Nanaimo firm to play key role in pilot project
By Robert Barron, Daily News January 11, 2012
Nanaimo's PR Aqua Supplies will play an integral role in the establishment of commercial pilot facility for a land-based, closed-containment aquaculture system (for Atlantic salmon) that will be constructed near Port McNeil.
The company, a world leader in the manufacture of equipment for the aquaculture industry, has been working closely with the 'Namgis First Nation, which is developing the facility.
On Monday, Minister of Fisheries and Oceans Keith Ashfield announced that Ottawa will invest $800,000 toward the project, which critics of the current open-pen salmon farms have been calling on the industry and the government to do for some time to reduce the risks of the farms on wild salmon stocks.
Jackie Hill, a spokeswoman for the 'Namgis, said PR Aqua Supplies was chosen to provide its expertise and equipment to the project because the company meet all the technical requirements and was close to Port McNeil.
"The 'Namgis wanted to keep as much of the project as local as possible so, seeing as PR Aqua Supplies also had a lot of expertise in the field, the First Nation thought that the company would be a good fit for this project," she said.
"PR Aqua will be working closely with the rest of our technical team in our efforts to develop a technically possible and economically sustainable land-based commercial Atlantic salmon farm that won't negatively impact the environment."
The project will initially raise up to 290 tonnes of three to fivekilogram salmon per year, with the first harvest scheduled for September 2013.
The data collected will enable the development of the best design of a full-scale commercial facility.
While there have been successes in commercial aquaculture farms for other species, Atlantic salmon are fussy eaters, easy to stress, don't do well in overcrowded conditions and they need constant good-quality water being pumped through the systems, which makes large salmon operations difficult and expensive.
