Tag Archives: farmed salmon

Sadly, Violence May Be on the Way in Battle for BC’s Environment

Share

I don’t like the way things are heading in this province for I foresee violence.
 
Damien Gillis and I, the “owners” if you will of the Common Sense Canadian (TheCanadian.org) wish to make it abundantly clear that the very last thing we want is violence. At the same time we feel an obligation to assess what is happening and report that assessment to you. To be silent, in the face of the evidence we feel would be irresponsible.

There are situations developing which past evidence clearly tells us that we must be deeply concerned. Violence happens when people, being so much less powerful than their oppressors – large companies and government – become frustrated with the inability to be heard and have their concerns listened to. Any who have attended one of the so-called environmental assessment meetings – as Damien and I have – will sense the deep anger and, that word again, frustration as they see the government and industry all but in each others’ arms as they deny the public the right to be heard.  If, God forbid, violence does come, the large companies and the senior governments will be clearly to blame but will piously cite the “rule of law,” saying that they are merely taking what the law gives and that the public must accept that.
 
The underlying truth is that the public is sick and tired of government and industry lying. If you look back in history, most civil disorder has been because the situation is not as the authorities and those who hide behind their skirts say it is.
 
First let’s look at the fish farm issue. I know something about this subject because I involved myself in it from the beginning. For nearly 10 years now the Liberal government has known about the disastrous harm these fish farms do to migrating wild Pacific Salmon. Over and over the government has been shown by experts to be wrong in its policy and over and over the government has bobbed, weaved, and lied.
 
Aggravating the situation big time has been the media who, rather than examine the evidence, have ignored it and given column after column on the op-ed page to supporters of the industry, especially to the environmentalist turncoat and failed fish farmer, Patrick Moore, and Mary Ellen Walling, the Executive Director of the Fish Farmers Association. Incidentally, Moore is now advising a large lumber company in Indonesia on how to wipe out their ever-diminishing rain forest and look “green” as it does so.
 
There are signs of life coming from the Cohen Commission on disappearing Fraser River sockeye, where the Commissioner has ordered fish farms to release data on sea lice. There is not, sad to say, similar action being taken by governments on Independent Power Projects (IPPs), nor pipelines and tankers on our coast. And this is where the violence will come, from unless a sea change is seen in government policy.
 
The Axor Glacier-Howser undertaking in the Kootenays is the most serious IPP situation because the public has made it abundantly clear that they will do whatever is necessary to stop the project. I have no doubt that they mean it. I’ll do more on that in columns to come but for today let’s concentrate on the oil pipeline and tanker issues.
 
First, the pipeline from the Alberta Tar Sands to Kitimat proposed by Enbridge, whose safety record is appalling, is approximately 1200kms long over all with about 2/3 running across BC. In fact it’s two pipelines – one to take the Tar Sands crud (aka bitumen) to Kitimat and the other to send back to Alberta in what they call “condensate,” a liquid natural gas product. (Bitumen sludge is so viscous that it can’t be pumped through a pipeline without first being diluted by condensate).
 
Isn’t this neat-o? We get twice as many chances for a spill!
 
Second, there is the issue of transporting the Tar Sands gunk down the BC Coast. (Don’t forget that this shipping catastrophe in the making is already in place in Vancouver through the Kinder-Morgan pipeline, but that for another day).
 
The governments involved (Federal, Alberta, and BC) and Enbridge don’t want you to notice that the pipeline and the tanker are the same issue –  like Doris Day used to sing about love and marriage, “you can’t have one without the other.”
 
Let’s not overlook another important point: These aren’t risks involved here but certainties waiting to happen.
 
Imagine a revolver with 100 chambers and one bullet. If you put that to your head and say you’ll just pull the trigger once, the odds are there and obvious. If you say you’ll it for a year the odds are shorter but still you’re assessing a risk. If you say you will do it forever, it is no longer a risk but a certainty.
 
Then there are the consequences to deal with. If the bullet is made of marshmallow, who cares? If it’s a bullet, it’s death!
 
The Tar Sands gunk is not marshmallow.
 
If there aren’t risks involved, why would the company concern itself with what isn’t? But listen to what Enbridge spokesman Allan Roth had to say about tanker traffic:
 
“There’s been a tremendous amount of engineering studies and risk analysis studies. Extraordinary measures are planned with respect to marine safety and these are the highest modern standards for engineering…The risks have to tell us the probability (is) as close to zero or very close to that (my emphasis) before we would even propose the project.” (The words “very close to that” must send a shiver down the backs of all British Columbians).

This reminds me of a story. Many years ago I was in the Anchor Pub in Greenwich, England and went into the loo. On the condom machine was etched “These condoms manufactured up to the UK’s highest standards,” over which was scribbled, “So was the Titanic.” There you have it, Mr Roth, highest standards don’t count when tragedy strikes.

Let us not overlook the pipeline itself. The ca. 800 km in BC transverse superb wildlife habitat including some 1,000 rivers and streams. Once permission – God forbid! – is granted Enbridge will go into its environmental protection mode, which is to do no serious inspections and, if tragedy strikes,  bring help to bear in leisurely fashion as they did with the Kalamazoo River a few months ago, Of course they will explain their slowness saying that it’s because the damage is in wild remote country – which is the reason they can’t be inspected regularly and a very strong reason it should not be done. One need only look at the Kalamazoo spill to see what Enbridge’s attitude is to spills – lethargic is too energetic a word to describe it.

In keeping with the morality of this industry, truth is no barrier to self-serving flackery. The usual corporate tactics have recently been exposed as Enbridge, with the airy wave of the hand, stated that First Nations are getting behind the projects .

Really?

Clearly Enbridge hasn’t seen Damien Gillis’ “Oil in Eden: The Battle to Protect Canada’s Pacific Coast” (on this website), where President of the Coastal First Nations, Gerald Amos, and the formidable Gitga’at elder, Helen Clifton, made it abundantly clear that, in Chief Amos’ words, these projects “are not going to happen.” They were also caught off guard by an unprecedented joint declaration against the project by over 60 First Nations last week, the day after they tried assuring the public and media everything was falling into place for the project with First Nations.

I sadly, but honestly believe that a showdown on the pipeline/tanker issue will raise tempers too short to handle. And there’s another factor involved – the governments will point out that China has “invested” nearly $2 BILLION in the Tar Sands and the bitumen is largely for them. Thus they will say we must give into China.
 
Thus we will have the irresistible force meeting the immovable object. 
 
There is no compromise. You can’t have a little bit less of a pipeline. It’s all or nothing at all.
 
When the inevitable happens, the usual procedure will take place. Protesters will refuse to go away, the governments and companies will call the protesters nasty names and people will be jailed for contempt of court, a gross distortion of democracy that turns a civil dispute into a crime if that’s what big government and big business so desire – and they will.

The blame in fact will rest with the governments, joined as they are at the hip with environmental predators who keep their campaign coffers filled.
 
The plain fact of the matter is that all three governments involved don’t give a rat’s ass for the environment or those who live in it and feel a sacred obligation to nurture it and pass it on intact for those to come.

How’s this?

Times are changing and governments don’t understand that. Citizens have little respect for what in my early days were called “our betters.” I can’t get my MP, Conservative John Weston, to talk to me about environmental concerns, and coincidentally the other day I received a letter from another of his constituents with the same complaint. Why the hell should he care? He’ll win because the Liberals won’t and that’s all that matters.

I hate to talk about the “old days,” but in my lifetime I’ve seen an enormous disconnect arise between the governed and the governors. When I was in government, my colleagues and I constantly faced a hostile media who didn’t believe a thing we said. My home city of Kamloops had small town versions of the Jack Websters and Marjorie Nichols who would nail me as soon as I got off the plane. I had to answer for my actions or be found guilty in absentia.

Politicians now, hearing no tough questions from the media, and seeing and hearing nothing in the print or electronic media, assume that there are no tough questions to be asked.

In many ways, the overflowing discontent I foresee can be blamed on the free ride politicians get from the media.

Harry Belafonte once said in one of his great songs “don’t turn your back to the masses, mon” – good advice that those who sit in authority over us should, in my not so respectful opinion, pay heed to.

If they won’t, they must answer for the consequences, not the public that has been cheated of its democratic right to be heard prior to the decision having been taken.

But they won’t. 

Share

New Federal Rules Welcomed by Fish Farmers

Share

New rules welcomed by fish farmers

But environmental groups say federal government has fallen far short of what is needed

Salmon
farmers are welcoming new federal fish farming regulations and say
they will help streamline aquaculture operations, but environmental
groups say they are seriously flawed.

The new rules were posted
this week by the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans, which is
taking over oversight of aquaculture from the province.

On
Friday, federal Fisheries Minister Gail Shea and provincial Agriculture
Minister Ben Stewart signed a memorandum of understanding in
preparation for a Dec. 18 handover.

The move follows a 2009 B.C.
Supreme Court decision that aquaculture is a fishery and so
responsibility for regulations lies with the federal government.

“The
new regulations and conditions of licensing will mean stronger
environmental controls as well as increased monitoring and
enforcement,” Shea said at a ceremony at the Vancouver Aquarium.

A new DFO division, with 55 employees and an annual budget of $8.3 million, will oversee aquaculture regulations.

However,
the industry will remain a shared responsibility between the two
levels of government, with the province retaining responsibility for
deciding where farms will go and managing Crown leases.

Read full Tmes-Colonist article here


Share

Cohen orders fish farms to submit health data back to 2000

Share

Commissioner Bruce Cohen has ordered the B.C. Salmon Farmers’
Association to submit data on salmon health and mortality dating back as
far as the year 2000, and covering an additional 99 fish farms.

The decision was in the form of a 22-page Ruling Re: Rule 19 Application for Production of Aquaculture Health Records.
It stemmed from an “Initial Request,” made last July by the Aquaculture
Coalition and the Conservation Coalition, asking for documents from the
province, the federal government, and the British Columbia Salmon
Farmers’ Association. As Cohen put it:

The Initial Request sought documents relating to fish health,
pathogens and diseases, as well as stocking data in farmed salmon. The
applicants also requested fish health data for wild salmon. The
geographic and temporal scope of the Initial Request was for fish farms
and “wild salmon on the Fraser River migration route (including both
sides of Vancouver Island and north of Vancouver Island through Klemtu)
dating from 1980 to the present.”

The BCSFA wrote to commission counsel on July 30, 2010, advising that
it found the Initial Request “overreaching in its scope, both in terms
of the kinds of documents requested and the period of time which the
request covers.”

Read full Tyee article here

Share

First Nations Win Right to Launch Class-Action Lawsuit Over Wild Salmon Damage

Share

From the Vancouver Sun

By Ian Mulgrew – Dec. 2, 2010

First
Nations have won the right to launch a class-action lawsuit over damage
to wild salmon stocks from sea-lice allegedly caused by salmon farms on
the Broughton Archipelago.

Victoria challenged proposed
representative plaintiff, Robert Chamberlin, the elected chief of an
aboriginal collective known as the Kwicksutaineuk/Ah-Kwa-Mish First
Nation, saying Indians are barred by the Class Proceedings Act from
launching such litigation.

The provincial government
contended that a class action is not the preferable procedure for
resolving the native claims, and that the challenges the First Nations
would face in establishing the fishing rights said to have been
infringed would overwhelm the law suit.

Ottawa raised
similar objections and argued the evidence failed to establish adverse
impacts on wild salmon stocks attributable to sea lice contamination
from fish farms.

In addition, the two governments said the
complications involved in deciding what rights the native people enjoyed
would make the damages phase of the case interminable.

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Harry Slade disagreed and said the lawsuit should be certified and allowed to proceed.

Read Vancouver Sun article here

Click here to read the court ruling

Share

Farmed Salmon: The Worst Type of Fish You Can Eat

Share

From leading natural health newsletter, Mercola.com:

Fish farms are killing off wild salmon. Norwegian policies are making
farmed seafood unsustainable and unhealthy. Open cage salmon farms, used
to raise what is perhaps the most popular type of farmed fish, pose
numerous problems for the environment and public health.

Many environmental experts have warned about the unsustainability of
fish farms for close to a decade now, but nothing has been done to
improve the system. As usual, government agencies and environmental
organizations around the world turned a blind eye to what was predicted
to become an absolute disaster, and now the ramifications can be seen
across the globe.

Farmed fish is now so common, if you bought fish in the supermarket
recently or ordered one in a restaurant, chances are it was farm raised.
(About the only places you can find wild-caught fish these days are
specialty fine-dining seafood restaurants.)

These oceanic feedlots, consisting of acres of net-covered pens
tethered offshore were once considered a wonderful solution to
over-fishing, but the reality is far from it.

As mentioned in the video above, it can take up to 5 kilos of wild
fish and Antarctic krill to produce just one kilo of farmed salmon!

Rather than solving the problem of over-fishing, fish farms are
literally competing with human consumption for what little wild fish
thereare left…

Open cage salmon farms are also decimating natural salmon stocks, and destroy the livelihoods of fisheries across the world.

Read full article here

Share

Call for ban on sale of salmon infected with ISA virus

Share

Lawmakers and environmentalists are demanding that the Chilean Health
Ministry (Minsal) prohibit the marketing of more than 100 tonnes of
salmon for human consumption, which is infected with the infectious
salmon anemia (ISA) virus.

The petition was filed by Senators of Magallane, Pedro Munoz, Guido
Girardi and Alejandro Navarro, the council of Punta Arenas, Mario
Pascual, and organizations like the Centro Ecocéanos,
the Latin American Observatory for Environmental Conflicts (OLCA),
Citizens Defense League for the Consumer and International Consumers.

A few weeks ago, the National Fisheries Service (Sernapesca) reported that it had detected an outbreak of ISA in facilities belonging to the Acuimag company, located in the Magallanes region.

In total, some 230 tonnes of salmon were infected by the virus, of
which only 50 were destroyed. The remaining 180 tonnes are being
processed for human consumption in the plant of Pesquera Edén.

The director of Centro Ecocéanos, Juan Carlos Cardenas, beleives that
“it is urgent that policy actions and the system for sanitary control
of the industry are strengthened to ensure the safety of the industry’s
aquaculture production.”

While both the Ministry of Health and Sernapesca say the virus does
not cause problems for humans, but rather a high mortality rate for
fish, the Ecocéanos specialist warned that the virus comes from the same
family that produces the human flu and therefore has a great capacity
for mutation and adaptation to new hosts.”

Read full article here

Share

DFO Recommends Salmon Aquaculture Pilot Project

Share

A
new report from Fisheries and Oceans Canada says closed containment
technology for salmon aquaculture offers less potential for profit than
conventional open ocean net pens.

The report, from the fisheries
department’s aquaculture management directorate, says land-based pen
technology appears to be “marginally viable from a financial
perspective” and presents a higher level of financial risk for operators
compared to conventional net pens.

However the report recommends
that the department support pilot studies of closed containment. The
Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform (CAAR) and the T. Buck Suzuki
Foundation are hailing that recommendation as proof that closed
containment systems can be profitable at a commercial scale.

The
department’s conclusions are based on hypothetical economic modelling
which suggests that closed containment pens may be unprofitable when the
Canadian and U.S. dollars are at or close to par.

It says closed
containment technologies are projected to be considerably more
sensitive to market forces (e.g., exchange rate and market price) beyond
the operator’s control, and may likely prove non-profitable within a
range of variability that has actually been experienced by the Canadian
salmon aquaculture industry in the past.”

Read full Vancouver Sun article here

Share

Genetically Engineered Salmon: FDA Says It’s Safe – Consumers Say ‘No Way’

Share
Back in September, the U.S Food and Drug Administration that a genetically engineered fish grown in a lab was “as safe as food
from conventional Atlantic salmon,” and will “not have a significant
impact on the quality of the human environment.” Conclusions were based
largely on data prepared by AquaBounty Technologies,
the company that manufactures the synthetic salmon. “There is a
reasonable certainty of no harm from consumption of food from this
animal,” the FDA wrote.

Since then, dozens of consumer and environmental organizations,
commercial and recreational fishery associations, food-safety advocates,
food retailers, and chefs have been putting pressure on the FDA to
continue researching the environmental and public health impacts of the
fish before releasing it into the U.S. food supply. Consumer advocates
argue that the FDA’s decision to approve this fish could open up a
pandora’s box of genetically engineered animals on the market without
labels and that the FDA is not taking these concerns seriously.

If the FDA approves the scientifically created salmon, a product called AquAdvantage, it will be the first time a genetically engineered animal has been given the green light for human consumption.
Read full article at Politics Daily here
Share