Thursday 25 May 2017

Newfoundland Against In-Ocean Fish Farms, Calls for On-land

Here are two things:

1. A follow-up note from me, showing that Grieg (talking about Placentia Bay NL) is being 'disingenuous' when calling for public support money. They don't need a bean, and they know it; and,
2. The original note from  Fred Griffin, Bill Bryden and the New Foundland (NL) orgs against fish farms. It went to a very long list of CCs.

Here is the note from me pointing out the 'disingenuous'  Grieg Seafood:

1. DCR:


Hi All
I should add to this that Grieg’s saying the $45 million is necessary for the project to go ahead is simply being disingenuous. In their own country, Norway, licenses for in-ocean pens ended two years ago when the government got so fed up with in-ocean degradation, it started giving out free ones to start on land.

The auction price in the market of a licence in saltwater was $9- to $12- million each, versus zero. That means they are receiving a very large benefit to set up in our ocean and pollute it, and getting a huge freebie ($9 - $12) X 11 = $99 to $132 million for the 11 licences alone.

That means, adding the $45 million, that it is a huge benefit to Grieg of $144 to $177 million of which they would have to spend every last cent in Norway, if indeed they could get into the ocean they so badly fouled.

Grieg is counting on Canadian politicians and bureaucrats not to have done their basic homework and realize they are being duped. It really is this bad: Grieg knows Canadian politicians are nitwits.

DC (Dennis) Reid



2. Here is the Griffin/Bryden note:



To all:

"How can Canada avoid the problems Norway is experiencing with open net pen salmon farming"?

First of all find some intelligent, strong willed and common sense  politicians and bureaucrats who will not be bought, bullied, persuaded, sweet-talked and twisted by a greedy and corrupt industry.  This applies to the federal DFO and the DFA's of BC, NB and NL.  The proposal by Grieg to install a $250 million mega farm and provide $45 million of taxpayers dollars to destroy the ecology of Placentia Bay and likely destroy their wild salmon population is beyond imaginable.  What is going on in Nova Scotia is also a horror story.  Cooke aquaculture owes the NS government $16 million from a scrapped deal with the previous government.  The government has dismissed recommendations from the Doelle/Lahey report, approved expansion for Cooke and just announced a further $17 million to further grow the industry.  Can you believe this if fisheries officials were to read ANYTHING about the disasters occurring in other countries?

Find some intelligent, honest and strong willed politicians who will take the trouble to read and become informed of the disasters that are occurring in Scotland, Chile, New Zealand, China ----and as identified in Norway.  Apparently Fisheries officials are not required to become keep themselves as up to date on Aquaculture as the general  public.

Find some intelligent, honest, dedicated politicians and bureaucrats in the Dept's of Environment to recognize that this is a serious environmental problem and stop throwing it all back to Fisheries.

Find some intelligent, honest and strong willed politicians and bureaucrats who will respond to the thousands of letters, e-mails and calls providing indisputable evidence of pollution, disease, cage smashups, beach and ocean floor fouling, excessive sulphide, methane, escapes,  mass mortality, damage to wild fish and risk to other species.  

Find some intelligent, honest and strong willed financial people in government who will stop paying multi-millions of taxpayers money for dead fish and for capital assistance to greedy and corrupt companies who have no intention of using the money as intended.

Secondly find some honest scientists who won't be bribed with the almighty and ill-gained dollars into compromising the truth about the poisons, pollution, disease and corruption in this industry.

Find some dedicated and strong-willed politicians and bureaucrats in the Health portfolios in both Ottawa and the provinces to recognize the health risks from the open pen farmed fish.  Residual toxins from chemical may be hazardous to unborn babies and young children.  The presence of PCB and dioxin can be 20 times that allowed in meat products.  Food health organizations have identified open pen farmed fish as one of the top foods to avoid.

Find a Supermarket chain with the intestinal fortitude to ban open-pen farmed fish from their shelves.  One chain which will go un-named was contacted through their director of sustainability, showing interest in expanding their sales of closed containment land based fish.  Next thing a country wide promotion of open pen fish from sponsored by an un-named company was announced.  THE MARKETPLACE MUST BECOME FULLY AWARE THAT THESE PRODUCTS ARE NOT FIT FOR CONSUMPTION. 

Convince the media to accept that this issue as an environmental, health and consumer issue, requiring investigative journalism into the corruption and collusion between the industry and government.  Fifth Estate, Marketplace and W5 have all received comprehensive information about all that is wrong with the industry and the governments that support it with no response.

After the blind eyes, closed minds and deaf ears of government in this country have opened to the reality of this deplorable mess,  then and only then will they begin to recognize that the money wasted on the greedy and corrupt open-pen industry can be spent wisely expanding, enhancing and otherwise supporting closed containment land based salmon farming.

Fred Giffin
BSc. Acadia University

Sent from my iPad

On May 17, 2017, at 2:44 PM, Bill Bryden <newfoundlander_1@hotmail.com> wrote:
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/dan-lewis2/salmon-farming_b_9385446.html
Norway's salmon farming industry is hitting a wall. Because salmon farming began earlier there than in B.C., I wanted to get a glimpse of where we might be headed if ...

A clear consensus emerged over the two weeks in Oslo, Bergen and Alta, through meetings with wild salmon advocates, academics and journalists. When asked the question "How can Canada avoid the problems Norway is experiencing with open-net pen salmon farming?" without hesitation every single person we asked replied: "Shifting to closed containment production is the only way forward."

This was written by Dan Lewis, part of the group that went to Norway from Clayoquot Sound.


Tuesday 23 May 2017

Closed Containment - Norway, Who'd a Thunk It?

While I can't seem to find Helge Aarskog, CEO of Marine Harvest, saying closed containment is the coming thing in Norway, the business association that includes MH, Norsk Industri announced the end of open net fish farms.

After I got up off the floor from falling out of my chair, I went, Hold on a second, I remember Aarskog saying they were putting $100 million into closed containment, but that the 'egg' container and the offshore super tanker were his answers.

You will note that the all the 'closed' containment in-ocean plants - egg, closed, ship - seal the fish off from lice but have great big pipes off the bottom end from which the sewage falls, eutrophying the lungs of the planet, your and my ocean.

But the North Atlantic Salmon Federation (NASF) a member of my post on the global citizens against fish farms thinks there is some sincerity to this. (See: https://fishfarmnews.blogspot.ca/2017/05/global-citizens-call-for-on-land-fish.html.)

I'm not holding my breath, but here is the article that tells you all about it:

No More Open Sea Fish Farms

Posted on 18th May, by NASF in Latest News, Press coverage, Press release. No Comments

No More Open Sea Fish Farms

No more growth until problems are solved says CEO of Norsk Industri

See: http://www.nasfworldwide.com/latest-news/no-more-open-sea-fish-farms/.

"The North Atlantic Salmon Fund (NASF), Atlantic Salmon Federation (ASF), NASF (Norway), Norske Lakseelver, Norges Jeger & Fiskerforbund (NJFF), and other conservation organisations have campaigned for years against the damage to wild salmon stocks caused by the farms. Representatives of the groups were given the good news in Norway at the 10th annual Hardangerfjord seminar on fish farming."

The news is that: "The news of the halt in the expansion of the industry was announced by Mr. Stein Lier-Hansen, CEO of Norsk Industri. His organisation, which includes the main salmon farming interests and Norway’s biggest grouping of commercial companies, like Norsk Hydro, Aker, Stataoil and Marine Harvest..."

And: "But recent “polluter pays” costs of combating sea lice, escapes, fish diseases, high mortality, waste management and low levels of oxygen in some fjords have shot up by more than 30%."

And the NASF says: “This underscores a policy to abandon all further open sea salmon farming despite the industry´s high margins because  the necessary conservation measures overshadow the temporary extreme profits.”

And:  "Between 15 and 20 closed-containment systems in the sea are now in operation in various fjords in Norway and many conservation groups believe these producers can equal or beat the cost of open-cage farms."

Fish farms spent 15 Billion Kroner in 2016 trying to eradicate lice (about $1 billion Canadian).

And: "This group embraces NASF International, Atlantic Salmon Fund (ASF), NASF (Norway), Aquafuture (Germany), The Grassy Creek Foundation (US) and several other organisations who meet around the world to collect information, liaise and bring groups together in this respect. Already there are a great many such safe projects underway in Norway, Denmark, Iceland, France, Scotland, Canada and the USA.'

Here is another article on Norway moving to closed containment (this doesn't necessarily mean on-land):  https://www.fishandfly.com/no-more-open-sea-fish-farms-says-nasf/.

Here is NOFIMA (Norway) on research in Japan, Canada and Norway: https://nofima.no/en/nyhet/2017/04/international-collaboration-gives-better-fish-farming/. Take this with a grain of salt as NOFIMA has long been seen as serving industry needs versus the environment. The Kjersti Sandvik book, Beneath the Surface, is one source of information on NOFIMA's capture by industry.

                                                               ***************

See this link for an image of the 'Egg' fish farm, said to be closed but has pipes out bottom from which sewage can fall: https://www.ft.com/content/a801ef02-07ba-11e7-ac5a-903b21361b43.

Sunday 14 May 2017

New Foundland Against In-ocean Fish Farms - Updated May 25, 2017

Bill Bryden, with the environmental/fishing groups of NL, sent this note to the government and press of NL. He is on the list of the Global Citizens Call for On-land Fish Farms, the list of citizens from around the world who want fish farms taken out of the ocean: http://fishfarmnews.blogspot.ca/2017/05/global-citizens-call-for-on-land-fish.html.

First the short list of the government employees to which the letter was sent: dwightball@gov.nl.ca; cbennett@gov.nl.ca; derekbennett@gov.nl.ca; derrickbragg@gov.nl.ca; davidbrazil@gov.nl.ca; markbrowne@gov.nl.ca; gerrybyrne@gov.nl.ca; siobhancoady@gov.nl.ca; stevecrocker@gov.nl.ca; bernarddavis@gov.nl.ca; padavis@gov.nl.ca; jerrydean@gov.nl.ca; lisadempster@gov.nl.ca; randyedmunds@gov.nl.ca; johnfinn@gov.nl.ca; sherrygambinwalsh@gov.nl.ca; johnhaggie@gov.nl.ca; carolannehaley@gov.nl.ca; allanhawkins@gov.nl.ca; colinholloway@gov.nl.ca; keithhutchings@gov.nl.ca; ejoyce@gov.nl.ca; stevekent@gov.nl.ca; neilking@gov.nl.ca; dalekirby@gov.nl.ca; paullane@gov.nl.ca; grahamletto@gov.nl.ca; lorrainemichael@gov.nl.ca; cmitchelmore@gov.nl.ca; tosborne@gov.nl.ca; bettyparsley@gov.nl.ca; andrewparsons@gov.nl.ca; kevinparsons@gov.nl.ca; pamparsons@gov.nl.ca; barrypetten@gov.nl.ca; traceyperry@gov.nl.ca; scottreid@gov.nl.ca; gerryrogers@gov.nl.ca; perrytrimper@gov.nl.ca; brianwarr@gov.nl.ca.

Quite a few. And the list of private individuals to whom the letter was sent is twice as long as this list.

Now, the letter:



Honorable Premier, Ministers, MHAs, and Respected Others;

Hot off the presses of the international Journal Of Aquaculture Environment Interactions comes a study that analyzed nearly 30 years of data to show that salmon farm open net pen amplified sea lice cause a dramatic decline in nearby wild salmon numbers. The science on this is now overwhelming (100s of peer reviewed papers). It is no secret that sea lice transmit many deadly finfish pathogens that are amplified in our open net pen in NL such as IPNv, ISAv, etc etc. Given that the entire southern Newfoundland salmon stock of 4U is federally S.A.R.A listed as "threatened" how can government sanction the expansion of yet more open net pens?! 

Our south coast herring stocks are now collapsing and infected with a deadly aquaculture virus  (3L recently shut down to purse seining), local lobster harvesters are complaining about lobster grounds not producing near the pens, DFO lists open net pens as a threat to the wild trout and salmon stocks in their SARA assessment....how is this governing using "science based decisions"?

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316684886_Quantifying_the_contribution_of_sea_lice_from_aquaculture_to_declining_annual_returns_in_a_wild_Atlantic_salmon_population
When will government start shifting away from the destructive 1958 open net pen method of pathogen amplification (like Norway is now doing in leaps and bounds) and start the shift to land based closed containment? Where are the plans and incentives to make this happen? How much shall our wild fish stocks, our own health, and our economy suffer before government reacts? Must we have yet ANOTHER total meltdown of the failed open net pen industry like we experienced from 2012-2014?

When will government become transparent and release the damning data they are hiding?

Cheers;
Bill Bryden

 ***

In other words, the citizens of the world are calling on their governments to take fish farms out of the oceans, around the world.