More on Pollution...

[Little Hawk]

Thought I'd share my reply to Fred Hawkshaw's email I received today.
Fred is a commercial fisherman active in conservation issues and tireless in his 'Watch-Dog' efforts to keep Government and industry in line.

One of his latest concerns is a proposal from an American fish-processor to dump 7000 m/tons of unprocessed fish-offal at sea in Canadian waters. Though I wholeheartedly concur with his concerns, I took the opportunity to share with him my similar concerns about the pollution-issue from salmon-farming. Though sea-lice and disease transfer as well as escaping alien fish have made plenty of headlines with the media in BC, pollution from salmon-farms is still pretty much 'swept-under-the-rug' and certainly the industry ( and apologists' like Sockeye, who will no-doubt chime-in with his feeble damage-control antics) would just as soon keep it all 'Hush-hush'...

Howdy Fred,

Thanks for keeping me in the loop on this stuff. Your passion for the welfare of Pacific Salmon and the health of our precious marine ecosystems is both evident and infectious.

If only I could get more people - including you - to grasp the enormity of the pollution issues caused by the salmon farming industry on our coast. Typically, front line salmon farming news surrounds the sea-lice and disease-transfer or escaping fish problems; the pollution end of it seldom gets press, nor do the NGO's rant about it much. Like you inferred previously, the prevalent mentality is that our wonderful ocean will just 'suck-it-up' and it'll go away. Same as you, I don't subscribe to that ideology.

Nearly ten yrs ago when I first began to research the salmon-farming industry (for an essay I wrote for a night-school English class) I stumbled upon a publication - I think it was an NOAA report, I've since lost the data - that stated that a typical net-pen salmon farm dumped the daily equivalent raw-untreated sewage into the ocean as a city of 500,000 people. I echoed this data in a salmon-farming article I wrote for BC Outdoors Sportfishing Magazine (pub. May 2002) and to my knowledge it has yet to be formerly contested. At that time there were well over 100 active farms on our coast and to this day I still haven't gotten over learning this; it leaves me sick and disgusted, both with these 'big Norwegian doggies' for sh!tting in our front-yard and our collusive government for allowing the situation to prevail.

I support the analogy of comparing raw-human sewage as a benchmark to put the fish-farming pollution issue in perspective; both share many of the same constituents, ie., heavy metals, toxic chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and organic compounds. As a conservative example let's use sewage data from the city of Victoria (where I live) published in a report submitted to the MOE a few years back. As you may be aware, Victoria still dumps untreated sewage directly into the Juan de Fuca. As I stated previously, my research back in 2000 or so correlated an average fish-farms pollution contribution to that of a city of 500,000 humans. Victoria's two sewage outfalls service about 350,000 people, that's 30% less than 500,000 but hey, let's cut the Norwegians some slack here because after all their wonderful industry creates about 1000 or so medial-paying jobs in some of BC's most remote communities.

While you contemplate the ramifications of 7000 m/tons of fish offal being periodically dumped upon Mother Nature, consider this, Fred:

- in 2004 the combined output of raw-sewage of the McCauley and Clover Point outfalls was averaged at 92,000 cubic/meters per day.
- multiply that by a modest 100 active farms and we arrive at 9,200,000 cubic/meters per day, dumped directly into some of our most pristine marine ecosystems.
- that equates to 6,388 cubic/meters PER MINUTE - 24/7!

And people wonder why I'm so adamant about getting these bastards out of our water.

Standing for Wild Salmon,
Terry Anderson

Wild Salmon Alliance

 

[The Fish Assassin]

I don't know if I buy into this, where is the offal from? is it wild salmon offal or farmed salmon offal? If it is from wild salmon I am of the thinking the crab and shrimp/prawn populations would welcome this extra bonanza of food? Even further down the food chain there are micro organisms that will break down every last bit of that offal. I'm not saying there arn't better ways of dealing with it, like say a rendering plant, but if it is just normal everyday fish offal I don't really have an issue with it. How much of it goes back into the water from sportfishermen anyways?

Take only what you need.

 

[The Fish Assassin]

I don't know if I buy into this, where is the offal from? is it wild salmon offal or farmed salmon offal? If it is from wild salmon I am of the thinking the crab and shrimp/prawn populations would welcome this extra bonanza of food? Even further down the food chain there are micro organisms that will break down every last bit of that offal. I'm not saying there arn't better ways of dealing with it, like say a rendering plant, but if it is just normal everyday fish offal I don't really have an issue with it. How much of it goes back into the water from sportfishermen anyways?

Take only what you need.

 

[sockeyefry]

FA,

You do realise that the dumping of fish offal into the oceans is contrary to the Fisheries act irregardless of its source. By dumping wild fish offal you could be spreading disease. Ever think of that?

 

[The Fish Assassin]

That is true , but the possibility of that happening would be much greater if it was farmed fish offal being dumped.

Take only what you need.

 

[ratherbefishing]

"That is true , but the possibility of that happening would be much greater if it was farmed fish offal being dumped"

Why?

 

[sockeyefry]

Good question Ratherbe.

Cause while both have the potential for disease spread, wild offal would be more likely to have disease organisms because nothing is preventing the wild fish from carrying diseases.

 

[agentaqua]

quote:Originally posted by sockeyefry

Good question Ratherbe.

Cause while both have the potential for disease spread, wild offal would be more likely to have disease organisms because nothing is preventing the wild fish from carrying diseases.

the validity of the assumption that farmed stock has less parasites and diseases than wild stocks depends upon quite a number of factors, that may or may not be true:

1/ farmed stocks are less stressed than wild stocks and less susceptible to disease transfer and expression due to a robust immune system - not true. Immune systems are generally more depressed in cultured stocks due to the stress of crowding, and are therefore more susceptible to getting diseases from wild stocks.

2/ farmed stocks are held at less densities than wild stocks, and thereby limit spread of diseases to nearby companions - again, not true.

3/ farmed stocks are immunized against diseases. Somewhat true. There are some immunizations for some well-known diseases, but many are either not known, vaccines are not yet developed, or the cost of the vaccination outweighs the potential loss of product.

4/ disease surveillance is adequate enough in a farmed setting to mitigate against transfer to wild stocks. Not true. In fact, fish farmers are not normally allowed to dump their offal for that reason.

5/ farm fish eat cooked and treated pellets, decreasing their risk to getting diseases and parasites from wild feed. Somewhat true. Farm fish do eat wild forage fish, and only a number of parasites and diseases have to utilize the food chain in order to complete their life cycle.

Having said all of this, there is some risk of disease and parasite transfer to wild stocks by dumping any untreated offal (i.e. not partly cooked or decomposed).

 

[Brisco]

quote:Originally posted by sockeyefry

Good question Ratherbe.

Cause while both have the potential for disease spread, wild offal would be more likely to have disease organisms because nothing is preventing the wild fish from carrying diseases.

Atlantic salmon don't belong in Pacific waters period. Quit calling Atlantic salmon "farm fish" as if they belong here. Mother nature has a way of sorting it all out in the end.

 

[Last Chance]

I still don't buy the sewage argument. It's math. TO make the comparision, you would need to measure the total volume of outfall at Clover Point, or whever, remove the water, and compare everything that is not water going into the ocean.

Assuming the big bin I saw at Clover Point where the solid matter only is collected was around 8x40x8 feet, that's a volume of 2560 sqaure feet, emptied every two days as I was told.

Assuming the sold waste weighs in at around 65 pounds per square foot, that's 166,400 pounds of solid waste, not including all of the liquids, and other finer materials that don't get caught by the solid waste processor.

How many pounds per day could possibly be thrown into a fish farm? You don't get any more sewer out then you put in.

Last Chance Fishing Adventures

www.lastchancefishingadventures.com
www.swiftsurebank.com

 

[Dave H]

"How many pounds per day could possibly be thrown into a fish farm?"

Maybe you should look deeper into that question. With anywhere from three to five hundred thousand salmon at each site all eating some weight of food per day it comes to a pretty substantial figure.
Check out how much feed is moved around this coast and you'll get a better idea.

Take care.

 

[agentaqua]

quote:Originally posted by LastChance

I still don't buy the sewage argument. It's math. TO make the comparision, you would need to measure the total volume of outfall at Clover Point, or whever, remove the water, and compare everything that is not water going into the ocean.

Assuming the big bin I saw at Clover Point where the solid matter only is collected was around 8x40x8 feet, that's a volume of 2560 sqaure feet, emptied every two days as I was told.

Assuming the sold waste weighs in at around 65 pounds per square foot, that's 166,400 pounds of solid waste, not including all of the liquids, and other finer materials that don't get caught by the solid waste processor.

How many pounds per day could possibly be thrown into a fish farm? You don't get any more sewer out then you put in.

Last Chance Fishing Adventures

www.lastchancefishingadventures.com
www.swiftsurebank.com

Good post, Last Chance & good response Dave H.

Every farm has to list how many pens, stocking densities and estimated amount of product they intend to produce as a condition of getting their aquaculture license approved by the province (and soon to be the feds, now).

Every day, fish eat something like 3-9% of their body weight (as wet weight food), but the pellets are more concentrated (about half as much water in pellets verses wet food) than wild (wet weight) food - so that percentage for pellet-fed fish may be half that amount.

Most farms have something like 200,000 to 2,000,000 farm fish of various sizes/weights - depending where/when they are along the 14-18 month production window (i.e. harvest size verses smolts). Sometimes they are fallow for short periods, even.

However: "The present system of licensing each salmon farm site to grow a specified number of fish (the APL) has proven challenging for DAFA to enforce." since : "It is still not technically feasible for a DAFA enforcement officer to visit a site and verify the APL by counting the number of fish being held on the farm." (See: http://www.aquanet.ca/English/research/aeccpaper.pdf)

Atlantic salmon are stocked as something like 60+ gram fish, and are grown to something like 1.5 kg fillet-size fish. Sockeyefry can confirm/deny/fine-tune these numbers,as I bet he has slightly better figures.

Rough-scale, that works-out to be in the 20,000 - 100,000 kg range of feed being thrown into each farm site, each day (do you have better #s, sockeyefry?). Since only something like 10% of energy (expressed as weight) is absorbed and used when one goes up 1 trophic level; roughscale - one would expect something like upwards of 90,000 kg of farm fish poop to be produced by each site each day. Again, sockeyefry may have slightly more accurate numbers.

Not sure of what the average human poops-out each day, but you can see that each farm site is likely to be equal to the sewerage of a small city. In 2005 the total salmonid finfish production volume (of farm-gate fillets) for BC was ~72,000 tonnes, and total for Canada was ~120,000 tonnes.

Fish farm effluent is "regulated" by taking what amount of fish the farm operators say they will rear - and modeling for sulfide, and redox levels at the bottom of the seafloor underneath and adjacent to the location of the cages.

DFO assesses the likelihood that a farm operation will cause a "Harmful Alteration, Disruption or Destruction" (i.e. a HADD, section 36, Fisheries Act) to benthic marine life, and sssumes the numbers of fish held in each site given to them by the aquaculture operators to be accurate (which may not be true). If a project might cause a HADD, the proponent is required to enter into a “HADD Avoidance, Mitigation, and Monitoring Agreement”.

However, DFO now considers solely anoxic (verses oxic or hypoxic) sites to be causing a HADD. What scientific studies support using anoxic sites as the threshold for a HADD? Fish habitat is clearly harmfully altered and disrupted, even destroyed, before an anoxic state is reached. See: http://www.friendsofportmoutonbay.ca/monitoring.htmland http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/119969768/abstract

Another important effect, not yet considered by DFO, is that changes in oxygen, redox, and pH levels on the sediments near the bottom of the seafloor make heavy metals and other chemicals more soluble in water, including toxic metals such as mercury.

These toxic metals can bi-accumulate, and have been found as elevated levels of mercury in rockfish caught adjacent to salmon farms. See: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es0520161

 

[Last Chance]

quote:Originally posted by Dave H

"How many pounds per day could possibly be thrown into a fish farm?"

Maybe you should look deeper into that question. With anywhere from three to five hundred thousand salmon at each site all eating some weight of food per day it comes to a pretty substantial figure.
Check out how much feed is moved around this coast and you'll get a better idea.

Take care.

That's what I would like to know.

Last Chance Fishing Adventures

www.lastchancefishingadventures.com
www.swiftsurebank.com

 

[The Fish Assassin]

quote:"That is true , but the possibility of that happening would be much greater if it was farmed fish offal being dumped"

Why?

Why? because in the pens the entire schools of farmed fish can and have gotten diseses, they just send them to the processor and to market even though they are deathly sick!!

Take only what you need.

 

[ratherbefishing]

I am not even a net pen proponent and I think you are a little of base. Love to hear what sockeyefry and agentaqua have to offer up.

 

[sockeyefry]

Agent,

I response to your post answering mine regarding disease, I agree with your points. Yes the farmed fish are held in much more stressful conditions than wild, and are more susceptible to whatever is in the water column. However, wild fish do carry disaese organisms, and their offal should be treated the same as the farmned fish.

Regarding the feed and waste, I do have some figures, but will have to look them up. Feed rates in net pens typically range from 0.5 to 1.5% of a fishes body weight per day. The bigger the fish, the lower the % of the body weight is fed. Also the colder the water the lower % is fed.

Typically a farm will have between 500,000 and 700,000 fish per site, and they are usually grown to about 5 kgs round weight. A peak feeding for one of these farms would be around 30,000 kgs per day. This would be at an average size of 5kgs, and would be the highest daily feed amount for the farm. When they are first stiocked at 75g the daily feed would be only 900 kgs per day. So the feed increases daily as the fish grow from a start of 900kgs to a final days feed of 30,000 kgs just bnefore they go to market. I have a good reference regarding the fate of a pellet once the fish eats it, what % is waste and what is used by the fish for growth etc... Now if I can just find it.

With regard to bottom sampling, regulations dictate that farms must pass a bottom test or be shut down until they can. With a lot of money invested companies don't want to have valuable sites shut down, so they act accordingly.

The mercury test seems a bit hoaky. Another attempt by well known anti farm scientist Craig Orr. Did he test the rockfish before the farm was put on site? Did he test rockfish from areas where there was no farms? Nope cause that would ruin his AGENDA. He puit forward just enough information to assist the reader in formulating the opinion his agenda requires.

 

[The Fish Assassin]

quote:Originally posted by ratherbefishing

I am not even a net pen proponent and I think you are a little of base. Love to hear what sockeyefry and agentaqua have to offer up.

Not at all I have seen it with my own eyes, and you noticed Sockeye Fry didn't disagree with my point.

Take only what you need.

 

[agentaqua]

quote:Originally posted by sockeyefry

Agent,
The mercury test seems a bit hoaky. Another attempt by well known anti farm scientist Craig Orr. Did he test the rockfish before the farm was put on site? Did he test rockfish from areas where there was no farms? Nope cause that would ruin his AGENDA. He puit forward just enough information to assist the reader in formulating the opinion his agenda requires.

I have no idea why you would suggest this.

The release of heavy/toxic metals and contaminants through changes in water chemistry (i.e. changes in oxygen, redox, and pH levels on the sediments near the bottom of the seafloor) is an extremely well known and documented phenomenon. It is not just a fish-farm effect.

Other examples include eutrophocated lakes, and back-flooded reservoirs behind dams. The latter example, back-flooded reservoirs behind recent dams - is well-known to release methyl-mercury into the aquatic food chain culminating in the bio-accumulation of methyl mercury in freshwater food fish that many northern First Nations consume.

This ingestion of the bioaccumulated methyl mercury has had many severe and well-known health impacts to First Nations communities.

A child's developing nervous system is particularly sensitive to methyl mercury. Depending on the level of exposure, the effects can include a decrease in I.Q., delays in walking and talking, lack of coordination, blindness and seizures. In adults, extreme exposure can lead to health effects such as personality changes, tremors, changes in vision, deafness, loss of muscle coordination and sensation, memory loss, intellectual impairment, and even death.

See: Health Canada's website at: http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hl-vs/iyh-vsv/environ/merc-eng.php, the National Acadamies Press at: http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=0309071402, the EPA's work at: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1257552 - just to highlight a few of the many available sources of information and confirmation of the pathways and the effects.

The other thing to consider is that humans are somewhat more insulated from the effects of these freed toxic/heavy metals than the aquatic organisms that live in these places, such as resident rockfish.

You ask: "Did he [Orr] test the rockfish before the farm was put on site?". Yet, obviously Orr had no control over the timing or certification of the fish farm tenure application.

Why aren't we asking or instead demanding that this be a prerequisite for all farm sites?

Trying to deny that reality of the release of heavy/toxic metals through the creation of changes in oxygen, redox, and pH levels on the sediments near the bottom of the seafloor underneath fish farms does not add to the credibility of your argument.

 

[sockeyefry]

C'mon agent, both you and I know what the intended purpose of the article was. Orr didn't study rockfish in general, he specifically targetted rockfish near salmon farms, and piblished the study as yet anotherr bad effect of a salmon farm. Forget that the fish may have accumulated the toxins before the farm existed, this little piece of data would ruin a good bad news story

I am not denying that the sediment changes under a salmon farm. What I am suggesting is that this article is yet another example of the directed science of the anti fish farm science brigade. They are not scientists, but lawyers trying to prove their case and will ignore all evidence to the conrary.

In hind sight, having base line data on what sites were before farms were placed on them would have been very beneficial. Only with baseline data can you document any effects by later activities. Unfortunately the Gold rush of the late 80's and early 90's a lot of that data was not collected. However today it takes a years of data collection just to get the application together, and a continued process through consultation with various Gov. agencies and FN's.

Yes FA, entire farms have gotten sick. The last time I believe was the IHN viral outbreak in the late 90's. IHN of course is better known as Sockeye disease, and is carried by all wild sockeye, and is the reason why it is very difficult to grow sockeye in a hatchery setting beyond the unfed fry stage. The farmed atlantics were very susceptible to this virus. Being a virus there is no vaccine, and therapeutants do not work. So yes it does happen as with any form of agriculture. But obviuosly it is not something that a farmer wants to happen to his stock.

 

[agentaqua]

Sockeyefry, I understand you are trying to defend the industry.

However, just because you want it to be true; does NOT mean the basic laws of physics and chemistry (expressed as water quality issues) are somehow miraculously exempt beneath fish farms.

The fish farm industry is not the only industry or impact that causes the release of heavy/toxic metals/chemicals due to changes in water chemistry such as anoxic conditions.

The only difference is that the fish farm industry is:
1/ The only 1 actually in the water,
2/ the only 1 where this effect is not only not regulated, but not even researched as a condition of license. Instead outside researchers have to blow the whistle on this practice.

So, if that industry has nothing to hide, why would you see Craig Orr's research as a threat?

Pretty damn weak argument labeling him as an anti, while not dealing with the implications of his research. Standard fare for this industry - shoot the messenger.

Not only is DFO (the ones charged by law in protecting wild stocks and fish habitat - while protecting and promoting open net-cage aquaculture is NOT part of their mandate) - incompetent in not requiring this research to be carried-out; but they are also complicit in shooting the messenger, even while they require other industries to clean-up their effluent.

Yes, that's right - other industries do deal with their impacts in this regard - or are forced to.

The pulp and Paper industry, as an example, have been forced to spend $$$ MILLIONS to install ponds to remove solids and aerate their effluent; yet any open net-cage aquaculture operation seems to be exempt from complying with Section 35 of the Fisheries Act. Each farm is allowed to let all of the suspended solids drop to the seafloor without any attempt at removal or treatment.

Yet, if Craig Orr publishes a paper describing 1 of the effects of this practice, somehow we are supposed to disregard his published peer-reviewed work because he is not a "scientist, but a lawyer trying to prove his case and ignoring all evidence to the contrary", and because he is a "well known anti farm scientist".

Wow, sockeyefry. Give us all a break, here. Did you not catch the contradictions in what you are saying?

See what I mean about when I say: "I like to see lies and half-truths exposed, so we can all deal with them."