Fish Farm Legislation ???

Rockfish

Well-Known Member
Latest efforts from the fish farms corps. well funded Lobby Machine in Ottawa.

http://opinion.financialpost.com/2011/03/17/an-act-for-fish-farms/


An act for fish farms
Comments Twitter LinkedIn Email .Special to the Financial Post Mar 17, 2011 – 8:44 PM ET

Aquaculture industry needs updated legal oversight

By Ruth Salmon

According to the latest United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization report, per-capita seafood consumption has reached a record high.

With much of the world’s fisheries production holding steady, aquaculture — the farming of fish, shellfish and sea plants in marine or land-based facilities — is playing a growing role in meeting that demand. Aquaculture is the world’s fastest-growing animal-food-producing sector, and is set to overtake wild fisheries output.

Canada’s $2.1-billion aquaculture industry is strong, but stagnant. Demand for our cultured seafood products remains steady. But while other countries ramp up aquaculture production, our industry is having difficulty expanding, largely because of inefficient legislation and co-ordinated opposition campaigns that spread false and outdated information to the public and politicians.

Meanwhile, the United States — the largest customer of Canadian farmed seafood — has a draft framework in place to aggressively expand its own aquaculture production and reduce reliance on imports. Norway, corporate headquarters to some of Canada’s largest salmon-farming companies, is in talks with Brazil to forge an aquaculture partnership. Chile, a major competitor to Canadian farmed salmon, is getting back on its feet after experiencing production setbacks. Rather than focusing on domestic opportunities — which are few and far between — our aquaculture industry is increasingly looking to other countries to expand operations.

With untapped marine resources, world-class scientists and a skilled workforce, Canada has the potential to become a major player on the global aquaculture stage. Fish and shellfish farming has become the only source of year-round employment in many coastal Canadian communities — particularly those where wild fisheries and forestry are in decline.

Canada’s farmed seafood products are known worldwide for quality and freshness. Yet we’re the world’s only major farmed seafood-producing country without national legislation specifically designed to govern and enable its aquaculture industry. Our farmed fish and shellfish operations are regulated by more than 70 different pieces of legislation — primarily the Fisheries Act, enacted decades ago for the regulation of the wild fishery, not the food production sector.

Politicians must stand up for this resilient, rapidly evolving industry. This support will encourage investment and employment in all Canadian provinces and get our industry growing again.

Along with clearly defined rights and responsibilities, an Aquaculture Act would bring increased investment to the sector, reduce regulatory costs to industry over the long term by cutting red tape, and encourage the sustainable use of our natural resources. The timing is right. Reducing regulatory costs would be in keeping with the federal government’s new Red Tape Reduction Commission.

In these times of global unease, food security is becoming a critically important consideration for all countries. Canada should be no exception. Canadian farmed seafood is affordable, sustainable and consistently available fresh, year-round. Encouraging more *production makes sense — both for domestic consumption and *exports.

Ultimately, a federal Aquaculture Act would enable Canada’s aquaculture industry to compete more effectively on a global scale, create more quality year-round jobs in our rural and coastal communities, and help sustainably meet the world’s growing demand for seafood.

The time has come for a federal Aquaculture Act.

Financial Post
Ruth Salmon is executive director of the Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance, which is headquartered in Ottawa. She lives on Vancouver Island. www.Aquaculture.ca

.Posted in: FP Comment Tags: aquaculture, fish farming, Ruth Salmon .
 
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I doubt very much that during my nearly a dozen years that I have been actively studying and opposing this terrible industry, have I read a more blatant testimony of lies about fish-farming collected on one page.

And who better to spew it than their Queen.
 
. Chile, a major competitor to Canadian farmed salmon, is getting back on its feet after experiencing production setbacks.
IIRC, Chile production setbacks were due to uncontrollable outbreaks of IHN and other fish killing diseases. Interesting how that little tid bit is missed ;-)
 
They want the rights of the Atlantic Salmon Feed Lot Industry (Ocean Fish Farms) spelled out in legislation so that they can expand at will, clog up and pollute more of our inlets, put at risk our wild salmon and be free of pesky little problems like environmental oversight or public disclosure requirements that could interfere with their profits.

Alaska has the right idea; I understand they don’t allow any of these disease and parasite factories to pollute and damage their coast and wild salmon.

The last thing BC needs is federal legislation that protects and promotes the expansion of this industry and ensures the taxpayer will be on the hook to compensate these companies in the future. We need to come down hard on any politician/political party who would support this legislation and expand the rights of this industry.
 
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Hey Holmes,

At least Grieg can't call you down for being strictly against their operation. Looks pretty clear that you hate them all equally! LOL


i dont, but they are the ones i see everyday, as grieg is in my town, when i happen to run into ppl that work for marine harvest of course i let them know how i feel about their disgusting industry, i know lots of ppl that work for grieg and to them its just a paycheque, they really have no clue the damage theyre doing to their own backyard.....holmes*
 
Holmes I figure you are in the Sechelt area where Grieg purchased Target Marine. Funny thing is the farms there do not have a lice issue due to the lower salinity.
 
Nope, No lice problem from Grieg farms in Nootka. Counts are low in Muchalat inlet cause of the lower salinity due to the Gold River. Sea Lice don't like freshwater. Thats why they tend to drop off salmon in rivers very quickly and you can tell how long a fish has been in the river by the presence or lack of sea lice.
 
Holmes... don't waste your time with this fish farm SHILL. They will tell you black is white until your blue in the fingers.:p eman
 
Nope, No lice problem from Grieg farms in Nootka. Counts are low in Muchalat inlet cause of the lower salinity due to the Gold River. Sea Lice don't like freshwater. Thats why they tend to drop off salmon in rivers very quickly and you can tell how long a fish has been in the river by the presence or lack of sea lice.

Hmm…I guess the only thing I can say here is… WOW! Where is that coming from?
There just might be a few, including Grieg Seafoods and myself that will disagree with, “No lice Problem from Grieg in Nootka.” Shall we start with as late as 2010 or go back a few years? I start with 2010!

Minutes of the Regular Meeting of the Tahsis Village Council (March 2 2010)

"On February 24, I attended a Nootka Sound Watershed Society meeting in Gold River. A presentation was made by Grieg Seafoods regarding the sea lice outbreak that occurred at fish farms near Esperanza in November. One farm registered an average of 40 lice per fish while another showed 23. These were by far the highest recorded counts for the Nootka Sound region from 2004 to the present. The tests were conducted by an independent agency that was funded by Grieg. It happened during a period of high temperature and salinity which are both favourable to sea lice. The counts declined after this time to about 12 per fish by January. Grieg is harvesting all fish from area pens and is moving toward a rotation that aims to avoid contamination of wild and hatchery smolts as they migrate past the farms. As the farm fish take about 22 months to reach maturity, they will be present every other year during the smolt migration season so it will minimize but note liminate cross-contamination. They maintain that the anti-lice chemical, Slice, is still highly effective and the lice have not become resistant. Slice is also used on some farm produce and is administered to salmon through their feed; they are not harvested for 60 days minimum after application. Sea lice are endemic to wild salmon as well as other species such as herring and stickleback but do the most damage to salmon smolts when they are between .5 and .7 grams in size; chum are at greatest risk due to their small size on release from hatcheries. Salmon may have evolved migratory and river spawning behaviour to avoid contaminating their own fry with sea lice. The lice will leave adult salmon in freshwater and also need a host to survive on until their larval stage is released and can find new hosts. Unfortunately, when fishfarms are situated along wild salmon migration routes such as Nootka Sound or Esperanza Inlet, they short-circuit this strategy by forming dense, stationary pockets of salmon that can cross-contaminate wild populations. While the only 100% solution is to remove fish farms or move to closed containment systems, I believe that in the interim we need to lobby the Department ofFisheries and Oceans to implement a standard monitoring system for sea lice in the Nootka region, both on wild and farm populations. Given that by December 2010 DFO will be undertaking full regulation of farm as well as wild salmon, I would like to make a motion that Council write a letter to DFO advocating standard,ongoing monitoring of wild and farm sea lice populations in the Nootka Sound area. I do not believe that fish farms should be self regulating, even with arm's length monitoring if we are to ensure the best results for wild salmon populations.
http://www.villageoftahsis.com/pdfs/minutes/2010/03-02-10-council-minutes.pdf

Yep… no problem there – WRONG ANSWER!
Shall we address the other issues - like escapes, and especially “algae blooms”?
 
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FYI…

Grieg Seafood bought out Canadian-owned TargetMarine Group’s coastal salmon farming sites and processing facility in early2007. The acquisition nearly doubled its number of salmon farm licenses. Greigoperates open net-cage salmon farms on BC’s Sunshine Coast on the west coast ofVancouver Island, and in the sensitive wild samon migratory routes of theBroughton Archipelago and Discovery Islands.

The company presently has 18 grow-out licenses andabout 120 employees, including part time help.

In one of the largest escape events reported in BC,Grieg Seafood lost approximately 33,000 farmed Atlantic salmon in 2004 on theWest coast of Vancouver Island. In 2007, two sites in BC were affected by algaeblooms and low oxygen levels.

In March 2008, Intrafish Media reported thatGrieg Seafood was fined 1 million Norwegian Kroner (€123,835/$195,632) by aNorwegian court, after 54,000 salmon escaped from a fish farm at Erfjord inJuly 2005. On appealing the ruling, Norwegian state prosecuting authorityOkokrim has called for a heavier fine for what it sees is a clear breach ofenvironmental law. Grieg Seafood has also appealed the ruling, claiming theescapes are due to forces of nature and poor weather conditions.
http://www.farmedanddangerous.org/solutions/industry-reform/about-the-industry/

CanadianSablefish Association (2004)
Recentscience at DFO
The scientists at DFO now "studying" the Broughton sea lice (DickBeamish and Brent Hargreaves) are intelligent men. If they have read thescientific literature, and thought about the elementary biology, they know thatthe epidemics of sea lice on pink salmon fry in the Broughton are almostcertainly initiated by salmon farms. However, they also know (see my remarkabove) that in science, absolute proof is never possible. This gives them lotsof room to wiggle and protect the industry by doing inconclusive studies.Dragging around the inlets with a big trawl, for example, as Dick Beamish does,may be a good way to do coho surveys, but it's a poor way to study pink salmonfry, which are best sampled near shore in water a few meters deep.

DFO's Brent Hargreaves argues that Alexandra Morton did not account forvariations in salinity, and that sea lice epidemics have not occurred onMuchalat Inlet. Hargreaves knows that salinity is a second order effectcompared to the presence of hosts. He also knows that the inevitability ofdisease transfer from farm to wild doesn't mean that it will happen at everyfarm, or that every time it happens you will be there to observe it.

It is not possible to do good science when one is worried about protecting anindustry. When I spoke with Hargreaves about his research on sea lice he said"You can't shut down a multimillion dollar industry just because somebodywaves a placard." The fact that the industry and its wealth areconsiderations shows that his science is constrained. In order to do goodscience, you can't think about who will be harmed by your research and youcan't think about the money; you have to just think about the science.

The irony is that DFO's denial of the inevitability of disease has grievouslyinjured the aquaculture industry. Many millions of farm fish have been lost todisease simply because farms were sited on the migration routes of wild salmon.
http://canadiansablefish.com/news35.htm


Fish farms causingproblems in Muchalat Inlet (2005)
GoldRiver -Norwegian-owned Grieg Seafoods is suffering major problems at its three fishfarm sites in Muchalet Inlet (Nootka Sound), and the Mowachaht/Muchalaht FirstNations have now launched a judicial review of one of Grieg’s tenures withintheir traditional territories. Two years after a toxic algae bloom killed250,000 fish (more than 900 tonnes) at their Esperanza Inlet farm (westcoastaquatic.ca/article_fish_die_off.htm),Grieg has lost a further 33,000 fish in one escape, 1.8 million smolts to adisease outbreak, and are facing serious concerns about one of their farmsbeing located over an abalone bed.
http://www.westcoastaquatic.ca/article_fishfarms_problems_muchalat0205.htm

SPECIALCOMMITTEE ON SUSTAINABLE AQUACULTURE MINUTESAND HANSARD (Wednesday,June 7, 2006)
Thechart on the right demonstrates some of the losses to the existing fish farmindustry due to interactions with the outside environment. They include sealice. They do not include things like algal blooms, but clearly it's a majorproblem for the industry when an entire pen or system of pens on their tenureis affected by an algal bloom.

Finally,with respect, I would offer these suggested recommendations: that thegovernment of British Columbia establish a fund for innovation andimplementation of new closed-tank systems; that we open no new areas to opennetcages and, in fact, require new finfish licences to use closed-tanktechnologies; that we aim for aquaculture that is a net protein provider.

Wealso have a strong presence on the Nootka Sound Watershed Society, whichinvolves all user groups in the stewardship of Nootka Sound. Also integral in our management of theNootka Sound area is an agreement with DFO to monitor lice on wild fish inNootka Sound. This is our third year of sampling. We sample eight sites fromMarch 1 through June 30.
http://www.leg.bc.ca/cmt/38thparl/session-2/aquaculture/hansard/W60607p.htm

Dialoguewith the Fish Farm Regulators (03/20/2010)
I fully realize your graphs are averages over alarge area (northwestern Vancouver Island), but I don’t see any farms outside Nootka/Esperanza contributing to the November data point and only 1 farm outside Nootka/Esperanza in the September/ December averages. This one outside farm of the correct age class is Marine Harvest’s Mahatta West site and they did not do a louse count in November (see Marine Harvest Website). However,your data is not the only indicator of drug resistance at the Grieg salmon farms.

I went to Esperanza and did a standard plankton tow that I have repeated at many salmon farms and found more than 4 times the highest number of sea lice larvae. As a result, I don’t need the Grieg data to assess that only 1.5 sea lice generations post Slice efficacy (following the October treatment), Esperanza fish farms have elevated sea louse numbers. Thisi s not biologically possible mid-winter had the drug actually worked. Myfinding is consistent with your data reporting an average of 11 sea lice/farm salmon in this zone. Disturbingly these lice are the Slice survivors and willb e even more resistant to future attempts at drug control and it is my concern that you are not moving to contain this potentially serious threat to wild salmon.

In Esperanza, I observed numerous female lice, with eggs, adhered to the hull o fthe packer Viking Star before it traveled south through Tahsis Inlet, past all the Muchalat fish farms to the Gold River. This means there is high likelihood of spreading this lineage of sea lice to the approximately 1 million farm salmon there. If this occurs there is high likelihood Slice will not protect the wild salmon from rivers in that region.

You state sea lice from Nootka have “minimal chanceof survival” during transport to Quadra Island for processing. This is not accurate. When I examined a plankton net full of the effluent from that plant I found abundant hatching sea lice eggs. You have an entire enforcement branch with veterinary support and did not check if this effluent contains living lice.
http://alexandramorton.typepad.com/alexandra_morton/2010/03/dialogue-with-the-fish-farm-regulators.html
 
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Esperanza Inlet is not Nootka Sound. That is where Grieg had Lice issues the fall before last. They voluntarily slaughtered every fish in the inlet after a unique set of environmental conditions occurred to allow lice numbers to increase above average.

Grieg communicated to the NSWS regarding the lice issue and outlined their course of action, which they carried out to protect the outmigrating wild salmon smolt in the spring.

The farms in Muchalat Inlet in Nootka sound do not have lice issues due to lower salinty.
 
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With regard to the escape in 05, Grieg was required to perform swims of the Gold River for the next 3 years looking for adults returning. In addition the Mowachat did their own swims. Neither group found any adults in the Gold River.
 

"They voluntarily slaughtered every fish in theinlet after a unique set of environmental conditions occurred to allow licenumbers to increase above average."

LOL, well, I read that a little differently,as in... They knew there was going to be repercussions, so can you say "damage control" – let’sharvest the fish!

BTW... Muchalat Inlet, is NOT Nooka Sound, either!
 
With regard to the escape in 05, Grieg was required to perform swims of the Gold River for the next 3 years looking for adults returning. In addition the Mowachat did their own swims. Neither group found any adults in the Gold River.

I've got a question, what do you mean by they were required to perform swims? Do you mean that they put divers in the ocean (or river) to swim around and look for the alien (not the outerspace kind or radiation exposed) fish in the water returning from the open sea? If so, what the hell were they going to do if they found some? Try to chase them down and catch them to remove them from the water?

If they were NEVER in the water in the first place, they wouldn't have to swim around looking for them, or for that matter they would never have to worry about them getting loose.

We have to get these damned LICE farms out of the ocean! If you want to farm fish, go find a reasonably priced piece of agricultral land (farm land) that is no good for viable agricultural farming (there should be lots around in BC) and build your Fish farms there and then we all will not have to worry about any of these Atlantic salmon getting free into the Pacific Ocean. Plus it would be one hell of a lot easier to get you product to market. The delivery trucks could come right to your door to pick up your product, instead of boating it to the truck and then trucking it to the market. The industry would actually decrease their carbon footprint.
 
nice post, but ur makin too much damn sense,lol....holmes*
I was afraid of that. May have to simple down to communicate with some of these people that believe these LICE farms are OK. May also have to help them pull their heads out of thier A$$es before we start the simple down conversation.:p
 
Holmes,
I take offense to your name calling. This is a debate amongst adults, not a sandbox tantrum amongst 5 year olds, and so name calling has no place.
The activity you speak of does not have to make a positive effect, only to mitigate any negative, the same criteria for tha majority of other human actvities.

Charlie,
Grieg farms in Muchalat and Esperanza. My understanding is that Esparanza was not considered part of Nootka sound, but Muchalat was.
In any event, they killed a bunch of fish and took a loss to protect the wild smolt, something they did not legally have to do.

So Fish Hunter, you would prefer the farms on land where their carbon footprint would quickly outweigh any environmental impact if left in the ocean. In addition, am I to understand that you want all agriculture crops which are not native to the province to be removed, or just the ones you don't like?
 
Just the ones that have an obvious and proven negative impact on our envionment while providing very little benefit to our society and are being run by ruthless, ignorant and impertinent foreigners and their goons. Yup, that sums up net-pen fish farms.
 
So Fish Hunter, you would prefer the farms on land where their carbon footprint would quickly outweigh any environmental impact if left in the ocean. In addition, am I to understand that you want all agriculture crops which are not native to the province to be removed, or just the ones you don't like?

Well sockeyefry2 I am sure that if one were to study it they would see that the carbon footprint would be smaller for a closed containment on land fish farm than for a net pen in the water farm. Your feed goes directly to your door, (not to the dock or airport and then out to the remote locations that the farms tend to be located). Your product gets picked up right at your door to go to processing or to market, (instead of going by boat or plane to the same). Also all of the services and goods that are provided to your farm location are far easier to get to by land than by the current remote water locations. So yes overall your costs of doing business and getting service and the overall carbon footprint should be smaller, and this is all without even considering the safety benefits of having the farms on land.

No you are not understanding what I am saying! I am not saying that I want all agricultural crops which are not native to the province to be removed. What I am saying is that I would most definately love to see the Aquaculture crops that are not native to the province and ARE causing harm to the environment and native wildlife REMOVED from the WATER - IMMEDIATELY!!! Our country and its leader need to stop Fu@%ing around here and stop just chasing the almighty dollar and throwing caution to the wind and taking obvious and unnecessary risks to make a profit and only for a profit. This is the only reason that these goddamned Lice Farms are in the bloody water on the west coast, is to make a greedy profit. Put these freaking farms on the EAST coast, (where the species orriginally came from) and boost their employment numbers out there, as I understand it they could use a boost to their economy. We can sell fresh WILD fish to our restaraunts here on the west coast, thus supporting our suffering Commercial fishery, at that point then I would at least order salmon at a restaraunt, right now I will NEVER order any salmon from any restaraunt (except perhaps Holmes' establishment - I think it safe to say that one would not find a LICE FARM fish in his cooler - EVER!), because of these damned LICE Farms. One can not trust that the fish at any particular establishment are actually WILD, when there is lice farm fish available to them here, it is too tempting for them to sell a cheaper product and then say that it is wild when asked, I just do not ever order it, because I will not support the Fish Farms when operating in their current fashion. Change them all to Closed containment on land farms and then I will rethink the issue, and I am sure many others would also.

Keeping and building new farms in the water is much akin to building a freaking nuclear power plant on the water front in a major seismic zone highly susceptible to Tsunamis and then saying that oh it will be OK, nothing bad will ever happen even if it could happen, we will deal with that when it happens, lets just do it anyway.

Don't get me started on this issue! We ALL know in the core of our hearts that these farms are not good for our coast, it is time for us all to grow some backbone and stand up for what we KNOW is right and good, and get these fish farms out of the waters of our Pacific Coast!
 
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