences -- like Monterey Bay Aquarium suggests avoiding all Chilean Sea Bass, whereas your verifier allows it from the Falkland Islands.

Wegmans: "While it is true that Chilean Sea Bass is a fish at risk, the fishery in the Falkland Islands has been certified by the Marine Stewardship Council as being managed sustainably. We do not offer Sea Bass from any other fishery – if our supply of MSC certified sea bass runs out, we simply do not offer the product until the fishery is able to provide more inventory. By offering MSC-certified sea bass we are able to provide our customers with a fish they desire and be responsible in our sourcing at the same time."

IFW: Does your product list only apply to fresh fish and seafood listed? 

Wegmans: "No. We offer many more products in our stores, some of which are not currently facing sustainability concerns. The list simply shows the products available in our stores that have been certified sustainable."

IFW: Do you ever sell non-color-enhanced salmon? 

Wegmans: "A few years ago we offered salmon that had not received feed containing astaxanthin or cantaxanthin. However because of the natural grayish color our customers were not excited by the product. The sales results did not justify carrying the product in our stores."

IFW: Considering the increased popularity of buying meat in bulk (eg buying a 1/4 cow, or half a lamb, from local farms), I was wondering if you offer any bulk purchasing of fish? 

Wegmans: "We offer some frozen fish in our Club Pack packaging. This allows our customers the benefit of quantity discounts."

Update (3/3/2010):

In response to reader comments, I delved a bit deeper into the question about farmed salmon at Wegmans. Farmed Atlantic salmon is considered a "worst choice" by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch because:
-wild Altantic salmon is on the US endangered species list
-Atlantic salmon farms are are usually large-scale, densely stocked netpens that pollute surrounding waters with waste and chemicals.
-Farmed fish can escape and compete with wild fish for resources, breed with wild fish (changing their genetics), or spread parasites to wild fish.
-health-wise, farmed Atlantic salmon has high levels of harmful PCB chemicals.

Since 2006, Wegmans has been working with the Environmental Defense Fund to promote better salmon farming practices, such as integrating salmon and mollusk farming to recycle fish wastes and not farming genetically modified salmon.  Wegmans is expanding this effort to other types of farmed seafood as well.