The response to the Cohen Report in DFO’s
Ottawa is zero, but in BC it is huge. The petition against allowing any new
fish farms or expansions has been signed by more than 100,000 citizens [link 1]. The people of BC have spoken
– get the farms out of the water. The petition is going to Christy Clark who
can prevent or eliminate fish farms by refusing or eliminating leases – in only
sixty days. It’s that simple.
You will know that DFO is looking at 11,
er, 12 – the number keeps growing – expansions or new farms. It’s response to
Cohen’s key recommendation that DFO be stripped of its conflict of interest in
fish farms, and deal solely with wild fish – the 2005 Wild Salmon Policy, the
1986 Habitat Policy and a new west coast director general for bringing back
Fraser sockeye – is to ignore Cohen and keep on adding
fish farms to our pristine ocean.
But 100,000 signatures is big time
support for getting fish farms out of the water and sending them back to Norway
– we the people of BC don’t want them. And DFO’s interest is hard to fathom.
Perhaps it believes its own mantra that fish farms mean jobs and revenue. Well,
its own report, put out by BC Stats, shows there is not much of either in BC,
with only $61.9 million contribution to GPP from all parts of
aquaculture, and only 1,700 jobs in all. By comparison, the rest of the
fishing sector – sport, processing and commercial – is ten times that size,
with more than 90% of the sector’s $667.4 million toward GPP; and jobs are
87.8% of the 13,900 total. Fish farms are about 10%.
When you factor in that with wild salmon
numbers down by 50% since fish farms set up shop in BC [link2], those small number of jobs aren’t new, they simply replace
jobs eliminated in other sectors. The commercial guys, for instance, are down
50% at 1400 jobs or nearly 83% of those fish farm jobs. They would like them
back.
It’s actually worse than it looks, and
that’s pretty bad. I ferreted out there are only 795 actual jobs in fish
farming. So it’s simply not true there are jobs and revenue in fish farms. It’s
just not true. But don’t be mistaken, the cost to us is huge. The cost DFO
doesn’t pay attention to – but we have to – is the sewage cost to our pristine
ocean.
And just so you know, the industry
already has in place a maximum of 280,000 metric tonnes of production. So why
are they asking for more, when they have never produced more than 83,000 and
could produce more than three times more than they actually do produce right
now? Good question.
DFO’s numbers are: 83,000 annual metric
tonnes of product; 19,140 metric tonnes of new fish farms; and, fish are 4.5 kg
at harvest. And as we all know, the cost of treating sewage is huge. Why, in
Victoria, the bill as everyone knows is $783 million for 360,000 people. And
that’s just building it.
The commonly accepted number of fish in
the sewage department is: 3 – 10 fish equal the sewage of one human being. Hard
to believe, but check it on Google. And our cost that we absorb and thus pay
for, using the conservative 10 to 1 ratio, is [Equation3]:
1000/4.5 X 19,140 = 4.25 million/10 =
.425 million human equivalents
$783/.36 = $X/.425 = $924 million.
So not only are multiplier jobs down,
and the actual number of jobs is very very small, but the cost to British
Columbians from expansion (when they don’t need it because they already have
triple authorized more than what they produce now) is: $924 million in sewage cost alone. Do you want to pay for
this?
My look around shows me the biggest
problem encountered in treating sewage is that no one wants to pay a bean of
anyone else’s sewage treatment cost. So why would we pay for fish, that aren’t
even human? I don’t think so.
So, the sewage cost to our environment just
for expansion [Fish farm expansions4],
that we have to absorb, is basically a billion dollars. And we know from the
100,000 signatures on the petition to get fish farms out of the water that,
obviously, no one wants to pay this sewage cost.
And then there are all the rest of the
problems: exotic diseases like HSMI, ISA; killing of seals; reduction of oceans
of fish that people should eat – even krill in Antarctica if you can believe it;
killing wild salmon; and, chemicals in the fish. So many chemicals that the big
news out of Norway the past year is
that doctors and scientists are warning people not to eat farmed salmon.
Tell Christy Clark – premier@gov.bc.ca – to send
farms back to Norway. We want DFO to work only on wild salmon. And let’s have the
same $400 million DFO’s Gail Shea put into aquaculture on the east coast in NL
and PEI spent on wild salmon here. But let’s get rid of the sewage first. No
one wants to pay for anyone else’s shit. Tell Gail: Min@dfo-mpo.gc.ca.
Notes:
Link1: The Change.org
petition is: http://chn.ge/1fVs6GP .
Link2: Fish farms kill more than 50% of wild salmon in BC: http://fishfarmnews.blogspot.ca/2013/01/fish-farms-kill-more-than-50-of-wild.html.
Link2: Fish farms kill more than 50% of wild salmon in BC: http://fishfarmnews.blogspot.ca/2013/01/fish-farms-kill-more-than-50-of-wild.html.
Equation3:
1000kg/metric tonne /4.5 kg/fish X
19,140 metric tonnes = 4.25 million fish/10 fish per human = .425 million human
equivalents
$783 million/.36 million people =
$X/.425 = $924 million.
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