Closed containment salmon farming too energy intensive
by Mary Ellen Walling, New Westminster News Leader, June 03, 2011
Re: Donnelly confident fish farm bill will succeed (NewsLeader, May 27)
Salmon farming, and our ongoing research and development, is a complex topic—and this story regarding closed containment aquaculture highlights a few of the most common misunderstandings.
Yes, on-land recirculation containment systems are being used today – in fact, they’re used by B.C.’s salmon farmers to raise their fish for one-third of their lives. We understand the potential and the limitations of this technology well. The reality is that it has not been developed to a point where the industry at its current scale could implement it. The few projects that are using this technology to raise fish to full market size are small, niche programs providing a boutique product that would be unable to sustain our industry, which is a key economic driver in coastal British Columbia .
While MP Fin Donnelly seems to allude that the actual impact of salmon aquaculture is less important than the perception of the general public—the reality is that perception has been built based on flawed science and professional activists. In fact, studies have shown time and again sea lice levels have no correlation to the level of salmon returns. Even Mr. Donnelly’s vocal supporter, Ms. Alexandra Morton, published a study in October acknowledging that, contrary to previous reports, Pink salmon returns are not statistically different between areas near and away from salmon farms. (http://icesjms.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2010/10/09/icesjms.fsq146.abstract)
B.C.’s salmon farmers are constantly looking to continue improving our operations. Concerns raised by the public are listened to, studied and responded to. We are on the leading edge of possible technologies that will maintain our sustainability – but considering the high cost, energy consumption, extensive footprint and fish health concerns of full life-cycle closed containment systems, more research is required before anyone should express such blind confidence in them.
Mary Ellen Walling
Executive Director
BC Salmon Farmers Association
Mary Ellen Walling was responding to the following article:
Donnelly confident fish farm bill will succeed
By Adrian MacNair - New Westminster News Leader, May 26, 2011
Open-net fish farming is harming B.C.’s wild salmon stocks, says Fin Donnelly , and with the NDP now the official opposition he believes he can stop it.
The NDP MP for New Westminster-Coquitlam introduced a private member’s bill last May (The Wild Salmon Protection Act, C-518), but the election wiped it from the parliamentary agenda.
Donnelly, NDP critic for Fisheries and Oceans, wants to amend the federal Fisheries Act to transition fish farms to closed containment.
Closed containment, as opposed to farms where fish swim in a net in the ocean, provides a solid barrier between fish and the ocean environment, which scientists believe would prevent sea lice infections in wild salmon.
But while the Harper government has not moved to bring about legislation forcing salmon companies into closed containment farming, the industry has taken to using pesticides to control sea lice. Donnelly says that’s an initial positive step, but cautions it’s a temporary solution as the parasites become immune to chemicals.
“Some would argue industry-wide you’d have no problem with sea lice once you contain it,” he said.
Donnelly presented a 9,000-signature petition in March calling on Ottawa to take action against open-net fish farms. Buttressing his private member’s bill, he’s calling for federal regulations to require companies to shift to closed containment farming within five years.
“We felt that five years was a reasonable transition period,” he said, adding that some companies employ closed farming.
But not everybody agrees with the need. Vivian Krause, a Vancouver writer and researcher on salmon farming, says she’s noted serious flaws in the scientific research driving the call for containment.
Krause says much of the panic is based on a series of papers published by the Centre for Mathematical Biology at the University of Alberta in 2005 that displays a lack of adequate research, data-fudging and unsubstantiated claims.
“As I see it, closed containment is about mitigating market impacts, not environmental impacts,” she said, adding containment practices need more research.
Donnelly disagrees.
“Whether or not there is an impact from a parasite, the end result is, if people believe there is then you can’t sell your product.”
The sea lice research that predicted salmon extinctions took a hard hit last autumn when as many as 34 million salmon returned to spawn in the Fraser River. Donnelly said that doesn’t disprove the science. “It’s like climate change. It’s really hard to look at the individual year. You’ve got to look at the overall trend.”
Krause says there are serious environmental considerations to containment farming because it is energy intensive.
“A transition to closed containment would increase emissions equivalent to putting thousands of cars on the road.”
Donnelly says it’s premature to talk about reintroducing legislation, adding the Conservatives now control the parliamentary agenda. But he says he’s confident they’ll agree with the research.
For the record: the David Suzuki Foundation also responded to the Fin Donnelly article:
The science on salmon farming is clear
New Westminster News Leader, June 03, 2011
Re: Donnelly confident fish farm bill will succeed (NewsLeader, May 27)
The assertion that sea lice from fish farms is considered a risk because of just one, or even a few, papers from the University of Alberta in the mid-2000s is absurd and should never have been printed un-checked. More than a decade of peer reviewed articles (articles that passed a panel of scientists before being printed) from researchers around the world document the risks and impacts of interactions between farmed fish, sea lice and wild fish. Even if the absolute details of the scale and severity of the impact on a stock-by-stock basis have not been fully agreed to, there is broad agreement that these risks are real.
Right now, the Eastern Canadian, Scottish and Norwegian fish-farming industries are facing problematic sea lice outbreaks. The Norwegian government last year implemented an emergency lice limit at least five times more stringent than the level in B.C., with the express purpose of protecting juvenile wild salmon.
Even with that, lice are developing resistance to the chemicals used to kill them, and pesticide-based controls may not work for long. It makes no ecological or economic sense to base an industry on the continuous need to develop and use toxic chemicals in a system that is open to the surrounding waters.
People who build and operate closed containment systems invest in containing and dealing with their own wastes and the risks from things like sea lice and diseases, instead of letting the environment try to clean up after them. They deserve our support.
Jay Ritchlin
Director, Marine and Freshwater Conservation
David Suzuki Foundation
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