If you listened to the first few minutes of the media conference call there was nothing but good news. According to Dr. Con Kiley, Director of National Aquatic Animal Health with CFIA, there are no confirmed cases of ISA in either wild or farmed salmon in BC, all the samples received were thoroughly tested, all tests were negative and basically, we can all relax. There is no cause for concern.

That would be great news. ISA in the Pacific ocean could have tragic and truly devastating consequences if the disease were to mutate or prove to be virulent. Today’s announcement from the CFIA, DFO and the BC government was very reassuring – up to about the 10 minute mark.

I started getting very worried again when Kiley noted that “these supplementary results must be considered inconclusive because of the poor quality of the samples.” Say what? Inconclusive?

The spin-doctoring started seriously unravelling when a reporter from the Seattle Times asked if Canadian government officials would be willing to share raw samples with US researchers if they wanted to do their own testing (audio credit: www.ecoshock.net). Hmmm – seems our friends to the south are as suspicious of DFO and CFIA’s cosy partnership with the fish farming industry as Canadians are.

Peter King, who heads up the Moncton DFO laboratory that did the re-testing of the samples responded (and I quote): “For the most part these samples are either partially – and I say over the half way mark – or totally, totally degraded. Sharing those samples would not be good science. They are in poor condition, we received them in poor condition and moving them anywhere else is not going to help anybody.” He talks about the storage of the samples and the degradation of RNA, then goes on to say: “That’s why we call things inconclusive – because the degradation is so bad you cannot form an opinion from a test standpoint as to whether or not you are capable or not capable. The fact that they come up negative doesn’t really mean anything because they are so badly degraded.”

The negative test “doesn’t really mean anything”?

CFIA’s Kiley tries to regain control of the spin: “Or that you get a result that’s positive.”

King acknowledges “That’s a possibility too – that’s why we have to go to confirmatory testing…”

So given the huge uncertainty, surely our federal agencies are now working hard to get to the bottom of this? If the samples are poor quality, they must have a plan to immediately secure more and better samples? If the results are inconclusive and they can’t categorically rule out the presence of ISA then they’ll be spending sleepless nights putting together a testing program to make certain our wild salmon are not exposed to this disease.

Dr. Kiley advises DFO and CFIA are “assessing current testing levels for ISA in both wild and aquaculture populations in BC” and will “increase surveillance activities as required”. But they are acting quickly, right? Kiley replies there are ideal times of year for tests and based on the species and where they want to test they will decide what will be done and when.

So the spin will be ‘no ISA in BC’ while the reality is the tests are totally inconclusive, ISA might be present or it might not, the salmon farmers continue to do their own sampling and testing (but are ‘sharing’ the results of their in-house fish health audits with the Province) and the Canadian government agencies are going to move at a glacial pace before doing anything because after all – what’s the rush? It’s only our wild salmon and the continued functioning of our Pacific coast ecosystem that’s on the line.

At the end, a reporter introduces herself as Roxanne from the Yukon News and asks if there is further testing done, would it come north and perhaps include the Yukon River? Dr. Kiley replies: “No, we do our investigation in Canadian waters.” Now I’m reassured – Canada’s best are on the job.

Credit: This post was originally published here on the Living Oceans Society blog.

Fresh Water Institute closed containment tank. Photo: Andrew S. Wright

Over the years, I have attended a number of workshops/seminars about closed containment. I am continually struck by how the conversation and language has changed. Far from being a figment of our solution-seeking imaginations, we are now witnessing the growth of a new industry and a viable alternative to open net pen salmon farms. Three years ago, DFO held a workshop during which a number of academics and industry people ridiculed the very idea that salmon could effectively be raised in closed containment facilities. The entrepreneurs and innovators in the room took on the challenge; the technological developments since then have been amazing.

After many years of refuting the very possibility of closed containment, BC salmon farmers now claim they are the experts and global leaders in closed containment, as this is how they grow most of their smolts and some broodstock (which are indeed marketable size), but still they claim that it will never make money. As time and technology proceed, their arguments become more and more feeble, just like the ones put forward by those who initially opposed seat belts or emission control devices on automobiles.

Last week, several members of CAAR attended the Aquaculture Innovation Workshop organized by TIDES Canada, which was packed with closed containment experts from around the world. We heard from numerous companies growing salmon in a variety of closed systems. Many more are in the planning and building stages. This dramatic spike in projects and producers shows closed containment farmed salmon is not a fad or niche market product, but will be essential in helping major North American food retailers meet the sustainability commitments they are currently putting in place.

The market demand is rapidly growing. For example we heard in 2008 only two major North American retailers had a Sustainable Seafood Policy, now more than twenty-five (all but a few) do. As these retailers implement their policy, many have committed to removing open net farmed salmon from their shelves within a few years. In fact, one grocery chain has said that acquiring salmon grown in closed containment is more of a priority than organic. Clearly the consumers are now the driving force. The race is on to be the first to fill the desire for sustainably grown farmed salmon from closed system technologies.

We heard presentations from seven closed containment operations designed to grow salmon commercially, as well as three commercial scale research facilities dedicated to fine-tuning the technology and determining the most effective and economical growing environments. The Freshwater Institute in West Virginia is raising two strains of Atlantic salmon to market size in freshwater, looking at variables such as light levels, feed conversion (which appears to be improved in closed containment), swimming speeds, water quality and densities.

It was very clear from all presentations that the key to healthy, fast growing and economical production is water quality. Economic viability depends on the cost of high water quality resulting in a high density of fish, providing large volumes of quality product.

The higher the water quality, the greater the numbers of healthy fish grown. Evidence is increasingly showing that fish grown in higher densities in tanks with appropriate current flow, are able to follow their natural propensity to swim in schools, resulting in less bodily damage and reduced aggressive behaviour, and higher fish welfare measurements. The densities of some of the trials are well over 80 kilograms per cubic metre. Current density in open net pens is approximately 45 kilograms per cubic metre.

Since most assumptions of energy use of closed containment projects have been based on out of date information and technology, it was refreshing to hear of a recent study, by Andrew Wright, showing about the same carbon footprint for an open net pen and a planned closed system in the same geographical region. The proposed integration of heat exchange and heat pumps will drastically reduce the required energy use of the closed system.

It is exciting to hear of the diversity of systems, of varying sizes and designs, incorporating such things as renewable energy, waste recovery, by-product reuse and aquaponics, which is the use of fish waste to grow plants.

It is very clear, both from this workshop and the Sustainable Seafood Summit last January, that the market is more than ready for salmon grown in closed containment, and suppliers and retailers are clamouring for product. Many of them have committed to stop carrying unsustainable seafood within a specified time frame, and are eager to stock seafood products they can be proud to carry. Salmon grown in closed containment, posing no threat to the marine environment or the health of the wild salmon runs will soon be the only acceptable farmed salmon on the market.

Not only do these promotional activities take time and resources away from DFO’s primary conservation mandate, they are an exercise in futility and therefore an abhorrent waste of our taxpayer dollars. A 2008 internal communications document (DFO Aquaculture Communications Overview 2008-07-07) entered into evidence at the Cohen Inquiry hearings, reveals DFO’s struggle to, as they put it, “strengthen public confidence” in aquaculture. DFO employees were interviewed by a communications consultant hired by the Department. Here are a few statements from DFO staff as quoted in the document:

• “Aquaculture has very little social license and it continues to decline.”
• “No one believes the sustainable development message we are trying to communicate on the west coast (including staff).”
• “We are losing the communications battle.”
• “(A portion of the public hasn’t) formed an opinion one way or another however they are one or two ENGO communication reports away from changing their minds.”

So why is DFO, and the net-cage salmon farming industry for that matter, losing the PR battle? Because no matter how many “sustainability” strategies DFO comes up with or how many satirical commercials the industry puts out, net-cage salmon farming is simply not, and never will be sustainable. The public will therefore never get on board with this practice.

Our government must stop wasting time and taxpayers’ money attempting to ‘message’ net-cage farmed salmon into public acceptance and instead take real action to create a modern, more sustainable salmon aquaculture industry. Open net-cage salmon farms must be removed from wild fish habitats and transitioned to closed containment technology now.

But mostly, I’m just a prisoner of eternal hope.

It’s just as well that I am, because there’s probably never been anything better designed to shatter optimism than the federal Cohen Inquiry into the missing Fraser River sockeye.

I expected the mountains of evidence documenting lax enforcement of the open net-cage salmon farms by both levels of government. I expected records of disease outbreaks in the pens would, despite entrenched opposition from industry and government, eventually make their way into the public record – and they have. What has surprised me, however, is how the process is set up to minimize the amount of evidence that can be entered into the public record, forestalling attempts to dig for truth.

When witnesses such as the former Director General of Aquaculture Management for DFO or the provincial veterinarian charged with oversight of the health of farmed fish take the stand, they are first questioned by counsel for the Commission, followed by the federal then provincial government lawyers. Each have a full hour to interrogate the witnesses. Counsel for the Commission does occasionally ask some challenging questions. The government’s lawyers use their hours to lob softballs asking the government witnesses whether the government is doing a stellar job.

But then, finally, the lawyers for the participants get their turn to pitch. They’ve come armed with fast balls, curve balls, tough questions and a mountain of documents they would like to get entered into evidence and put on the public record. They each have 30 minutes, but sometimes they get only 20. And in some cases – they only have five. Five minutes to ask all their questions.

The team from Living Oceans and the Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform have been poring over the Inquiry database, unearthing evidence of non-compliance, disease, and close cooperation in the 500,000 DFO emails, ministerial briefings, reports, industry data and correspondence. But none of it can be discussed publicly until it is formally entered into evidence at the hearings. As “participants” in the Inquiry, we have all signed legal undertakings that bind us to secrecy. So our lawyers spend a good chunk of their 30 minutes getting that evidence on the record. The Inquiry clerk has to find the document and label it with an exhibit number. Sometimes there is confusion: was it already entered in a previous session, is this a later draft of a document, does it need a new exhibit number? Time ticks by as the ‘process’ sorts itself out. Finally our lawyers have a few minutes for hard, challenging questions. Just as they are getting into the substance their time runs out.

The real value of this Inquiry will be in the evidence entered as exhibits. That’s where you’ll find shocking emails documenting problems on the farms, the disease databases, the DFO ‘draft’ communications plan outlining how the department can help the salmon farming industry combat the weight of evidence of the harm being done by open net-cages and their eroding social licence. In the end, value may also come from Justice Cohen’s final report and recommendations. Whether those recommendations will be strong remains to be seen. Whether government will act on them – well – I’m not an optimist, but I’m a prisoner of hope!

Credit: This post was originally published here on the Living Oceans Society blog.

New-Brunswick-based Cooke Aquaculture has been granted 84 hectares (209 acres) to farm 2 million fish, but they will place 700,000 fish in each farm for a total of almost 1.5 million farmed fish. That’s 1.5 million farmed fish creating waste and polluting the bays and possibly escaping and competing with endangered wild Atlantic salmon stocks. That’s 1.5 million farmed fish to dope up on antibiotics and treat with toxic pesticides, both of which can end up in the feed and fish waste and in our ocean.

And if all that wasn’t bad enough, St. Mary’s Bay is prime lobster fishing grounds. These industrial-scale net-cages will threaten the future of hundreds of local lobster fishermen and an industry valued in the hundreds of millions of dollars per year.

The area’s lobster fishermen and more than 80 per cent of the population of Long and Brier Islands signed a petition last year opposing these two proposed farms. These individuals and organizations want adequate public consultation concerning what is happening in their backyards and to their livelihoods, and many are calling for closed containment. We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.

As lobster fishermen marched on Halifax to protest the approval, a strong advocate for wild Atlantic salmon is taking matters into their own hands. The Atlantic Salmon Federation is partnering with the Conservation Fund of West Virginia to build a closed containment re-circulating salmon farm.

Almost all of the risks and fears about Cooke’s expansion plans would be non-issues if the industry invested in truly responsible aquaculture. Only closed systems can eliminate, or greatly reduce the negative impacts of out-dated net-cage salmon farming.

Industry claims that closed containment is costly. But these two new farms in St. Mary’s Bay are part of Cooke’s $150-million dollar expansion plan, the first in what’s expected to be a series of large-scale aquaculture projects supported by the province and the federal government.

It’s high time the government stopped supporting this kind of reckless expansion of a failing technology. We have everything to gain by a transition to closed containment aquaculture — the health of our ecosystems and of vitally important wild fisheries, and the respect for rights and concerns of our communities. If we seize the opportunity now, Canada could be the world leader in this greener technology!

And so we find ourselves calling for ‘closed containment’ once again and hoping that our government takes action. Our communities and our environment simply cannot continue to pay the price for this costly net-cage salmon farming industry.

Read more:

Fishermen protest salmon farm decision
Environmentalists, fishers affront approval of salmon farming sites
Community ignored in process—Islanders

Sea lice on wild salmon

Many of the juvenile salmon now migrating through the Discovery Islands are the offspring of the Fraser River sockeye that collapsed in 2009. This subgroup of fish with a troubled past are faced with myriad hazards as they struggle for survival, but adding to their peril (and of course the peril of all wild juvenile salmon) are the rising lice levels on salmon farms.

The conditions attached to the new Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) marine finfish aquaculture licenses for farms growing Atlantic salmon state that if levels reach or exceed three motile lice per fish during the out-migration period for sensitive juvenile wild salmon from March 1st to July 1st, specific actions to reduce infection must be taken within fifteen days of exceeding the threshold. Yet a graph tracking lice levels on the group of Atlantics being grown at Marine Harvest Canada’s (MHC) Chancellor Channel Farm shows that the three lice per fish threshold was reached near the end of May, with levels trending upwards to four lice per fish into June. Lice levels at the company’s Lees Bay farm had passed the treatment threshold as of May 11th.

Both of these farms are located near Johnstone Strait on the Fraser sockeye migration route. Marine Harvest deserves credit for web-posting fairly up-to-date and detailed information on the number of fish in their farms, lice levels per fish and treatment dates. But it is alarming to see the lice levels climbing during the wild juvenile sockeye out-migration.

MHC has now informed CAAR that the Chancellor and Lee’s farms are receiving pesticide treatments. But how high will the lice levels have climbed before the treated feed was milled, shipped to the site, fed to the fish and began to take effect to lower lice levels? There are approximately 430,000 farmed fish in the Chancellor pens. Four lice per fish add up to about 1,720,000 lice on the farm. And that number can rise rapidly in the period between identifying the need for treatment and treatment results.

Meanwhile, how far will the lice travel and what affect will they have on the out-migrating sockeye running the gauntlet? Modeling research in BC suggests that a single salmon farm can increase naturally occurring sea lice levels by 73 times and elevate infection rates for 30km beyond the net-cages.

It’s also worth noting that this farm had over three lice per fish at the end of August 2010 until the middle of November 2010 – reaching a level of 11 lice per fish in October 2010. Overall, the farm has been in violation of the three lice per fish threshold for almost 30% of the time this group of fish has been in the water.

Clearly, DFO is failing to use their new regulatory authority to properly control the industry in order to stop the proliferation of sea lice on salmon farms. While a federal inquiry is underway to determine why the 2009 Fraser sockeye run collapsed, and the impacts of open net-cage salmon farms are among the factors being investigated, it seems little is being done to protect the progeny of that run of wild sockeye.

Wild salmon migration routes will never be safe for juvenile salmon as long as net-cage farms are in the water. The only way forward is for DFO to modernize its approach to salmon aquaculture and initiate the transition of the industry to closed containment technology.

AgriMarine floating tank salmon farm

Closed containment salmon farms require an energy input for the circulation of fresh water and dissolved oxygen as well the removal of waste. In the media, the salmon farming industry claims this energy use creates an “extensive” environmental footprint. However, what they leave out of the equation is that while net-cages use tidal power to perform circulation and waste removal functions (at no cost to the industry) this practice in the open ocean creates a significant environmental footprint.

In assessing the overall sustainability of net-cages vs. closed containment, we must consider all environmental impacts and their potential solutions in order to determine the most responsible technology for salmon aquaculture.

The main environmental concerns associated with open net-cage aquaculture are: sea lice and disease transfer to wild salmon; pesticides and antibiotics and their impact on ecosystem health; chemical pollution; escapes and invasive alien species; marine mammal deaths; waste build-up and contamination of the ocean floor; the use of wild fish for feed; and marine debris.

Closed containment technology reduces or eliminates most of the environmental impacts of net-cage farming, with energy use and feed impacts the remaining concerns. However, solutions are on the horizon to address these concerns as the technology continues to mature.

In a world working towards green energy solutions and sustainable industry, net-cage salmon farming is a dead-end technology. Independent scientists, concerned citizens, First Nations, fishermen, conservationists, wilderness tourism businesses and coastal communities that depend on healthy oceans agree – the weight of scientific evidence is clear and it’s time to get net-cage farmed salmon into closed containment.

Click here for more information on closed containment technology and energy consumption.

Synthetic parasiticides would be allowed (to treat sea lice) and use of net pens would be allowed with no adequate provisions to control waste, prevent fish escapes, avoid marine mammal entanglement deaths, or stop the spread of sea lice and disease to wild fish. The standards also fail to put a limit on the amount of wild fish used in feed, or on the allowable amount of non-organic feed. So a farmed carnivorous fish like salmon could be fed totally NON-organic, potentially unsustainably-sourced wild fish and the Canadian government wants to put an organic label on it.

Meanwhile, all of these sustainability issues could be addressed by farming methods such as closed containment where inputs and outputs can be monitored and controlled.

Canadian Organic Aquaculture Standards must reflect practices that address the well-researched impacts of aquaculture as well as uphold the integrity of the organic label. Such standards would support producers that are using innovative practices to deliver truly sustainable products.

Outraged yet?

Now for the good news: there’s still something that we can all do about it!

The Canadian General Standards Board (CGSB) is responsible for holding public comment periods and forming a balanced, multi-stakeholder committee to review comments and re-draft the standards. The second and final public comment period is open until the end of the month, May 31, 2011. Canadians and Americans, please, please take a moment to share your thoughts with the CGSB!

You might ask why Americans should care about what Canada is doing with organic standards. Well, Canada and the U.S. currently have an equivalency agreement for organic standards. That means that if Canada passes weak aquaculture standards, it could be more difficult for USDA to approve the draft US organic aquaculture standards, which are more rigorous and are awaiting final approval.

If you’d rather submit your own comments, you can review the second draft and get a blank comment form here.

Because come on, can anyone tell me what is ‘organic’ about farming salmon in open net pens?

Written by Tiffany Hilman and Kelly Roebuck

The 6,000 jobs figure comes from a 2006 PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) study that was commissioned by the salmon farming industry association. The study has still not been publicly released. In 2007, the BC Government’s Special Committee on Sustainable Aquaculture released an economic report done by an independent firm (MMK Consulting). The total jobs in salmon farming were pegged by MMK at 2,945. That included direct, indirect and induced jobs. The MMK report is freely available to any citizen and the methodology used is transparent.

A transparent, readily available report commissioned by the Province says approximately 3,000 jobs are attributable to salmon farming in BC. A secret, unreleased report commissioned by industry doubles the number. Whose figures will you believe?

The BCSFA has released a three page ‘summary’ of the PriceWaterhouseCoopers report, referred to as an ‘industry snapshot’. Repeated requests to release the full report eventually led to the sharing of a power point presentation that again, simply summarizes the findings.

How did PWC calculate the multipliers that led to this doubling of the MMK totals? What were the multipliers based on? Were adjustments made to the BC Input/Output Model to count harvesting and processing as direct jobs – as was the case with the MMK study? How did PWC manage to double the number of jobs and why won’t the salmon farmers release the full report and validate their seemingly inflated claims?

How could these two reports possibly come up with such conflicting numbers? The easiest way to determine where the discrepancies lie would be for the BCSFA to heed repeated calls for transparency and release the full report to the public. It’s been four years – and we’re still waiting.

Do you want answers? Ask all candidates vying to be your Member of Parliament if they will commit to greater transparency in the aquaculture industry – an industry operating in our common, shared seas.

Open net-cage salmon farm, Photo: Lara Renehan

Ever wonder how many thousands upon thousands of farmed salmon are stocked in net-cages along the BC coast? How many millions of Atlantic salmon are held in pens on the migratory path of wild Pacific salmon? Ever wonder why our governments seem determined to keep this information hidden?

Given that the farms are operating in ‘the commons’ – marine waters belonging to all Canadians – it doesn’t seem unreasonable that citizens should have the right to know just how many tonnes of fish each farm is allowed to produce. For that matter, citizens should also know when companies are violating the terms of their licences and producing more fish than allowed (which has happened, and went entirely unpunished).

Sadly, information on licenced production was withheld from concerned Canadians throughout the years the Provincial government was responsible for aquaculture management. CAAR’s repeated requests for information on allowable production were stonewalled time and again. Industry didn’t want the public to know. The Province was more than willing to do industry’s bidding.

But all that was going to change once the Federal government assumed regulatory control of BC’s salmon farms. In meeting after meeting with the Director General of Aquaculture for Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) and his team, CAAR was given constant assurances that transparency would be a key component of the new regime. DFO would set up a website to report on aquaculture management issues, sea lice levels, disease outbreaks and treatment and enforcement issues. Licences would be made freely available and concerned citizens would know just how many fish any farm is allowed to stock.

Announcing the start of federal control of BC salmon farms in Vancouver last December, Fisheries Minister Gail Shea stated, “The new regulatory regime will include regular public reporting….”. In late 2010, Shea and her provincial counterparts approved DFO’s new National Aquaculture Strategic Action Plan Initiative (NASAPI). The plan defines governments’ three pillars of sustainability, including the need for “social licence” or community support for industry. To maintain social licence, the national plan states governments will “ensure communities and the public are well informed about the industry in general and its specific operations in particular.” (emphasis mine)

OK – let’s start with the licences. They are simple, straightforward and readily available “specific operations” information that would help to “inform” “communities and the public”.

Since DFO assumed control of net-cage salmon farms on Dec. 18, 2010, we’ve been asking for the licences. And asking, and phoning and emailing and asking again. We keep getting assurances that the information is coming ‘soon’. It’s now more than four months and still nothing. Same old secrecy, same old stonewalling.

CAAR understands that government wheels grind slow. We know that web sites and enforcement information may take some time to emerge from the DFO cone of silence. We hope disease and sea lice information will be exposed in the Cohen Commission sockeye inquiry rather than waiting for DFO ‘transparency’ to take hold.

But come on! Can’t the federal government start with the easy stuff? The government had to issue new licences to every farm. Every licence has one page that specifies the total tonnage allowed and any ‘special conditions’ of operation that apply. One hour tops in front of a photocopier or computer to copy the hundred or so pages, another hour to ensure they are all redacted (DFO insists all staff names of the Norwegian-owned companies must be blacked-out on the licence). Give me a marker and an hour and the job is done. How many more months will it take DFO?

And meanwhile, how many millions of farmed salmon will occupy the migration route of the out-migrating Fraser River sockeye? Many BC farms can produce 3,000 tonnes of salmon or more per cycle. At an average market weight of 5 kilos, a farm that size holds 600,000 fish. There are approximately 80 farms in operation at any one time on the BC coast. If they were all licenced to produce 3,000 tonnes, then we’re looking at about 48,000,000 farmed salmon. No wonder citizens are concerned about the impact of waste, disease, escapes and lice infestations from salmon farms.

These farms are operating in our oceans. Canadians have a right to know how many fish they are allowed to produce, how many they actually stock and whether they abide by their licences. During this federal election, ask candidates in your riding what their party will do to ensure DFO lives up to its stated commitments to transparency on issues related to salmon farming in BC.