U.S. Fishermen Challenge
Aquaculture Expansion

Fishermen’s Voice Staff

West coast fishermen from San Francisco to southwest Canada are challenging the expansion of open pen aquaculture facilities in British Columbia. The Canadian government in Ottawa recently announced aquaculture expansion plans in British Columbia and a flood of applications have poured in.

Zeke Grader, Executive Director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations (PCFFA) said the PCFFA is currently one of five Canadian and US petitioners to NAFTA regarding the environmental damage caused by salmon net pen operations in Canada. “We’re not opposed to aquaculture per se”, said Grader. “We are for sustainable aquaculture. Open pen aquaculture is like dynamite.” Open pen aquaculture refers to the use of pens with open tops with nets on the sides and bottom. They are placed in ocean waters.

“Saltonstall-Kennedy Act money has been going to aquaculture development in the United States for the last 10 years. The decision in Ottawa to expand open pen facilities ignores the 2012 Cohen Commission Report”, said Grader. The Cohen Commission Report called for a moratorium on open pen aquaculture because of the damage to wild fish stocks in the Fraser River in 2009. The Cohen report had to focus on the Fraser River, but similar reports on the negative effects of open pen aquaculture on wild fisheries had been common in British Columbia which borders the U.S. at Seattle, WA.

Complaints about the Canadian government’s lack of transparency were also made.

Grader noted that a new British Columbia aquaculture facility has recently gone to a land based model. He said the aquaculture industry should be looking at developing facilities on land. Grader, in light of the U.S. Federal development efforts, would like to see the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) become the lead agency for getting aquaculture facilities like these on land in the U.S.

Grader said NOAA and NMFS have been pushing aquaculture. Sea lice from pens getting onto wild fish, GMO fish mixing with wild fish, feed waste, fish waste and chemical treatment pollution from pens flowing into the marine resource would be more controlable in a land based system.

The PCFFA has been using their newsletter and fishing network to get out their message about open net aquaculture. The Canadian government is heavily invested in aquaculture on both the west and east coasts. Similar complaints about open pen aquaculture are being made in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia by fishermen and scientists there.

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