Rafe Mair pulls no punches in this, the second of a two-part interview with BC NDP Leader Adrian Dix – grilling the potential future premier of BC on Liquid Natural Gas, fracking, the proposed Enbridge pipeline and salmon farms. Will the NDP stand up to Harper over Enbridge and open net pen aquaculture? Why do they favour LNG – and how do they reconcile their support for it with the controversial fracking process that would supply it with much of its gas? Watch and find out!
Read this story from the Winnipeg Free Press on salmon activist Don Staniford’s deportation from Canada and new job taking on the aquaculture industry in its global headquarters nation of Norway. (March 5, 2012)
VANCOUVER – Only days after he was removed from Canada for overstaying a visitor’s permit, a controversial salmon-farming critic says he has settled in Norway to “slay the dragon in its own lair.”
Since 2005, British-born activist Don Staniford has been a divisive force in British Columbia’s ongoing salmon-farming debate. He has been accused by the industry of going beyond rational dialogue and distorting facts and has twice been sued by B.C. companies for defamation.
But supporters see him as a tireless critic and Staniford is promising to take his battle against the industry to Europe, where he’ll serve as the global campaign co-ordinator for another environmental group.
“I’ve gone straight to work for the Green Warriors of Norway and straight to the belly of the beast here in Norway,” said Staniford, in a phone interview.
“Norway controls much of the global industry and I’m going to slay the dragon in its own lair.”
The new job is significant because Kurt Oddekalv, leader of the Green Warriors of Norway, has described himself as the most “hard hitting environmental warrior” in his country.
Also significant is Staniford’s legal history.
Staniford’s most-recent defamation case was launched by Mainstream Canada, a subsidiary of the Norwegian company Cermaq.
The case has wrapped up in the Supreme Court of B.C., but a judgment has yet to be made.
Read this story from the Winnipeg Free Press on a suspected outbreak of the deadly ISAv salmon virus at a Cook Aquaculture open net pen salmon farm in Nova Scotia. (Feb 17, 2012)
HALIFAX – Cooke Aquaculture says it has a suspected outbreak of the infectious salmon anemia virus at one of its fish farms in Nova Scotia.
In a statement today, the seafood company says it destroyed fish contained in two cages at one of its fish farming sites after routine tests and surveillance of its stocks on Feb. 10.
But the company declined to say where the outbreak is suspected.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is investigating, but it too declined to say where the suspected outbreak is located.
Con Kiley, director of the agency’s aquatic animal health program, says the location can’t be made public due to privacy concerns.
Kiley says the virus is not a human health or food risk, but according to the agency’s website, it can kill up to 90 per cent of infected fish, depending on its strain.
He says tests will be conducted at a federal lab in Moncton, N.B., to confirm whether the virus is present.
Read original article: http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/canada/suspected-outbreak-of-salmon-virus-at-fish-farming-operation-in-nova-scotia-139530833.html
Dr. Gordon Hartman is a retired senior biologist and manager for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans with a deep knowledge of the region affected by the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline. Here he provides an essential summary of the threats from the pipeline to fish populations as well as the very real geological concerns surrounding the project.
Introduction
There are very serious and reasonable concerns about the risk of tanker traffic accidents as the ‘oil’ starts its 150+ km tanker journey from near Kitimat, through the narrow Douglas Channel to the open ocean. A report by Anthony Swift and four other authors presents a ‘must read’ review, “Pipeline and Tanker Trouble: The Impact to British Columbia’s Communities, Rivers, and Pacific Coastline from Tar sands Oil Transport”.
The following short article examines three of the specific risks that exist in the 1,170 km double pipeline before the oil ever gets to the tankers. In the report by Anthony Swift and others, 11 ‘special places at risk’ are listed.
In the proposed ‘double line’ system up to 525,000 barrels/day, of bitumen and a diluting condensate, are to be pumped ‘westward’ in a 91 cm pile line. Diluting condensate, from off shore, is to be pumped ‘eastward’ at a rate of up to 193,000 barrels/day (Bustard and Miles 2011). A major failure, caused by an event such as a landslide, would release materials from both lines.
The following article is based, to a large degree, on the articles that are listed at the end. Such a list is clearly not comprehensive. Regardless of that, because they are based on work done by people with decades of competent professional experience, it is clear that there are serious risks along the line before the oil ever reaches the tankers. Pipeline spills into rivers in Northwest B.C. mountains: ‘not if, but when’.
Geological Concerns
The proposed corridor crosses three different physiographic units, each of which presents different hazards to a pipeline. “The geology and geomorphology of west central B.C is complex and destructive landslides are common. Various landslide types have occurred along the proposed pipeline corridor within the defined physiographic units:” (Schwab 2011). The types of landslide and the risks are discussed in this paper.
There are three things that are important to note:
These points barely touch on the details of Schwab’s report. However, they should indicate, even for starters, that much of the approximately 220 km western end of this proposed corridor is a risky and problematic route in which to build large, double, high volume oil pipelines.
Risks to a Population of Large, Biologically Distinct, Rainbow Trout
A paper by Hagen (2011) presents special concern about risks to the habitat of a race of large and unique Rainbow trout. The proposed route crosses the upper reaches of the Sutherland River, at the eastern end of Babine Lake. This river supports a population of large, biologically distinct Rainbow trout.These fish are similar to the world famous Gerrard Rainbow trout from Kootenay Lake.
The proposed pipeline route ‘traverses through the upper portion of the core spawning and rearing habitats’ of the Sutherland River trout. About 95% of the area below the pipeline crossing of the Sutherland River has been rated by the Provincial Protected Areas Team as having ‘very high conservation values’.
The remoteness, complex habitat, and very limited access of the drainage make the Sutherland River a very difficult area to reach if a pipeline break and spill were to occur at its upper end.
This population of fish contributes, in a major way, to the economically and socially valuable trout fishery of Babine Lake. Furthermore, no other population of large, piscivorous, Rainbow trout has been identified in Babine Lake.
Risks to a High Production Section of the Morice River
Some of the most serious risks to fish habitat and populations, along the route, occur in a 71 km section of the pipeline traversing areas adjacent to the upper reaches of the Morice River and Gosnell Creek. In a 34 km section of the river (Reach 2 in the report), the pipeline is located in, or adjacent to, the floodplain with its “numerous active secondary channels, log jams and wetlands that comprise the core spawning and rearing habitat for Morice River fish populations.” (Bustard and Miles 2011).
In a near hundred page report Bustard and Miles provide in-depth information on the biology and numbers of summer run Steelhead and Chinook, Coho, Sockeye and Pink salmon that use this critical section of the river. Their report examines the impacts of an oil spill within this section of river. It considers downstream impacts in the Morice and Bulkley rivers.
In order to provide a context for comparisons they review three past oil spills; Exxon Valdez, Pine River, and Kalamazoo River. They describe cleanup effectiveness of these spills.
Fish Populations
The section of river upstream from Moricetown (near Smithers) supports an important part of the salmon populations of the Skeena River system. The mean annual escapements of Coho salmon, 1997 – 2010, upstream from Moricetown, are 35,000. From 30 to 40 % of these fish spawn within Reach 2 of the Morice River. The complex river habitat in Reach 2 is ideal for Coho salmon juvenile rearing.
The Morice-Nanika Sockeye stock, 8,000 to 10,000 fish, is the largest in the Bulkley system. Reach 2 is the migration corridor for these fish.
The Morice River is the most important Chinook salmon river in the Skeena watershed. Spawning populations have averages slightly over 10,000 during the last decade. Between 35 and 45% of the young Chinook salmon rearing between Morice Lake and Smithers occur in Reach 2.
The Morice River, upstream from Moricetown, supports the largest Steelhead run in the Skeena River system – average of 19,000 fish per year. Steelhead juveniles rear, preferably, in the log jam habitat of Reach 2.
Other fish species in the Morice River system include Bull trout, Mountain whitefish, Prickly sculpins and Pacific lamprey. These species may not be rated so highly for commercial or recreational use, however, they are important parts of the river system.
Oil Spill Impacts
A pipeline break along the Morice River would spread hydrocarbons through Reach 2 could contaminate a large number of log jams – the habitat of juvenile salmonids winter and summer. There are an estimated 1,000 log jams in this reach. Within this approximately 34 km of braided river habitat there is an estimated 370 km of river shoreline. The degree of ‘habitat oiling’ would depend on river level. However, it is evident that a spill above, or in upper Reach 2 would have an immediate toxic impact on fish spawning and rearing in this section.
As the oil and diluting component mix moved downstream, progressively more of the diluting component would evaporate. With this evaporation, the increasingly concentrated bitumen would sink and become incorporated in the streambed leading to long term impacts, especially for salmon egg development.
In Reach 2, eggs or alevins are present in the gravels year- around. Juvenile Chinook, Coho and Steelhead are also in this reach every month of the year. The ‘oiling’ and cleanup of this section of the river would totally alter the channel structure and log jam habitat for such fish. It could not be re-built as it was before a spill.
Where the bitumen became ‘imbedded’ along the many km of river habitat, adequate removal would be nearly impossible. Below a spill in Reach 2, the oil “could very quickly reach downstream habitats in the lower Morice and Bulkley rivers, and potentially the Skeena River.” (Bustard and Miles 2011). The average velocity of the Morice River between May and November is at least 1 m/sec. – too fast for containment booms. A spill in Reach 2 of the Morice River would take 12 hours to reach a point near Smithers.
Bustard and Miles conclude by describing the array of difficulties in effectively capturing and cleaning up spilled oil in Reach 2. The location is remote, access is poor, the river is large and fast, the channel is large and complex, and the ‘enormous’ volume of woody debris would limit boat access to many reach sections. To the date of their writing, the proponent has not provided the information needed to show that an oil spill adjacent to Reach 2 could be effectively controlled or remediated.
There are other sections of the pipeline along which there are other concerns. The cumulative risks and impacts of pipeline breaks along with the potential for tanker accidents make the whole project one of folly, risk and ecological disaster. Surely, we can do better.
G.F. Hartman, February, 2012
References and reading
Bustard, D. and M. Miles. 2011. Potential effects of an oil pipeline rupture on Reach 2 of the Morice River. A submission to the Joint Review Panel: Enbridge Northern Gateway project. 100 p. http://northwestinstute.ca/
Hagen, J. 2011. Rainbow Trout of the Sutherland River in the Babine Lake Watershed, British Columbia, and Risks Associate with the Northern Gateway Pipeline. A Submission to the Enbridge Northern Gateway Project Joint Review Panel. 15 p.
Levy, D. 2009. Pipelines and salmon in Northern British Columbia. Prepared for the Pembina Institute. 46 p. http://pembina.org/pub/1894
Schwab, J. 2011. Hillslope and Fluvial Processes Along the Proposed Pipeline Corridor, Burns Lake to Kitimat, West Central British Columbia. Prepared for Bulkley Valley Centre for Natural Resources Research and Management. 27p. http://www.bvcentre.ca/
Skeena Wild. Enbridge. 2011? Project Overview. http://skeenawild.org/conservation-issues/enbridge/
Swift, A., N. Lemphers and three co-authors. 2011. Pipeline and Tanker Trouble: The Impact to British Columbia’s Communities, Rivers, and the Pacific Coastline from Tar sands Oil Transport. 30 p. http://www.pembina.org/pub2289
The Norwegian salmon farming industry got a lesson in the old adage, “be careful what you wish for” this week when it learned of industry critic Don Staniford’s next job.
The British-born, globe-trotting salmon activist announced on his blog yesterday that following his scheduled deportation from Canada later this month he will be heading to Norway to work with that country’s leading environmentalist bad boy, Kurt Oddekalv, head of the Green Warriors of Norway.
The industry may have got its wish – seeing the last of Staniford in BC – but it’s turning out to be a case of out of the frying pan, into the fire.
Oddekalv had this to say on the development: “I am pleased to announce that Don Staniford is coming to Norway to spearhead the global work of the Green Warriors. Once he has finished fighting the Norwegian Government owned company Cermaq in the Supreme Court of British Columbia, Don is welcome here in Norway. Cermaq’s problems in Canada are coming home to roost.”
One of the industry’s three Norwegian titans – which together own 92% of BC’s salmon farms – Cermaq-Mainstream, is currently suing Staniford for defamation at the BC Supreme Court over his recent campaign comparing salmon aquaculture to Big Tobacco. On the opening day of the trial last month, officers from the Canadian Border Services Agency showed up to inform Staniford he would be deported following the trial for over-staying his visa. The charge is accurate, and yet it was hard not to draw a connection to the industry and its close ally, the Harper Government, given the place and manner in which Staniford was delivered the news.
Staniford and Oddekalv are unquestionably the global salmon aquaculture industry’s boldest foes. Both employ provocative tactics that consistently get under the industry’s skin. Their partnership is the salmon activist equivalent of Che Guevara and Fidel Castro joining forces.
I’ve met Oddekalv on several occasions and spent a few days at his Green Warriors headquarters near Bergen, Norway in 2009 – while working on my film “Farmed Salmon Exposed”. To describe Oddekalv as a character is an understatement. The man is a larger-than-life eco-Viking, always happy to regale his guests with tales of his daring exploits against the industry and other environmental violators in his native Norway.
Meanwhile, Staniford is the man who developed a global network of salmon farming critics through his former position as director of the Pure Salmon Campaign out of Washington, D.C. His quest against open net pen aquaculture has taken him to all the industry’s operations – in Norway, Chile, Scotland, Ireland, Canada and the US – many times over.
Staniford – who has also plied his trade in BC during an earlier stint with the Friends of Clayoquot Sound and before that in Scotland – decamped again to BC a year and a half ago, as the province was developing into the front line of the battle over salmon aquaculture. But in the course of that time, he’s gone from the director of a well-funded global campaign to guerrilla-style warrior with few resources, surviving mostly on donations from supporters (in recent weeks, his phenomenally successful legal defense fundraising campaign has netted some $50,000 in public donations).
Partnering with Oddekalv provides a major boost to Staniford’s work. Despite his comparably daring campaign tactics, Oddekalv runs a well-oiled operation – offering Staniford resources he has lacked in recent years. For Oddekalv – perhaps the only major environmental leader who would dream of hiring Staniford right now – the activist from Liverpool may prove a valuable catch. The two men’s tactical styles are a good fit – and Staniford brings to the Green Warriors of Norway a global perspective and rolodex to match, not to mention his unrelenting determination to take down the industry.
Staniford’s trial is due to conclude next week, after which he will be escorted out of the country at the end of February.
And from there, it will be very interesting to see what mischief these two salmon rebels make for the industry back home.
The mystery of the disappearing wild salmon may be closer to being solved due to the reconvened Cohen Commission and the extraordinary three days of hearings held in December, 2011. As earlier testimony revealed, many environmental factors affect the survival of wild salmon but imported diseases from the aquaculture industry may be the largest single cause of their decline. A plausible scenario now explains how these diseases could have arrived in our West Coast ecology.
Evidence now confirms that government policy supports the salmon farming industry, and that the industry has been willing to exploit this advantage to win regulatory concessions for its economic gain – in the words of one Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) official, the industry seemed “to dictate” policy. These concessions included relaxed importation, inspection and quarantine of Atlantic salmon eggs, and inadequate supervision of fish health.
Summary statements written by Gregory McDade and Lisa Glowaki, two of the lawyers representing Alexandra Morton at the inquiry, describe how DFO failed to pursue evidence indicating that ISAv was in wild salmon, despite an independent 2004 test that suggested all Cultus Lake sockeye were infected. “Instead it buried the results completely for seven years,” notes the summary, and “decided to not test any further wild salmon. This reaction is not consistent with the scientific method or a precautionary approach – rather it shows action of a political nature – denial and suppression of an inconvenient fact. In legal terms, it is known as willful blindness, also characterized in some circumstances as gross negligence.” This opinion is reinforced by DFO’s failure to submit any ISAv documentation to the Commission.
McDade and Glowaki suggest that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) was also implicated in this scheme of “willful blindness”. It had no interest in the well-being of wild salmon per se; its mandate was to monitor diseases and promote the economic value of food products. Fish diseases were inconveniences that complicated this commercial objective. ISAv was a reportable infection that would have alerted trade partners and the international community to risk, thereby incurring trade damage. “Safe trade” is the subject of testimony given by Dr. Kim Klotins, a senior CFIA official, to Krista Robertson, a lawyer acting for First Nations:
Robertson: “But is it also part of the mandate of the CFIA to ensure that… trade interests of Canadian companies or companies operating in Canada such as Norwegian fish farm companies, are not harmed by any kind of finding or allegation of disease?”
Dr. Klotins: “So if, let’s say, we do find ISA in B.C. and all of a sudden markets are closed, our role [CFIA] is then to try to renegotiate or negotiate market access to those countries. Now what it will be is a matter of they’ll let us know what the requirements are. We’ll let them know what we can do and whether we can meet that market access. If we can’t meet it, then there will be no trade basically.”
In other words, the discovery of ISAv in BC wild or farmed salmon could be an economic disaster that could even end trade in fish products. The CFIA didn’t want to find ISAv, and the evidence suggests it took active measures to confiscate fish samples that indicated ISAv was here. DFO – which supported the salmon farming industry – didn’t want to find ISAv either, and took active measures to hide findings and suppress research that would have exposed it. And the salmon farming industry certainly didn’t want to discover ISAv in its brood stock or net-pens – such a discovery would have had devastating environmental, market and public relations ramifications.
So, why did salmon farmers not find ISAv in their testing of more than 4,700 samples of farmed fish? The sole veterinarian testing their fish was Dr. Gary Marty, who noted more than 1,100 instances of lesions that were commensurate with ISAv, but he always recorded negative results for the viral infection. The industry, therefore, could confidently announce, as it frequently did, “that the ISA virus has never been found in British Columbia” (Times-Colonist, Dec. 16/11).
McDade and Glowaki explain this puzzle. First, not all ISAv strains are lethal so salmon farms might not notice high mortality. Like an influenza, it can exist as a low level infection that only becomes virulent when it mutates – particularly in high population densities at fish farms and hatcheries. But ISAv does impair fish health – especially wild fish in stressful survival conditions – and it leaves identifiable cellular markers. This is what the genomic specialists Drs. Kristi Miller, Fredrick Kibenge and Are Nylund found in their independent sampling of wild salmon tissue – they couldn’t find it in farmed salmon because the industry thwarted efforts to test these fish.
Was the salmon farming industry concealing evidence of ISAv? Not exactly. The following is the McDade and Glowaki technical explanation: “The evidence is now clear that Dr. Marty was conducting PCR tests with no confirmed validity. His PCR test was developed in-house, by a master’s student. This methodology used a primer that was different from that approved by the OIE or by the Moncton lab. It was a primer that had never been through the validation process, nor even apparently a peer-reviewed publication. Dr. Kibenge testified that in his opinion this test would not be sensitive to finding ISA.” So the “self-invented” test had no validity and “in our respectful submission, this ‘non-disclosure’ is tantamount to deliberate deception”. Since the salmon farming industry didn’t want to find ISAv, DFO had chosen to be “willfully blind” by relying only on the invalid testing of this single lab, and the CFIA was contented to avoid the complexities of discovering ISAv, no such disease was ever found by anyone responsible for detecting it.
The ISAv evidence will eventually be weighed by Judge Bruce Cohen. But the virus is now in the realm of public awareness, and the seismic effects could eventually shake the salmon farming industry, the wild fishery, and the government agencies that were supposed to be safeguarding an invaluable marine ecology.
Watch this video news story from Norway’s TV2 on the battle raging over Norwegian salmon farming in BC – featuring footage from The Common Sense Canadian’s Damien Gillis. (Jan. 30, 2012)
Watch video: http://www.tv2.no/nyheter/utenriks/trusler-mot-norsk-lakseoppdrett-tas-ikke-alvorlig-3696035.html
The source of the infectious salmon anemia virus (ISAv) now being found in BC’s wild salmon is almost certainly from imported Atlantic salmon eggs, the international trade that has provided coastal salmon farms with most of their stock. The salmon farming industry, of course, is still denying that ISAv is here, although evidence given at the Cohen Commission’s extraordinary three days of hearings on December 15th, 16th and 19th essentially obliterates that defence.
Of four labs testing for ISAv in wild fish samples, the only one seemingly unable to find it is the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s facility in Moncton, New Brunswick, a lab whose detection capability is known by experts to be notoriously insensitive and inconsistent – an inaccuracy compounded by attempting to use degraded tissue samples. Research tests by a reputable lab in 2004 found 100 percent infection in Cultus Lake sockeye – inexplicably never pursued by federal agencies responsible for the health of wild salmon. Testimony from Dr. Kristi Miller showing genomic markers in archaic samples of BC wild salmon indicates that ISAv has been here since 1986.
Documents presented at the Cohen Commission suggest that the arrival of ISAv coincides with the early importation of Atlantic salmon eggs to West Coast salmon farms. Supporting this connection is a recorded litany of warnings from experts in BC’s Ministry of Environment (MOE) and the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), all alarmed about the inherent danger of importing exotic diseases to the West Coast ecology through Atlantic salmon eggs. This evidence is worth noting.
This evidence from the Cohen Commission confirms that international sources of eggs were known to be rife with disease and that the aquaculture industry was perfectly willing to import these eggs, despite known risks and repeated warnings. Given trade agreements and the political leverage of the salmon farming industry to reduce precautionary regulations – the direction it “seems to dictate”, in Dave Narver’s damning words – the arrival of ISAv and other exotic diseases in BC’s marine ecology was inevitable.
If money talks, then the geyser of financial support that has sprung in the past few days for salmon activist Don Staniford’s legal defence speaks volumes. Staniford – who has been described by aquaculture trade media as salmon farming’s “public enemy number one” – is being sued by the world’s second largest farmed salmon producer, Oslo-based Cermaq (operating as Mainstream in Canada), for defamation. The trial, expected to run 20 days, begins today at the BC Supreme Court in Vancouver.
The company, whose biggest shareholder is the Norwegian Government, may have been banking on Staniford submitting to its demands out of court due to a lack of funds to pursue the case – but any chance of that happening disappeared over the past weekend when the activist raised over $20,000 in public donations for his legal battle. Staniford has been building his case, giving depositions and collecting evidence over the last several months but only went to the public for funding this past Friday, when he launched a page on the community fundraising site gofundme.com. Since then, as of this printing, over $11,000 have tumbled in – in contributions that range from $10-500 a pop, most of them being in the $30-50 region. The goal of the gofundme.com campaign is to raise $50,000 in total.
On top of those online donations, a Norwegian fishing group, The Wild Salmon Warriors of Norway, announced this morning it was kicking in 60,000 Norwegian Krone ($10,000 CAD) of its own. As the former director of the global Pure Salmon Campaign, Staniford frequently traveled the world of the aquaculture industry, drawing together an international alliance of over 30 groups and coalitions battling the industry in Norway, Scotland, Ireland, Iceland, Chile, the United States and Canada. (Full disclosure: I’ve worked with Staniford on the Pure Salmon campaign – including my film “Farmed Salmon Exposed” and other initiatives over the years).
Staniford has already received $20,000 in legal funding from West Coast Environmental Law – directed toward his lawyer David Sutherland, an expert in defamation law. The injection of up to another $60,000 would be an enormous boon to Stanford’s case, which revolves around a recent campaign of his targeting the open net pen salmon farming industry.
The campaign employs a series of graphical representations resembling a cigarette package – emblazoned with messages similar to surgeon general’s warnings, such as “Salmon Farming Kills” – to highlight problems with the industry. Cermaq’s defence is based on the notion that statements like these, coupled with the cigarette iconography, give the impression that farmed salmon is hazardous to human health. Staniford’s counsel will likely counter that the implication is salmon farms kill things like seals and sea lions (often shot by salmon farmers to prevent predation of their stocks) and wild salmon, through the incubation and transference of sea lice and diseases by farmed to wild fish. Moreover, it will make the case that the analogy to the tobacco industry derives from comparable approaches to denying science that is critical of industry.
According to the Canadian Press, “The company’s trial brief states it’s seeking $100,000 in general damages, $25,000 in punitive damages and a permanent injunction to stop Staniford from writing, printing or broadcasting defamatory words against Mainstream.” (emphasis added) It’s that last piece – the concept of a lifetime ban from speaking out against the company – that has Staniford determined to fight. In a recent Victoria Times-Colonist story on the case, Staniford told reporter Sean Sullivan, “This is about justice for wild salmon and freedom of speech.”
Clearly, this David-and-Goliath battle has captured the public’s attention, as the dollars roll in to support Staniford’s case. But it’s Cermaq that sees itself, ironically, as the David in this battle. According to CP, spokesperson for Cermaq subsidiary Mainstream Canada – the second largest fish farm operator in BC – “[Laurie] Jensen said the company is playing the role of David. ‘I think we’re on the righteous end of things in that we have to defend ourselves,’ she said. ‘If we don’t, we do a disservice to our communities, our partners, our employees.'”
For his part, Staniford appears ready for the duel. Further emboldened by this outpouring of public support, he claims, “I am going to fight until the bitter end and win.”
Judge Bruce Cohen obviously thought that recent evidence of the Infectious Salmon Anemia (ISAv) in BC’s wild salmon was serious enough to warrant a reconvening of his Commission of inquiry into the mysterious disappearance of Fraser River sockeye. The three days of exceptional December hearings were revelatory, confusing and clarifying. We have ISAv in BC waters but we don’t have disease. We have different labs getting positive and negative test results on the same fish samples. We have critically important research curtailed just when such vital information is most needed. We have intimations of openness in a practice of obstruction and censure. And we have huge financial benefits accruing to corporate interests if BC’s farmed and wild salmon can be marketed free of the stigma of disease.
The salmon farming industry has been habitually skewing information to bolster its practices and image – it’s been doing this for decades. And, as recent history has revealed, the credibility of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) has been compromised by its conflicting mandates of managing wild salmon and promoting salmon farming. Now we discover that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) has its own conflicting mandates of suppressing pathogens while enhancing marketing opportunities for fish products. Consequently, when a viral disease is reported and the commercial value of fish is threatened, the CFIA assumes a defensive position by questioning the findings of the testing labs, by re-testing the degraded samples of infected fish with its notoriously inaccurate technology, and then recording “inconclusive” results as “negative”.
This strategy is evident in an e-mail from a CFIA executive, Joseph Beres, to his colleagues, congratulating them on a conference call to the media that was intended to quell concerns about allegations of ISAv in BC salmon. “It is clear that we are turning the PR tide to our favour,” he writes, “and this is because of the very successful performance of our spokes at the Tech Briefing yesterday…Congratulations! One battle is won, now we have to nail the surveillance piece, and we will win the war also.” This is the response of a promoter concerned about reputation and market, not the response of a scientist concerned about the danger of an ecosystem-threatening virus.
This might explain why the CFIA didn’t submit to the Cohen Commission evidence of ISAv in more than 100 wild salmon a decade ago. And why DFO advised its molecular geneticist, Dr. Kristi Miller, to curtail her research on ISAv – precisely the opposite of how prudence and science should respond to such an urgent situation.
Indeed, the Cohen Commission has exposed a systemic history of closeted secretiveness, hidden motives and contrived deception, all exposed since the initial October revelation that ISAv has been found in wild BC salmon. Dr. Sally Goldes, a 17-year fish health section head for the BC Environment Ministry, testified during the reconvened Cohen inquiry that “current Canada Fish Health Protection Rules do not provide a high level of regulatory security against the introduction of ISAv into British Columbia.” To underscore her concern, she noted, “If you really look closely at the regulations, from a scientific basis, there is not the high degree of protection that the government, and particularly DFO, states that they have.” In her opinion, the DFO and CFIA press conference that announced no ISAv in BC “was entirely premature.” In other words, ISAv could have leaked into BC waters from Atlantic egg sources used by salmon farms, and government agencies are systematically hiding that possibility.
Dr. Kristi Miller, one of the key DFO scientists in this process, took the initiative to do her own testing on wild and farmed salmon. She concluded that an ISA virus, or something that is 95 percent similar to the strain afflicting farmed Atlantic salmon in Norway, Scotland, Maritime Canada and Chile, is present in BC waters. And her review of DFO’s archival fish samples shows that markers for ISAv have been present in BC since 1986 – shortly after Atlantic salmon were first farmed here. A study by Dr. Molly Kibenge suggested that ISAv was here in 2004. Despite a UN convention that requires “evidence or suspicion” of ISAv to be reported, this was never done. Neither was evidence of ISAv reported to the initial phase of the Cohen Commission hearings.
Complicating the issue is a technical definition of “disease”. The CFIA takes the position that a suite of characteristics are needed to classify ISAv as such. Dr. Miller recognized this criterion in her testimony to the Commission when she said, “And obviously we have not established that [ISAv] causes disease.” Without evidence of dying or debilitated fish, there is no “disease”. But evidence does exist. A postdoctoral fellow working with Dr. Miller, Brad Davis, notes ample data suggesting “that the virus is causing enough damage to elicit a strong response in salmon…. Therefore, we cannot at this point assume that this virus does not cause disease in these fish.” Regular reports cite adult Fraser River salmon inexplicably dying as they migrate upstream, sometimes just days before spawning. Cultus Lake salmon have long been exhibiting the same strange behaviour. Until now, no explanation has been available.
The CFIA has pledged to investigate by subjecting 7,700 salmon to more than 20,000 tests over the next two years. But this does not promise to clarify the mystery of BC’s disappearing wild salmon. The CFIA’s self-declared “surveillance objectives are to determine the absence/presence of three diseases of trade significance… [and] to support international trade negotiations by making [a] disease-freedom declaration that will stand international scrutiny.” If the CFIA’s version of science is to start with a trade-friendly conclusion and then research to support it, this does not bode well for BC’s wild salmon and the entire marine ecology founded on this iconic fish.