Part 2 of a 2-part series – read part 1 here.

When does a foreign-owned corporation’s right to protect its share price trump the environment and Canadian public’s rights? Apparently, when it’s the Norwegian salmon farming industry.

Numerous instances from the past several years reveal a pattern of salmon farmers resisting transparency when it comes to disease and parasite monitoring – and the excuse often given is severe financial damage to the companies involved. But if there’s nothing untoward about their operations, as they maintain, then how could the release of said data prove so damaging to their bottom line?

Norwegian Shareholders Before BC’s Wild Salmon

Documents obtained by The Common Sense Canadian reveal that the Norwegian-owned companies Marine Harvest and Cermaq (who together control three quarters of B.C.’s salmon farms) have been lobbying behind the scenes since at least 2008 for the Government not to release disease information. The BC Salmon Farmers Association (BCSFA) also successfully argued against the disclosure of disease data during the Cohen Inquiry, with Justice Cohen ruling in June that information must be kept confidential until the evidentiary hearings on aquaculture.
 
Clearly, these companies are very worried about this information getting out to the public.

Marine Harvest admitted in a submission to the Office of the Information & Privacy Commissioner in 2008 that the release of disease information “would cause significant commercial harm,” “undue financial loss” and that “Marine Harvest Canada’s reputation could be tarnished and sales volume reduced”. It further stated: “Marine Harvest is a publicly traded company on the Oslo Stock Exchange and as such, corporate reputation is very important in maintaining share price and shareholder loyalty.” (On a side note, has this industry even informed their shareholders of the risk of Infectious Salmon Anemia in BC?)

Marine Harvest’s largest shareholder, incidentally, is Norway’s richest man, John Fredriksen, worth over $10 billion. (In 2007, while fishing on Norway’s River Alta, Fredriksen admitted to the Altaposten Newspaper, “I’m concerned about the future of wild salmon. Move salmon farms out of the path of wild salmon.”)

Meanwhile, Cermaq – who operate in Canada as Mainstream and whose largest shareholder is the Norwegian Government – claimed in another submission in 2008 to the Office of the Information & Privacy Commissioner that “disclosure would result in “undue financial loss” to Mainstream,” “damage Mainstream’s business” and referred to “the harm which such information in the wrong hands can do.”

Similar statements were made by the BCSFA in submissions to the Cohen Inquiry in May this year. The industry lobby conceded that should disease data be disclosed publicly there would be a “likelihood of misuse and irrevocable damage to the economic interests and reputations of participants and individuals.”  In another submission to the Cohen Inquiry in May, the BCSFA admitted, “Irreparable damage will occur to the reputations and economic interests of the BCSFA’s member companies and their shareholders.”
 
While the BCSFA – whose members include the Norwegian companies Marine Harvest, Cermaq and Grieg – has been privately lobbying for the non-disclosure of disease data, they have issued public statements claiming “good health” and “healthy fish” on BC salmon feedlots.  This is despite the fact that in April 2010, BC’s salmon farmers began refusing access to government inspectors to carry out disease monitoring.
 
Meanwhile, even the data the industry group wants the public to see reveals a host of deadly diseases, viruses, pathogens and bacteria since 2003 (published online via the “BCSFA Fish Health Database“).

The latest disease data for Q1 2010 (2011 information is still not publicly available) reports the existence of: Lepeophtheirus Infection, Myxobacterial Infection, Viral Haemorrhagic Septicemia Virus Infection, Aeromonas salmonicida Infection and Piscirickettsia salmonis Infection on BC farms. A financial report published recently by Marine Harvest also reveals that the parasite Kudoa cost the company in Canada $4 million and resulted in reduced prices (kudoa causes myoliquefaction or soft-flesh syndrome which is off-putting to buyers).

Dr. Kristi Miller and Salmon Leukemia

It’s not just the industry that seems intent on keeping potentially damaging data in locked filing cabinets. The case of Dr. Kristi Miller has recently made headlines across the country.

Dr. Miller’s work was hailed by the world’s top scientific journal Science as a breakthrough when it published her paper in January of this year. In BC, Miller had stumbled onto a disease known as Salmon Leukemia – which causes brain lesions in salmon that may be related to pre-spawn mortality (when fish die just before making it back to their home rivers to spawn).

Dr. Miller was barred from speaking to the media about her findings by the Privy Council, which supports the Prime Minister’s Office. This isn’t surprising when you view a powerpoint of hers released already as an exhibit by the Cohen Inquiry on March 17, which suggests Salmon Leukemia is causing brain tumors in our sockeye and relates the virus to salmon farms.

To what extent this disease is related to salmon farms on BC’s coast and/or collapsing Fraser River sockeye stocks remains to be seen, but Dr. Miller will finally have her chance to answer questions when she’s on the stand and under oath during the Cohen Commission’s “Diseases” hearing on August 24.

This will be one of the big questions to be answered at the Judicial Inquiry: “To what extent is Salmon Leukemia affecting Fraser River salmon stocks?”

Is ISA Here?

The other big question is: “Is Infectious Salmon Anaemia in British Columbia – and, if so, how is it affecting/could it affect wild salmon?”
 
And If ISA isn’t lurking in B.C., what other deadly diseases could possibly precipitate such “irrevocable” and “irreparable” financial meltdown were they to be revealed publicly? In Chile, ISA precipitated a financial meltdown which caused an estimated $2 billion in losses as up to 80% of farms were shut down in just a few years.
 
The Globe & Mail reported in May (in data submitted to the Cohen Inquiry): “There are approximately 35 indications of the existence of ISA identified in these records to date.” But Cermaq maintain, “ISA is not here,” and, “ISA is an East coast disease.”

Cermaq’s Communications Officer in Canada, Grant Warkentin, claimed in a letter to The Courier-Islander in May: “There is no ISA here; the disease is catastrophic for Atlantic salmon, so of course farmers are always looking for it; and again, there is no ISA here.” Cermaq’s Communications and Corporate Sustainability Manager in Canada, Laurie Jensen, claimed during a public meeting in Tofino in June that “ISA is an East coast disease, not a West coast disease” and that symptoms of ISA are not in British Columbia.

Marine Harvest Canada, for their part, concede that there is no guarantee that ISA will not appear in BC. An article, “Are our fish safe from ISA?”, published in their newsletter in August 2009 concluded: “Can we guarantee that Marine Harvest Canada will never see ISA? Realistically no, but Marine Harvest Canada will continue to do everything within its power to minimize its likelihood of occurring and mitigate its impact should it ever be found.”

The BCSFA continue to claim publicly at least that “there are no findings of exotic disease” (January 2011) and an “absence of exotic disease” (May 2011).  The BCSFA flatly stated in a recent letter to The Courier-Islander, “ISA has not been found here.” Significantly, the letter also admitted that imports of eggs to B.C. continue, despite the science showing vertical transmission: “The small percentage of eggs that are imported are under strict regulations: including limiting sources to countries that have never seen ISA, as well as quarantine and testing programs before they’re ever used.” 

Judgment Day

Judgment Day may be fast approaching for the three Norwegian multinationals – Marine Harvest, Cermaq and Grieg – which control 92% of the BC salmon farming industry. In addition to the scientists, government and industry officials to take the stand, after years of pushing by the industry’s critics, 10 years of disease data for 120 salmon farms in B.C. will be submitted to public scrutiny for the first time.

If and when compelling new evidence comes to bear – on the public record, there for media to freely report – connecting BC’s declining salmon populations with diseases related to the salmon farming industry, the fall-out for the industry could indeed be as severe as it fears. Those flashy TV ads professing the industry’s utter innocence would certainly come back to haunt it, as would all the years of obstructing the communication of important science to the public whose wild salmon and marine environment are at stake.

After all, as Watergate taught us, “it’s not the crime, it’s the cover-up.”

Is the Norwegian salmon farming industry in line for a Nixonian fall? Be there at the Cohen Commission starting August 22 to find out for yourself – or stay tuned to The Common Sense Canadian for our extensive coverage.

Part 1 of a 2-part series – read Part 2 here

This past year, the Norwegian-controlled salmon farming industry spent $1.5 million on a glitzy advertising campaign in BC, which essentially denied the impacts of open net cage salmon farms on wild fish and the marine environment. The ads left viewers with the impression the industry’s critics are nothing but a bunch of raving conspiracy theorists.

At the same time, unbeknownst to the public, the salmon farmers were facing their toughest hurdle to date – and it was no longer about sea lice, as it has so often been in the past. The subject matter was of a much smaller but infinitely more damaging nature – the possibility that viruses connected to their operations were not only devastating their own farmed fish in places like Chile, but could potentially be linked to mysterious crashes of iconic wild salmon runs on Canada’s west coast. What’s worse, it’s now clear the industry knew about these problems and has done everything in its power to keep them from the public.

ISA and Salmon Leukemia

Largely thanks to the Cohen Commission into collapsing Fraser River sockeye stocks, significant new information has been trickling out over the past year, which – when one assembles the pieces of the puzzle – reveals a coordinated cover-up by the industry of this damaging information, aided by both the BC and Canadian governments. As the aquaculture portion of the Cohen Commission in late August and September draws near, The Common Sense Canadian will attempt through a two-part feature this week to connect the dots and reveal the nature of this cover-up to our readers.

There are two different viruses at issue here – the first, Infectious Salmon Anemia (ISA) was responsible for decimating up to 80% of the farmed salmon industry in Chile throughout 2008 and 2009 and has affected Norway, Scotland and the East Coast of Canada. While it isn’t known officially to affect wild Pacific salmon yet, the concern is that it may mutate (or may already have done so – more on that later), with catastrophic results for our wild fish.

The second is known as Salmon Leukemia and results in brain lesions which are likely already affecting BC’s wild salmon stocks. Research on this virus is newer than with ISA and the potential of a connection to salmon farms requires immediate further investigation.

Salmon Leukemia was the subject of a recent paper published by DFO scientist Dr. Kristi Miller – whose muzzling by officials connected to the Prime Minister’s office has made headlines. The world’s most prestigious journal, Science, called Dr. Miller’s paper some of the most significant new salmon research in a decade, and yet she was barred from speaking with any media following its publication in January of this year. (More on that in Part 2 of this series).

The Chile Report

We will begin here with ISA and the topic of “vertical transmission” – which refers to the passing of the disease from parent to offspring through eggs. In Canada, DFO has maintained that the disease doesn’t travel this way (evident in correspondence with salmon biologist Alexandra Morton, who began raising concerns about “vertical transmission” to DFO in 2009). But that’s in direct contrast to what the best research out of Norway has been showing for almost three years now.

In November 2008, the scientific journal Archives of Virology published a paper titled, “ISA virus in Chile: evidence of vertical transmission” – which identified an unnamed Norwegian broodstock company as being responsible for spreading ISA to Chile from Norway via infected eggs.

Immediately following the paper’s publication, the Norwegian broodstock company AquaGen (whose shareholders include the world’s #1 and #2 salmon farming companies – Marine Harvest and Cermaq) filed a formal complaint with Norway’s National Commission for the Investigation of Scientific Misconduct, charging the paper’s findings were inaccurate. In doing so, they (AquaGen) outed themselves as the previously unnamed subject of the report. Cermaq, who had financed the scientific research via lead author and company employee Dr. Siri Vike (and owned more than 12% of the subject egg company) said nothing at the time.

It was only in April 2011, over two years after the complaint, that Norway’s National Commission for the Investigation of Scientific Misconduct unanimously ruled that the scientific research was valid. Cermaq was faced with no choice but to come out publicly in support of the research and in late April Dr. Siri Vike gave a presentation in Oslo, Norway, acknowledging the vertical transmission of ISA to Chile from Norway. Cermaq published the presentation – “Preventative Fish Health Work” – very quietly on their website in early May.

Unfortunately for Cermaq – which is over 40% owned by the Norwegian Government – sometime in late June of this year the company “accidentally posted online” private minutes of a “Cermaq Corporate Team” meeting in April. The notes referred to the “very sensitive” situation in B.C. and stated that: “[Salmon farm activist Don] Staniford has been twittering about Siri Vike and the article on the ISA virus and how it originated from Norway.”

Following the publication of the private minutes in full online by Alexandra Morton in early July, Cermaq responded with an article on “The real ISA ‘situation in BC’ for Mainstream Canada” – which claimed that “the research mentioned has to do with Chile and Norway, and nothing to do with Canada,” and, “there is no ISA present in our broodstock.”

The Secret ISA Files

The industry flatly denies ISA is here in BC – and yet we would do to be cautious, as some 12 million Atlantic salmon eggs have entered BC since 2004. And according to legal discussions that emerged recently from the Cohen Commission – as reported by Mark Hume in the Globe and Mail this past May – documents show that the symptoms of ISA are already being detected in BC’s farmed fish.

According to Hume, Alexandra Morton’s lawyer at the Commission, Greg McDade, submitted theses facts to Justice Cohen in an effort to have his client released from the Commission’s confidentiality undertaking so she could pass this ISA information to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. McDade wrote to the Commission, “There are approximately 35 indications of the existence of ISA identified in these records to date. Of great biological concern is that some of these diagnoses are in Pacific salmon, suggesting potential spread of a novel and virulent virus into native populations may be underway into the North Pacific.”

In other words, ISA could already be here in BC – and may already be mutating to affect wild salmon.

And why wouldn’t it be? Canada doesn’t even ask foreign hatcheries to report ISA on the certificate they have to sign before shipping eggs to BC – and ISA was not reportable on BC farms until January of this year. Bear in mind these are the same companies operating here as in Chile.
 
The industry’s lawyers fought McDade’s request to have his client released to share these documents with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (who has a legal obligation to know this information). The BCSFA successfully argued against the disclosure of disease data during to the Cohen Commission, with Justice Cohen ruling in June that information must be kept confidential until the evidentiary hearings on aquaculture. 

In May, the BCSFA conceded that should disease data be disclosed publicly there would be a “likelihood of misuse and irrevocable damage to the economic interests and reputations of participants and individuals.”  In another submission to the Cohen Commission in May, the BCSFA admitted, “Irreparable damage will occur to the reputations and economic interests of the BCSFA’s member companies and their shareholders.”

But the industry’s efforts to keep this disease data under wraps may prove short-lived, as much of it is expected to enter the public record during the Inquiry’s aquaculture hearings from August 21 through September 8 – in which case the cat would truly be out of the bag.

Watch for Part 2 of “Farmed Salmon Confidential” this Thursday, as we discuss Salmon Leukemia and reveal the lengths to which the industry has gone to prevent testing of their farms and the publication of disease records that it says would cause “irreparable” and “irrevocable” financial damage to these Norwegian corporations.