Protesters Challenge Loosened Salmon Feedlot Regs In Halifax
by Fishermen’s Voice Staff
Halifax, Nova Scotia. Protesters representing communities from coastal Nova Scotia protested new federal regulations they fear will allow greater dumping of salmon feedlot wastes and chemicals into bays. The group was not invited to the meeting between the private finfish aquaculture companies and Canadian federal representatives. Taxpayers subsidize development and guarantees to the private aquaculture companies. However, they were not allowed inside and the press was banned.
August 9—Halifax protesters gathered at the Bedford Institute of Oceanography to voice opposition to federally subsidized private aquaculture development plans in Nova Scotia, Canada. Protesters said they fear new regulations will allow fish feedlots to dump pesticides, drugs, fish food and waste into local harbors without a license or environmental assessment.
Proposed changes in federal aquaculture pesticide regulations should be discussed entirely in public, not behind closed doors where the press is barred: That’s the message angry residents of Nova Scotia’s coastal communities delivered to federal Fisheries and Oceans bureaucrats.
Wendy Watson Smith is a member of Coastal Community Advocates and the president of the Association for the Preservation of the Eastern Shore. Smith said protesters are afraid the proposed federal regulatory changes to the Fisheries Act will allow fish feedlots to dump pesticides, drugs, fish food and waste into local harbors without a license or environmental assessment. “It’s a dirty industry, it pollutes and it doesn’t create jobs,” Smith said.
The group of about thirty people were representatives of communities around coastal Nova Scotia. Their complaints included, among other things, being excluded from most of the day’s meeting, the fact that press was not allowed to cover the process, and the federal government ignoring alleged violations by aquaculture corporations of several finfish feedlot regulations. They said taxpayer funding of the finfish aquaculture industry is in the tens of millions of dollars.
Toward the end of the meeting, the protesters were allowed inside. Once inside, according to reports, the protesters who spoke were chided or shut off for addressing issues such as the lobbying efforts of the aquaculture corporations or the stock densities in the pens. The latter, said protesters, has been a major cause of health problems for the fish and the cause of environmental problems around the fish pens.
The Canadian federal government has been moving to expand finfish feedlot operations in the eastern and western provinces for the last decade. The government has said it is trying to bring jobs to rural communities. According to government information, occupational opportunities have declined with the decline of the wild fish stocks. Critics say very few jobs are associated with finfish feedlot operations and the imminent biological threat to the existing traditional lobster fishery, which provides many economic opportunities for thousands of small businesses, is of great concern.
Marine biologist and ecologist Inka Milewski has been a vocal critic of the government and aquaculture industry policies for more than a decade. She said the federal aquaculture office is headed by an industry member and she said all the industry recommendations from 10 years ago have been implemented. Milewski said that, in 1999, after she completed testimony before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development on the need for regulations and asked the committee to consider the effects of loading the ocean bottom with high levels of fish waste, feed waste and toxic chemicals, she was told that she and people with the same opinion would not be invited to participate in the public process.
Stewart Lamont, founder and president of Tangiers Lobster Company in Tangier, Nova Scotia, said he was appalled by the “ends justify the means” position taken by the Federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans. Lambert referred to the Doelle Lahey Report on natural resource use, which called for a massive overhaul of natural resource management in Canada to achieve greater transparency, accountability and enforcement. The federal regulations in question move in the opposite direction, said Lambert.
According to Common Sense Canada, the Cohen Commission was a call to Federal Action and a critique of resource management. In 2012, Justice Bruce Cohen released his $12 million report. Common Sense Canada wrote, “Despite being written in the restrained language of the judiciary, it is explicitly and implicitly explosive, condemning of the federal government’s environmental policies, scathing in its assessment of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), and critical of the salmon farming industry.”
Lamont said that, during the meeting, the chair, Eric Gilbert, took offense at Lamont’s suggestion that this initiative was the byproduct of a massive feedlot lobby.
Lamont quoted Gilbert as saying, “Talk to me about anything, but don’t talk to me about lobbying.”
The topic of stocking densities was addressed by protester Tim Lambert. He questioned whether stakeholders could have faith in a new system when, he said, stocking densities currently exceed toxic limits. According to reports, Gilbert’s response was effectively that stakeholders should have greater faith in the fish companies. According to reports, Gilbert suggested that fish companies would have no interest in overstocking pens. Silver Donald Cameron of the Salmom Federation said Cooke Aquaculture was given $29 million in grants to develop salmon aquaculture in Nova Scotia. Cameron said because government compensation for losses to feedlot companies is so high the fish are worth as much dead as alive.
According to reports, Gilbert responded, “But that was only in the last three years.” Stewart Lamont referred to this response as “lunacy in public policy.” A proposal was made to bring associations together to support Doelle Lahey and its complete implementation and to discard current federal regulations immediately. Protesters said they are seeking the support of fishing, dealing, processing and exporting sectors of the seafood industry.
Although land-based finfish aquaculture has proven successful, corporations in Canada have rejected the transition to closed- containment aquaculture systems. Canada’s DFO representatives have said land-based systems are too expensive and that they would not work. Lamont said the front end costs are high in closed containment fin aquaculture, but the systems then soon become competitive.
Critics of open-pen ocean feedlots have said fin fish aquaculture corporations are externalizing their costs by having taxpayers pay for the clean water used and clean up of alleged damage done by dumping wastes, pesticides and chemicals into the public’s resource.