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The following transcript is protected under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License. Link to Audio and Episode Info Here
Show Transcript Deconstructing Dinner Kootenay Co-op Radio CJLY Nelson, BC, Canada January 15, 2009 Title: Norway, British Columbia II (Farming
Atlantic Salmon in the Pacific) Producer/Host: Jon Steinman Transcript:
Andi Emrich Jon Steinman: And
welcome to Deconstructing Dinner, a syndicated weekly one-hour radio show and podcast
produced at Kootenay Co-op Radio, CJLY in Nelson, British Columbia. I'm Jon
Steinman. We have a rather riveting line-up
of shows to bring to you over the next few weeks and I say riveting as the
topic we'll be covering is that of the controversial salmon farms operating
along the coast of British Columbia. Salmon farming is a valuable
industry around the world, but it seems nowhere are the presence of farms as
controversial as they are in British Columbia. We'll be exploring why this is
and uncovering some startling tactics that the industry uses to circumvent the
very vocal public opposition to these open-net salmon farms. It's been almost three years
since we last covered this topic and that broadcast (one of our first)
was titled Norway, British Columbia - and the reason for the title remains
today, because the three largest companies operating in B.C, which combined
represent 96% of total production, are all Norwegian. And so in the spirit of
that show which aired in February 2006, today's show will mark part II
of this multi-part series about this controversial world of salmon farms. soundbite Before diving into the topic for
today's show I was passed an interesting notice about an art installation set
up in Vancouver, between January 13th and February 10th.
The installation is at Langara College and is titled Thought for Food: A Gastronomic Reading Room. According to Artist,
Geoffrey Swartz the installation addresses the absence of classic gastronomic
texts from local public and university libraries. Thought for Food presents a citation reading room featuring key
examples of gastronomic thought and writing. The Installation is arranged like a
tapas bar. Thought for Food is part
of a larger installation called Vehicle,
which will be around ‘til April 21st and this food-focused reading
room, on exhibit until February 10th. Thought
for Food will offer a series of
programs that connects rituals of food to current economic, political, and
cultural conditions. For more information on the exhibit and scheduled
performances you can visit the website at langarapublicart.ca or you can drop
in at the main entrance of Langara College at 100 West 49th Avenue,
Vancouver. soundbite So
we do have quite a lot to cover as part of this Norway, British Columbia series
which first aired in February 2006. While in some respects not much has
transpired since then, there are a number of important changes and
outlooks to report. On today's part II of the Norway, British Columbia series
we'll be taking you on a tour of an Atlantic Salmon hatchery north of Campbell
River to learn about where farmed salmon begin their life. We'll meet once
again with Catherine Stewart of the Living Oceans Society and the Coastal
Alliance for Aquaculture Reform. Catherine will share with us some of the
current concerns that she believes the public should be aware of. We'll
hear from Clare Backman of Marine Harvest Canada - the largest salmon farming
company operating in B.C. And we'll touch on the incredible impact that
Infectious Salmon Anemia (ISA) has been having among the salmon farms of Chile
(one of the world's largest producers of farmed salmon), and we'll be asking if
this virus is a sign that salmon farming is unsustainable. Also on the episode
and throughout the series we'll be asking whether the Province of British
Columbia is adequately protecting the interests of British Columbians
and given the importance of Pacific Salmon to global ecosystems, by
extension, protecting the interests of the global population too. Next week,
we'll hear from one of the most vocal opponents of open-net salmon
farming - Alexandra Morton of the Raincoast Research Society, who, in October
2008, led a group of petitioners into B.C. Supreme Court to challenge the
Province's authority over the salmon farming industry. As Alexandra believes,
the regulating of open-net salmon farms should be in the hands of the Federal
Government as it's the Federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans that is
responsible for protecting the marine environment. As
the series progresses, you'll also get a chance to visit an actual salmon farm
on East Thurlow Island located in the Straight of
Georgia. It was there I posed some tough questions to BC Ministry of
Agriculture and Lands Bill Harrower and the B.C. Salmon Farming Association's
Paula Galloway. We'll also tackle the controversial topic of "organic" salmon
(which, when one begins to think about it, sounds a little absurd), but sure
enough there is organic salmon on the market today and many more companies
vying for what appears to be a rather sneaky marketing ploy. The topic of sea
lice will permeate the dialogue over the series, as this is likely the most
contested concern facing the health of wild salmon populations along the coast.
And we'll also look more into the future of salmon genetics - and more
specifically - genetically-engineered salmon - which, if approved, it can be
almost certain, that at the current rate of escape events happening from B.C.'s
salmon farms, B.C. may soon have genetically-engineered salmon swimming among
the wild salmon that have existed there long before humans ever did. So stay
tuned for that, and more, as part of this Norway, British Columbia series. soundbite If
you do miss any of the series, it will be archived as usual on our web site at
deconstructingdinner.ca When
the first of this Norway, British Columbia series aired, we launched the
episode with an introduction into some of the key issues that have made the
salmon farming industry as controversial as it is today. On this part II of the
series, we'll be moving beyond some of those issues, but to first re-introduce
what many groups opposed to salmon farms believe the public should be aware of,
here again is a clip from that episode featuring Jay Ritchlin,
the Director of Marine and Freshwater Conservation for the Vancouver-based
David Suzuki Foundation. Jay Ritchlin: Some of the key impacts that we are concerned about include: the transfer
of diseases and parasites like sea lice between farm and wild fish, the escape
of salmon—whether they are Atlantic Salmon who can colonize our rivers and our
habitats and compete for food or whether they're Pacific Salmon that can
actually interbreed with our wild salmon and reduce their fitness. The waste from the salmon farming operations;
excess feed; feces from the fish; the remaining antibiotics and other chemicals
that are used on the farms are direct impact to the immediate environment; the
impact of the antibiotics and other chemicals themselves on the health of the
fish and potential resistance of bacteria to antibiotics—those are issues that
are still being researched. One of the issues that sort of goes beyond the
local environment is the use of food fish from around the world to create feed
for salmon growth in the North, and in the wealthier countries. The depletion
of that fish feed takes between two and four kilograms of wild fish to grow a
kilogram of farmed salmon. And then, of course, you have the interactions with
local wildlife: seals, whales, eagles all try to get into the pens and have
variously been shot or deterred with undesirable methods by the farms. And finally,
the potential (although it has not happened yet to any great degree) for
genetically modified organisms to be grown in the open net pens. So I think those are the overarching issues. Of course, we also have the economic
impact of a glut of farmed salmon on the global market has negatively impacted
wild salmon prices for many years. JS: Jay Ritchlin of the David Suzuki Foundation. Yet another voice
we heard on the 2006 broadcast of this Norway, British Columbia series, was
Catherine Stewart. Catherine is the Salmon Farming Campaign Manager with the
Living Oceans Society - a Sointula, British
Columbia-based organization focusing exclusively on marine conservation issues.
Catherine spoke to me once again from Vancouver, and provided a snapshot of what
the industry looks like today, in 2009. Catherine Stewart: Well actually
over the last three years it hasn't changed an awful lot. There are still 92%
of all salmon farms in British Columbia are owned by four main companies. Three
of them are Norwegian-based (Norwegian-owned). Marine Harvest owns over 55% of
the tenures in BC; Mainstream or Surmac owns about
24%; Greek Seafood—another Norwegian company owns 13%, and there is one small
Canadian company, Creative Salmon, that owns 4%. There's been a lot of concentration over the last
5-6 years, for example Marine Harvest acquired Pen Fish, which was a
Dutch-owned company farming in B.C. and Mainstream gobbled-up Heritage, which
was owned by the Westin family (the Canadian company that runs Loblaws and Superstore, etc.). There are a few independents
left: Yellow Island, Agro-Marine (who are doing the floating, closed
containment tank system just near Campbell River). But by and large, the fish
farming industry in B.C. is owned and run by the Norwegians. JS: As
Catherine indicates, the industry has not changed much, and as we'll explore in
just a moment, nor have production levels. According to Catherine, the fierce
public opposition to open-net salmon farms has kept the industry at bay, and as
she suggests, the industry would look a lot different if the public remained
quiet. Catherine Stewart: It would
absolutely look different. I mean when the Liberal government was first elected
in B.C. they made no bones about the fact that they were hoping to increase
production on fish farms in B.C. ten-fold. It's the public and the opposition
mounted by coastal First Nations and groups like Living Oceans and other member
groups of the Alliance—the CAAR alliance—that have held that at bay. Certainly
the public has been very vocal in their opposition to the industry and their
concerns about it. JS: As
for production, total tonnage in B.C. has remained relatively constant at about
70-80 000 tons per year, and while public opposition is said to have
contributed to this low growth rate, there are other issues the industry faces. Catherine Stewart: Well total
production hasn't changed a lot—I would say in the past three years there have
been maybe four new fish farms approved. There was one in the Broughton that is
owned by Greig Seafood at Bennett Point. There were a
couple in Esperanza Inlet or Nootka Sound, on the west coast of Vancouver
Island, new farm approvals. But by in large the industry has held steady
largely because of public opposition to expansion of aquaculture. Of course as
a result of the legislature committee on sustainable aquaculture there was a
moratorium placed on expansion into northern B.C. so anything other than the
farms around Klemtu on the central coast—no new farms north of Cape Caution on
the coast which is good news but only half the battle. Now we have to do
something about the mess being created by the farms in the south.
JS:
According to Marine Harvest, the algae bloom that Catherine spoke of occurred
in September 2008 and contributed to a loss of 786 tons of fish. As for
escapes, the most recent to report occurred on November 20th at
Marine Harvest's Lime Point site off of Pooley Island
in the territory of the Kitasoo/Heiltsuk
First Nation. According to Marine Harvest, a sea lion gained access to a net
during a winter storm and allowed a portion of the 45 000 Atlantic Salmon
weighing an average of 1.3kg, to swim away. Marine Harvest suffered another escape
in July of 2008, when, according to the company, as many as 30 000 Atlantic Salmon escaped from its Frederick Arm site. At the time of
the escape, the company was unsure what caused it. soundbite This is Deconstructing Dinner and part II of our series titled Norway,
British Columbia - a multi-part series on the salmon farming industry off the
coast of British Columbia. Now we'll come back to further examining some of the key issues facing
the industry later on the show, but first, and as mentioned earlier, as part of
this series on salmon farming you'll also be taken on a tour of an Atlantic Salmon
hatchery and a salmon farm located in the Straight of Georgia not far
from the community of Campbell River. The tours will provide a rare auditory glimpse into the world of
salmon farming and give you, the listener, a better idea
of how salmon farms operate and, what they sound like. You can also
visit our web site and take a peek at some of the images that we've compiled of
the hatchery. Next week, we'll also post images to the site from the farm
visit. Again, that site is deconstructingdinner.ca Now, while the farm tour will have to wait until our next
episode of the series, let's quickly take a trip to Big Tree Creek Hatchery
located north of Campbell River. The hatchery is one of five production
facilities currently operated by Marine Harvest where their fish are raised before
heading out to their sea sites. The tour was part of the 2008 Conference of the Canadian Farm Writers
Federation and was sponsored by the Province of British Columbia and the B.C.
Salmon Farmers Association, which is the trade association
representing salmon aquaculture companies. As was learned on the tour, Marine Harvest operates its own
brood-stock program where the eggs are first produced. Those eggs then make
their way to a hatchery- Big Tree Creek being one of them. Taking us on the tour was site manager Barb Addison, and when the bus
arrived, we were greeted by a watchful dog. The tour began with a request that
the soles of our boots be disinfected. Barb Addison: (barking dog, people talking) Normally our gate over there is closed
cause this is all bio-security inside but we have construction going on so part
of the fence is ripped down… Up until only a few of years ago we had no fences
and people could go through the site that had been fishing in the creeks so we
had disease concerns so everything is pretty… well we have people working in
the industry now that have worked on the East Coast and we know what's going on
in Chile and we don't have any diseases here, we don't want any diseases in
Victory... Well for our thirty million eggs that we're going to
produce (thirty-two million for the whole year) there will be about 2 000
brood-stock. We'll have about 22 million here and then we have another facility
that also takes eggs. Our goal is about
32 million all together between the two of us. So this is what we call pre-incubation. This is
where all the eggs come in from the brood facility and they get fertilized here,
they get Ovidine disinfected and then they get
enumerated before they go into one of the two incubation rooms that we have
here. Every female is screened for bacterial kidney disease and also for
viruses. We have our own lab in Campbell River we can get the results—if we're
going to combine them in an incubator—we can have the results by the next
morning. So if there is anything positive we can throw it out right away. We will be producing 3.6 million smolts
out of here, plus we'll be providing fry for the Ripple Hatchery next door. JS:
Moving on from the area of the facility where the eggs are contained, we moved
into another building where the fish, when at their fry stage, are kept.
What came as a shock was to see the sheer number of fry that are kept together
in one tank. This truly was industrial food production. If you do have access to
the internet, you can check out a photograph that I took of the fish in the
tank while on the tour. Barb Addison: So this is
what they fall through onto after they hatch and they burrow into the sub
straight and stay in here until they are ready to feed. So that's also a new
material that comes from Norway. And the fry are much better, much bigger, much
healthier actually having a place to sit down in. JS: And in the
wild would they be grouped together like this too, like would they stick
together? Barb Addison: They wouldn't
be that concentrated, but some species stick together—some not depending on
what stage they are at. The feed here is all spreading pellet; it's all 1.5mm
pellet now that they are on. JS: What's the composition of that feed? Barb Addison: The
composition is fish meal, fish oils, vitamins, minerals. JS: As
the tour continued, we headed outdoors and towards the next stage where
the fish were housed in mesh-covered tanks. Again, images of these are
available on the Deconstructing Dinner web site. As
we were toured around this section of the Big Tree Creek Hatchery, we
were informed that the production levels of the facility were set to
increase. Barb Addison: We have our
own transport department with about half a dozen trucks and so maybe on a day
we're shipping 200 000 fish we'll have about four trucks just doing the loop.
We'll pump them into the trucks, load them up, truck goes, fill
up another one. Unknown man: So basically,
from the 32 000 000 eggs that you start with you end
up with about 12 000 000 fish? Barb Addison: Yes, that's
right. We're slowly increasing our production from about 10.2 to… we will be up
to… We seem to be ever expanding. We're just putting on two extra tanks, plus a
building where all the equipment needed for grading and vaccinating will all be
inside a building Unknown voice: You vaccinate
your fish? Barb Addison: We vaccinate
our fish. Each fish gets two injections, so… Unknown voice: Each fish? Barb Addison: Each fish.
Well we have a machine that we've had—this is the second season with the
machine for one of the injections. The other injection is done by hand… Unknown Voice: Twelve
million fish? Barb Addison: Well, this site here we only
have... it gets split up quite a bit.
This site here we are doing 1.6 million this year and then 3.6 next
year. Unknown voice: So what are you vaccinating against? Barb Addison: We're vaccinating against bronculosis
and vibrio as well as IHN. JS: So again this is for all Marine Harvest Farms. This is where it all
begins... Barb Addison: Yes. JS: So there is no need for any other facilities to
supply them. Barb Addison: No. We are
eventually going to end up with about three facilities which will produce three
million smolts each. JS: And right now this is again, how many? Barb Addison: Right now, this year, we're doing 1.6 million,
next year with the new expansion we're going to do 3.6 million out of here, by
batching fish through... JS: Is
that hoping that there will actually be more farms? Or is that just for the
current farms? Barb Addison: For the
current farms right now. JS: Now
this planned expansion raises a number of important questions. For one, and as
Catherine Stewart indicated earlier, the industry's total production levels
have remained relatively stagnant over the past seven or so years. Catherine
also indicated that only a handful of new farm sites have been approved
over the past few years and so one is left to ask - where will all of this
increased production of fish at Marine Harvest's hatcheries end up. Well
one possibility is that the company hopes to increase production on individual
farm sites, a prospect that would certainly concern many of the groups opposed
to salmon farms. Well sure enough, there are many proposed amendments currently
before the Province that are requesting permits to increase production on fish
farm sites. Catherine
Stewart of the Living Oceans Society explains.
Catherine Stewart: We actually
directly asked the previous minister of Agriculture and Lands, Pat Bell, in a
face-to-face meeting to give us all the information about amendments
applications on the B.C. farms. It's very difficult to obtain this and we were
really running up against a brick wall. It's hard to access information in
British Columbia about what's going on on the farms
whether its disease outbreaks, sea lice counts, or expansion agendas. The
minister promised us he would get us the information within seven days and
about seven months later we finally got it. We had an overview of the amendment
applications and they are substantial. It's a mix. Some of the companies are
just applying for amendments to the actual physical layout of the farms, like
they want to move from square cages to round cages or visa-versa, or they want
to realign the pens, but some are asking for substantial changes to production.
Marine Harvest, for example, has applied to double its overall productions on
several farms in the Discovery Islands region in northern Georgia Straight and
Mainstream has applied to pretty much triple its overall production capacity in
the Broughton Archipelago. JS: When
asked why the expansion proposals should pose a concern, Catherine
suggested for all the reasons why open-net salmon farms should be opposed in
the first place. Catherine Stewart: Any and all of
the concerns associated with net-cage production. I mean we are already
confronted with such significant problems with fecal matter, waste feed,
contamination around the farms, the use of chemicals, antifoulant
chemicals on the nets, the use of pesticides in the feed to treat sea-lice, the
use of antibiotics and residual antibiotics in the feed getting into the marine
ecosystem. So you double or triple the capacity and the production on the farm,
you just double or triple the problems. JS: Now
on the surface it would appear as though the industry is indeed looking to
circumvent the difficulty in getting new sites approved by instead increasing
production on existing farms. To give you even more specific numbers, Marine
Harvest has proposed a 4-fold increase at their Bickley
site, a 4.5 fold increase at their Egerton site, an
almost 3.5-fold increase at their Farside site, an
almost 3.5-fold increase at their Freddy Arm site, and an over 1.5-fold
increase at their Read Island site. Again, the Freddy Arm site is the one,
which in July 2008, was responsible for an escape of as many as 30 000 Atlantic
Salmon. Now
the Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform (otherwise known as CAAR), which is
made up of organizations like the David Suzuki Foundation and Living Oceans
Society among others, has posted these amendment applications on their web site
at farmedanddangerous.org and are encouraging the public to voice their
opposition to the proposals. However,
according to Catherine Stewart, two of those proposals have already been
quietly approved. Catherine Stewart: Well, to our
shock and horror we discovered that two of the applications had already been
approved very quietly, no notice given (those were for the two of the Marine
Harvest Farms in the Discovery Islands area). It's hard to say with an election in the offing how
eager the Province would be to approve expansion in production right now. I
would suspect that if the Liberals got re-elected we could see those approvals
come through in short order—unless they change their policy or the voters speak
up the policy is not likely to change. The one set of amendments that CAAR may be willing
to tolerate are associated with an alternating migratory route corridor
proposal in the Broughton Archipelago. Marine Harvest and to some extent Mainstream
have tabled a proposal where they're suggesting that if production amendments
were permitted for a six year period they would be able to empty the farms on
the primary out migration route for the wild salmon through Tribune and Five Channel
in the Broughton one year and then on the Night Inlet out-migration route on
the alternate year. So they have committed as part of that offer that they
would not increase overall production, but they would only use those amendments
to maintain current levels of production and would shut down farms on the route
on alternating years. So it's not an increase in overall production but just
amendments to allow that safe—safer—migratory
route to take place. We believe that that has some merit. It certainly is
not any sort of permanent solution. CAAR and Living Oceans and other groups
that are members of CAAR are still advocating strongly for a complete
transition to closed containment but in the interim something has to be done to
protect the wild salmon and at least this is a step in that direction and if we
can get a rigorous and comprehensive monitoring and evaluation program in
place, we should be able to tell within a couple of years whether it is
actually having a beneficial effect on the wild fish. JS: And
this is Deconstructing Dinner and part II of a series on open-net salmon
farming off the coast of British Columbia, Canada. The series is titled Norway,
British Columbia. Deconstructing
Dinner is produced weekly at Kootenay Co-op Radio in Nelson, B.C. and I'm Jon
Steinman. If you miss any of today's show, it will be archived on our web site
at deconstructingdinner.ca We've
been listening to segments from a conversation I had with Catherine Stewart -
the Salmon Farming Campaign Manager of the Living Oceans Society. We've also
been listening to segments from a tour that I embarked upon of an Atlantic
Salmon Hatchery run by Marine Harvest Canada and located just north of Campbell
River. As
we were told on the tour, the hatchery is undergoing a 3 million dollar
expansion and will be more than doubling their production of smolts (that is the stage before the fish are then
transported to the company's sea site). Given the low level of new farm
applications approved in the Province, it would appear that Marine Harvest is
simply expecting their expansion applications will be rubber stamped. But
according to Marine Harvest's Clare Backman, the
company's Director of Environmental Compliance and Community Relations, the
expansion at the hatcheries is not so much an expansion, but a consolidation
of less efficient hatcheries, and total production numbers after the
expansion will remain close to the company's current levels. Clare spoke to me
from the company's head office in Campbell River, B.C. Clare Backman: See, the new Marine Harvest represents a number of mergers of smaller
companies in B.C. over the years and if you look at the number of fresh water
facilities that those smaller groups operated they number eight. And we're not
using eight any longer. We're only currently using five. So the reduction or
our current plans are to use five so when you look at that you can see that the
focus has been to go to the more sustainable locations and the two that you
visited, the Big Tree Creek and the Dow Rimple are
the places that we are focusing on the recirculation. There's one hatchery of
the five, there is one more that does not use as much recirculation and there
are two lake facilities that we operate on Vancouver Island. But the bottom
line remains as I mentioned that the single pass hatcheries are being reduced
in importance and are being replaced by the recirculation technology. JS: Now
while Clare Backman indicates that the expansion at
the hatcheries will not significantly increase total production, the
company's applications to the Province to expand production on their
farm sites would seem to challenge such a suggestion. I posed this concern to
Clare. JS: I guess with
respect to these amendments there has I guess been some concern posed by the
Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform regarding some of the amendments. What
is Marine Harvest's take on whether these amendments will be permitted? Some of
the numbers we have come across, they are rather significant production
increases on some of the sites. Is this something Marine Harvest is expecting
will be approved and what's the process there? Clare Backman: Again it goes back to the process of efficiency. If we've got several
sites that are, say, 2 000 ton production adding up to 10 000 ton if you take
them down to two sites that are completely sustainable within the environmental
measures at 5 000 tons apiece and you go from 10 down to 2 it's a greater
efficiency of operation and you are taking out of place sites that might not be
as environmentally friendly because they were developed under different kinds
of considerations years ago and you are replacing them with or you are focusing
the production on two sites and are amending for those two sites. Everyone sees
that as a good way to progress: taking sites that are less sustainable out of
the mix and encouraging the growth and the amendments for increased production
on sites that are clearly good sustainable sites and can be measured as such. JS: Now
putting aside the reassurance from Marine Harvest that concerns over the
company's site expansion applications should not worry the public, Clare Backman even went so far as to suggest that the company is satisfied
with their ability to meet current demand, and growth is not on their
current agenda. Clare Backman: It's
true there hasn't been a lot of growth in terms of production tonnage over the
last two years (I don't know if it's true that it's been stagnant for seven
years. It's been a slow rate of growth) I think if you were to graph it out you
would see a slow rate of growth and its probably more in keeping with the
growth in the market which is around 5%, 5 or 6% per year. So the capacity of
the industry to respond to that growth is already in place, we don't actually
need immediately a whole lot of new sites. JS:
While Marine Harvest's Clare Backman paints a picture
that the company is not seeking significant growth and is simply
restructuring for efficiency, there are a number of signs to suggest otherwise.
Perhaps most specifically to Marine Harvest itself, was the company's strategy
in 2001, when they began construction of a state-of-the-art hatchery in Prince
Rupert, well up the northern coast of British Columbia. The facility was opened
in 2003 and set to produce 3 million smolts per year.
There was only one problem, no fish farms had been approved in the area - a
result of the immense difficulty the industry is having in getting new farms
approved. In 2003, before the 8 million dollar facility was complete, Marine
Harvest scrapped the plans and closed the facility, but the company's strategy
was clear - build the capacity at hatcheries first and do so expecting
that the Province will approve increased capacity on the fish farms. In
fact that is exactly what the plan appeared to be. In a 2007 article published
in Canada's Financial Post, author Nathan VanderKlippe interviewed the manager of the Prince Rupert
facility - Andrew Forsythe. As VanderKlippe wrote,
"Marine Harvest Canada spent millions to build it on the assumption that it
would receive farming licenses in nearby waters. But when those licenses failed
to materialize, the company was forced to shutter the plant." The article continued with
another quote from the then-manager of B.C. Operations Mark Asman.
According to Asman, "Production expansion must
be carefully thought out and planned for well in advance." The number he
gave the Financial Post was five years in advance. So coming back to the expansion
efforts currently underway at the Big Tree Creek Hatchery, the public is left
to wonder whether the company is now preparing for a similar strategy down the
road. Such a forecast is presently unclear. But clarity may be found in the
comments by the B.C. Salmon Farmers Association - the trade association
representing the industry of which Marine Harvest is a member and which, Clare Backman sits on the Board of Directors. In fact this article published in
the Financial Post is posted on the B.C. Salmon Farmers web site as it
painted a clear picture of how the industry is frustrated and fed-up with the
ongoing difficulties companies are facing with tight regulation led by public opposition.
Also interviewed for that 2007
article was the Executive Director of the Association, Mary Ellen Walling.
According to Walling, the delay in the approval of farms has cost the
industry about $450 000 000. As she stated "The world appetite for salmon
is growing faster than our ability to supply it." Her position does not sound as unconcerned
as Marine Harvest's Clare Backman, who suggested that
the company is satisfied with their current ability to meet demand. But what may come as the greatest
concern upon reading the comments in that article, and certainly raises an
eyebrow as to why the B.C. Salmon Farmers would post such an article on
their web site, were the comments made by Larry Greba
- a fisheries advisor to the Kitasoo Nation which has
been encouraging salmon farming in their waters near Klemtu,
B.C. Greba suggested that the opposition and strict
regulation of the industry has forced key people to leave Canada and
seek employment in other countries where salmon farming development is more
favourable. According to Greba, that creates greater
risk, he's quoted as saying, "When you run into a critical situation - like
disease outbreaks or a plankton issue - there's only a handful of people that
know what to do. You start losing those people, then the company
is going to start making more mistakes and maybe, cutting
corners." As mentioned earlier on the show,
on December 20, 2008, Marine Harvest experienced a fish escape from a net pen
housing 45 000 salmon. That farm happens to be located not far from
Klemtu within the territory of the Kitasoo First Nation. soundbite And this is Deconstructing
Dinner. Now I did pose this question to
Catherine Stewart of the Living Oceans Society as to whether or not she
believes the expansion at some of Marine Harvest's hatcheries is a sign that
the company is expecting their production increase applications to be approved.
Catherine does not dismiss the idea. Catherine
Stewart: Well that's certainly one way to
look at it. I mean it's extremely worrying. And the fact that we were barely
made aware of the applications for amendments before discovering that two
significant amendments had been granted to Marine Harvest in the Discovery
Islands region; not aware of any public consultation that took place; not even
aware that there was any consultation with the First Nations in the region
which would be quite shocking if that were proven to be the case. It's very
worrying and I think it again points to the fact that there's an election
coming up and the voters need to be asking candidates from all parties about
their position on the expansion of this industry, their position on the damage
being caused by open net cages and what their party's prepared to do about it. JS:
Curious as to whether the expansion plans at Marine Harvest's hatcheries were
known to groups like the Living Oceans Society and the Coastal Alliance for
Aquaculture Reform, Catherine shed light on another concern that is also
suggestive that Marine Harvest's headquarters in Norway, may very likely be
looking to Canada to increase production and make up for some serious concerns
the company has been encountering in Chile. Catherine
Stewart: I was certainly aware that
there was an expansion going on at that hatchery, not aware of the details so I
appreciate you sending me the investment amounts and the estimated smolt production amount, and it is a real concern. At this
point we know that the Company's agenda is certainly to expand production. Part
of that is in light of the fact that they can't even meet the existing demand
because of the shortfall in production in Chile due to the massive ISA
outbreaks. Infectious Salmon Anemia has spread like wildfire on the farms owned
by Mainstream and Marine Harvest, and AquaChile and
other companies on the Chilean coast. They've lost hundreds of thousands of
fish, they've had to cull entire farms and kill off the whole stock, there are
huge job losses in Chile—but at this point they have a shortfall in production
because of those Chilean loses and I'm sure they'd like to make it up by
increasing capacity in British Columbia.
It's going to be up to all of us to keep that at bay. JS:
The crisis that hit the salmon farming
industry in Chile is likely one of the greatest environmental impacts to ever
hit the global farmed salmon industry. As indicated, Marine Harvest's
operations in Chile were hit hard, with the company having announced that it
had cut its overall 2008 production by 50 000 tons (which, to give you an idea
of how much that is… the total for all BC production is often between
70-80 000 tons) - so we're talking a significant amount here. Hundreds of jobs
were lost in Chile because of the ISA virus. The threat of the virus gets even
worse, when in early January of this year, 2009, that same virus was
detected in Scotland among farmed salmon there. The government is currently
taking action to prevent the spread of the virus. ISA has affected Scottish fish
farms in the past and so too had it once affected farms in New
Brunswick. Now this ISA outbreak raises a
number of important issues - for one, it is reminiscent of the concerns that land-based
factory farming has been increasingly faced with in recent years - from avian
flu to mad cow disease, the risks of disease among intensively confined animals
is not so surprising. The recent spread of ISA appears to be yet another
sign that Mother Nature is signaling that this method of raising food is not
sustainable. As humans have proven though past experiences, we rarely
heed nature's advice. This ISA concern also
points to another hot topic within the controversial salmon farming
industry - jobs. The prospect of employment is likely the leading defense used by
the industry in British Columbia to encourage the expansion of fish
farms along the B.C. coast. The ISA incident in Chile is sending a clear
warning, that the environmental sustainability of fish farming is indeed
questionable, and as North Americans are increasingly discovering, the
job security found in any industry, is greatly dependent on the environmental
sustainability of the resources required for those jobs. While ISA has yet to
affect B.C. salmon farms, companies like Marine Harvest continue to push
the job message as the primary reason to support the growth of the industry. Global TV interviewer: Alright, special guest in with us: Ian Roberts from
Marine Harvest Canada is with us. He is going to be with a booth at Eat
Vancouver, which is this weekend and talk a little bit about salmon is what you
are involved in. You're in the farmed end of salmon so tell us a little bit
about the farming end of salmon. Ian Roberts: Well this week we're at Eat Vancouver for the
three-day food show representing B.C. salmon farmers I work for Marine Harvest
Canada who is a member company of the salmon farmers. We employ 500 people on
the northern part of Vancouver Island and produce farmed Atlantic Salmon for the market. We produce about 40 000 metric tons a
year of farmed salmon… Global TV interviewer: Now tell us obviously there is a great debate in
our province about wild and farmed salmon and we always hear of the wild salmon
part and we thought we'd have you on because you guys are going to be at this
event this weekend. Obviously is this some way to try and help with your image,
being at an event like Eat Vancouver? Ian Roberts: Well certainly we've been at the show now for every
year so this is the seventh year we've been at the show and certainly we are
concentrating now on communicating out to the public about our product,
certainly. There are a lot of good news stories around our product, the
employment factor for one; the fact that it has the ability to supply that
demand for salmon, because everybody now wants to eat salmon because of all of
the wonderful health benefits that everyone realizes. So I believe in this
province there is room for both wild and farmed and we are down in Vancouver to
discuss our farmed product. You know there are stories like Klemtu where I used
to work (a place dear to my heart) where 20 years ago they embraced salmon farming
and now that has reduced the employment from 90% to 40% unemployment in the
village. Sixty people out of 450 people in this village work: the Robinsons,
the Nicelawsons, the
Hopkins. It's a really good news story that I think people need to know about. JS:
And this is Deconstructing Dinner and part II of our series on salmon farming
off the coast of British Columbia. The title of the series - Norway, British
Columbia - and the reason for the title is that the three largest companies
operating in BC are Norwegian - representing 96% of total production. We've been focusing on one
company quite a bit here - Marine Harvest, who is the largest of the three, but
the second largest is Mainstream, whose parent company is Cermaq. Now that company is best introduced by first
introducing yet another concern that groups like the Coastal Alliance
for Aquaculture reform would like the public to be aware of. It appears that applications for expansion of current farm sites is
only one strategy the industry is using to circumvent public opposition and
strict regulations. Another strategy according to the Living Oceans Society
that has been used for years is to over-produce - that is produce more
fish than their permits legally allow them to cultivate. In October
2008, Living Oceans released some of the numbers on just how much has been
over-produced, and the Society's Catherine Stewart explains. Catherine Stewart: In this instance we were talking about Mainstream
on their farms in the Broughton Archipelago and actually it took an awful lot
of digging. It originally came about because every year the government issues a
compliance report around fish farm adherence to the regulations in B.C. and
generally it's a fluff piece that claims that there's you know 99.9% compliance
and industry's doing an absolutely brilliant job. Buried in that report, in the
latest report, was a line that said that eight farms were out of compliance
with licensed productions so we started asking questions: What farms? Where?
What company? We couldn't get any answers out of the Government but then a
report was done for the Pacific Salmon Forum that included a production chart
and when we saw the graph illustrating Mainstream's production in the Broughton,
that lead to more questions and then through some backdoors and some very quiet
discussions with people in other Ministries we managed to get hold of some of
the data and were able to put the pieces of the puzzle together to reveal that
basically Mainstream—assuming, you know, the two-eighteen month production cycles
over three years—the maximum amount that they could legally produce on all
their Broughton farms combined would be around 14 600 metric tons during that
three year period and in two-three year cycles for example from 2004 to 2006
they had produced 28 200 tons. So, you know, almost double. And the same
applied when Mainstream was just acquiring some of those farms from Heritage
from 2001 to 2003, so basically the total above license limit production from
2001 to 2006 was about 23 000 metric tons of illegally produced fish. JS:
Now to further illustrate the lack of accountability on the part of the
Province, the one line that Catherine refers to that suggested something was
awry, read this, "Eight sites were found to be in excess of their production
limit." The report failed to identify the responsible company, the sites, or
the extent of over-production. And so given the Province was
clearly aware of the violations, the question of course is, what were the
penalties? Catherine Stewart: The Province's response was that they have
basically instructed Mainstream to stick to their license production levels. It
doesn't sound as though there will be any fines, any recriminations at all for
the overproduction. JS:
We'll be exploring the effectiveness of the Province's management of fish farms
in much greater detail on next week's broadcast when we'll learn more about a
B.C. Supreme Court case that is currently awaiting a decision that could come
at any time regarding whether or not the Province should legally and
constitutionally be responsible for the management of open-net fish farms. Having seen the extent to which overproduction
has taken place among B.C. salmon farms, Catherine
Stewart is certainly one of those people who questions the Province's
actions. Catherine Stewart: To the best of our knowledge it appears to be
isolated but we have no concrete proof of that because most of the figures
around license levels of production and actual production and site by site
production figures are regarded as proprietary by the industry and the Province
doesn't release them and its extremely difficult to obtain that information. So
the citizens of British Columbia, apparently, according to our government, have
absolutely no right to know what's being done in our coastal waters—legally or
illegally. JS:
Now as for the message the Province is telling the public, we can revisit
with the tour that I embarked upon back in October 2008 as part of the 2008 Conference
of the Canadian Farm Writers Federation. While on the bus enroute
to Marine Harvest's Big Tree Creek Hatchery, we were escorted by Bill Harrower
- the Province of British Columbia's Manager of
Regional Operations for Aquaculture Development based in Courtenay. Bill helped
introduce the industry to delegates, and helped convey how little the
industry has been growing within the past decade. However in light of the Living
Oceans Society's discovery that significant overproduction has been
taking place within the industry for quite some time, I asked Catherine whether
Bill's comments should be put into question. Catherine also reintroduces the
discovery highlighted earlier on the show that the companies operating in the industry
seem to go along on the assumption that expansion of their operations will
simply be rubber-stamped. Bill Harrower: Really the industry started in the early eighties
so you can see that's your 0 point. It is now about 80 000 metric tons but it's
been running about—depending on production because it changes from year to
year—70-80 000 tons for the last, I would say, eight years, ten years. So
somewhere in that area it has been basically static. Catherine Stewart: Well I would question that. I mean that, I think
this overproduction resulted because the company assumed that their
applications for amendments to their production levels would simply be rubber
stamped and approved by the Province because—obviously—that has been the case
in the past. That was their expectation and I don't think either the company or
the government anticipated the growing level of public opposition to expansion
of this industry that they would be met with and particularly the entrenched
and rigorous opposition by coastal First Nations in the Broughton Archipelago
region, they have to be consulted about license renewals, license approvals, new
farms, amendments applications and they are adamantly opposed and extremely
concerned about the impact that these farms are having on traditional food
sources and their traditional territories. When the overproduction was first
revealed the company claimed ‘well what would we have them do they've been
raising the smolts in the hatchery, good animal
husbandry practices would just be the antithesis of good husbandry practices to
kill all of those fish'. Well they had no right raising those fish in the first
place. They didn't have the license approvals for the farms where the fish were
destined to go. So I
think what's been happening is that the industry has been assuming that the
applications will be rubber stamped because the government policy has been full
support of the industry, bury your head in the sand, ignore the mounting weight
of scientific evidence pointing to problems with these farms and full steam
ahead, and I think the Ministry has turned a blind eye to the overproduction
until they simply couldn't avoid it anymore. JS:
Again you can expect much more coverage of this controversial issue of open-net
salmon farms as we continue with this Norway, British Columbia series on next
week's episode. We'll hear from some new voices including well-known critic of
open-net salmon farms Alexandra Morton, including an exclusive interview with
Alexandra outside of a B.C. Supreme Court house and a short audio clip of video
that Alexandra was a part of and that was played before the Annual General Meeting
of Mainsteam Canada's parent company Norway's Cermaq. The video was calling for an end to the presence of
the company's salmon farms in British Columbia. To close out today's broadcast,
we'll leave you with some final words from Catherine Stewart - the
Living Oceans Society's Salmon Farming Campaign Manager. She responds to my
question regarding the role of the media in posing hard questions about salmon
farms to candidates running in the upcoming provincial election. Catherine Stewart: In the provincial election? Absolutely! In fact I'd
go beyond the media and I'd encourage every voter in British Columbia to ask
all candidates from all parties, what is your party prepared to do to address
the impacts of fish farms and when are you going to do it? And don't let them
get away with "oh we're committed to sustainability" You know, that's
bafflegab. What are they going to do, how soon are they going to do it? Are
they prepared to commit money to trigger the development of closed containment?
Are they prepared to embark on a transition strategy, by what date? Pin them
down and ask them the solid questions that need to be asked. Ending Theme: JS:
And that was this week's edition of
Deconstructing Dinner, produced and recorded at Nelson, British Columbia's
Kootenay Co-op Radio. I've been your host Jon Steinman. I thank my technical
assistant John Ryan. The
theme music for Deconstructing Dinner is courtesy of Nelson-area resident Adham Shaikh. This radio program is provided
free of charge to campus/community radio stations across the country, and
relies on the financial support from you the listener. Support
for the program can be donated through our web site at deconstructingdinner.ca
or by dialing 250-352-9600.
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