Fish Farm Licences to Use Ocean as a Free, Open Sewer

Question: The open net pens [in Norway] are no longer allowed to get new licenses (or renewed). Last ones issues in 2014 at auction for 1--13 MILLION Canadian each. Not sure about numbers of fish per site (typically 1 million) nor about lease duration. D might know?

Answer:  Norway changed the ball game.

What they did was end the auctioning off of in-ocean licences in 2014. This article says, at the bottom, 66 million Kroner. Multiply it by the exchange rate .16 and you get $10.56 million: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-economy-construction/hurricanes-harvey-irma-lift-u-s-factory-activity-index-to-13-year-high-idUSKCN1C71RJ. 

You will find the $9- to $12-million figure I use in other articles. 80 million Kroner is $12.8M, for instance. The BC licence cost, by comparison, is a pitiful $5000 or .04% of the $12M figure. Hence the reason we are subsidizing fish farms to trash our oceans.

You would have to check whether getting a licence is tied to a lease of a particular spot. I don’t think it is. The reason for the high price is that fish farms are a licence to print money, and so, there has been a long-term speculative market, including people who had no intention of farming, just resold the licences. Kjersti Sandvik’s book, Under the Surface, covers this issue.

The licences Norway gives out for on-land are free, and thus a $9 - $12-Million subsidy. Note that the original licences are still in the water. There are 1100, or ten times the number of licences in BC.

Norway does issue some in-ocean licences for concepts that reduce environmental damage, the egg by Marine Harvest, for instance: https://www.google.ca/search?q=Marine+Harvest+-+egg+concept+-+artist+rendering&dcr=0&tbm=isch&imgil=zEYXtZ5QezA_kM%253A%253B4IIbLOaEF_EL2M%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Faquaculturenorthamerica.com%25252Fresearch%25252Fmarine-harvest-tests-closed-egg-shaped-fish-pens%25252F&source=iu&pf=m&fir=zEYXtZ5QezA_kM%253A%252C4IIbLOaEF_EL2M%252C_&usg=__Z4pAEdxo9BPUjuR499EPgI3QEw0%3D&biw=957&bih=419&ved=0ahUKEwjVku_hwtLWAhVP0WMKHbYmD3kQyjcINQ&ei=H3_SWZWHFM-ijwO2zbzIBw#imgdii=DcHvMZQow-i0MM:&imgrc=zEYXtZ5QezA_kM:. Note that the purpose is to save salmon from lice, and there are two pipes off the bottom, one for water in, and the other would have to be for water/sewage flowing out, but that is something MH does not talk about.

Note that the industry is trying now to get off shore, open ocean licences, for much larger farms, presumably to keep them from public scrutiny and thus release far more sewage. We need to stop them.

As for fish in a usual size farm, that would be 600,000 to 1,000,000, but you would have to do some research to get a link.

Fish Farms Trash, er, Damage BC Ocean

 Go read the following article in the Nanaimo Bulletin then see my brief comments below:  https://www.nanaimobulletin.com/opinion/letter-to-the-editor-fish-farming-done-responsibly/.

 Re: Steve Atkinson: "Fish farms negatively impacting environment, Letters, Oct. 3.
These letters contain numerous false statements and inaccuracies that simply cannot be left unchallenged."

Sorry Steve, my calculation is that BC fish farms cost the BC taxpayer $10.4 Billion in sewage cost. And do find the video of the 2017 Sea Shepherd trip showing deformed fish, ill behaviour and the cloudy fecal water at every farm into which they randomly stuck a goPro.

My list now has 194 different on-land systems, comprising almost 20,000 on land fish farms around the world: http://fishfarmnews.blogspot.ca/2016/05/152-different-on-land-fish-farm-systems.html. The Atlantic Sapphire one is going to put the BC industry out of business as it is coming on stream in Florida on land and will produce cheaper fish that are transported cheaper. Number 176 on the list.

My estimate of the licence subsidy for fish farms is $1.17 to $1.56-bilion that we taxpayers pay for them to trash our ocean.

My calculation is that a fish farm industry the size of BC, kills 5.76 Billion forage fish to bring in one crop. Fish farms don't save wild fish, they kill wild fish.

You can find all of the references and links to the calculations on my Fish Farm News blog. Simply Google it. 

Oh and the economic contribution of all of aquaculture to BC's economy is a paltry $61.9 M, and the actual jobs are an insignificant 820 in BC. See the BC Stats Report.

Oh and I guess you missed that Scotland used $483 million in antibiotics in 2016, Norway lost millions to lice, and Chile lost 25 million fish last year to an algal bloom caused, in part, by their own sewage. Between the three they lowered global output by 8.7% last year. Recent news puts the Scotland loss at 10,000,000 fish.

BCMAL - Vaughn Palmer, Van Sun

Go read Vaughn Palmer's article on the fish farm industry, then this post on the issue.

See: http://vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/vaughn-palmer-time-to-reel-in-pophams-ministry-for-fish-file-review.

Marty's office is, as I have put it, compliant with industry. It should not be and that is easily changed by government. Nor should that office be allowed to join fish farms and DFO that were taking Alex Morton to court to allow the industry to put sick/virus carrying fish in BC water, specifically PRV, though she has a paper showing European strain ISA is now in BC - a very serious finding. The CFIA did a study and found no ISA, but, if you can believe it, used the Atlantic Canadian strain, rather than the European that Morton et al found - because the eggs/embryos were from Europe, for example, Norway and Iceland.

Kristi Miller, DFO scientist, has confirmed PRV and the disease HSMI at one farm, and DFO backed off taking Morton to court over putting disease bearing fish in BC waters. The Sea Shepherd goPro video shows a dozen farms with deformed fish, exhibiting PRV behaviour and releasing lots of sewage - a $10.4 Billion problem that we taxpayers absorb. We don't want to pay.

You can read an account of the pressure she has been under here: http://fishfarmnews.blogspot.ca/2017/01/key-document-dr-kristi-miller-diseases.html. In other words, she has been under pressure by DFO itself. Another conflict of interest.

Both my site, and Morton's has a post on DFO/CFIA using the Marty lab because they thought it would produce a negative response. This should be seen as fraud by government employees. See: http://fishfarmnews.blogspot.ca/2016/09/canadian-food-inspection-agency.html.

Other good labs are Are Nylund's in Norway and F. Kibenge in PEI. The latter was stripped of his accreditation as the OIE lab for the western hemisphere, (Nylund being the other one), because the CFIA didn't like his Cohen testimony and lobbied the OIE.

I should add that Marty, if let go, and I am not advocating this, would find quick work with the fish farms, as Saksida did. On the Cohen stand, DFO scientist, Michael Kent, recanted his work on disease in chinook farms. I'd say that his salary and benefits for these years should be forfeited.

The conflict of interest view of DFO on Marty is humourous, as Cohen pointed out that DFO itself has a major conflict with fish farms and should stick to the Wild Salmon Policy, and habitat restoration, the most important item in saving Pacific salmon.

Vaughn, do a little Google searching and you will find out the rest of the story on the NDP's lab over the years. See also the other post on this site on Oct 25, 2017.

And just so you know, years ago I worked with two of the health workers who were unjustly fired among the 7 that Health let go. This is not a similar situation. There has been just criticism of BCMAL.

Ian Roberts Won't Buy Kuterra, While Marine Harvest Executives Jump Ship to On-land Fish Farm

Hi John Horgan et al

Ian Roberts, MH Communications Director, has said he wouldn’t buy Kuterra because it is too expensive to bring fish to market: http://www.intrafish.com/aquaculture/1369353/marine-harvests-bc-opponents-want-it-to-move-on-land?utm_source=IntraFish+Salmon+Newsletter&utm_campaign=d08c8cd793-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_10_25&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_5c825a4a64-d08c8cd793-245113141.

Well, I have a list of 194 on-land fish farms systems, comprising almost 20,000 on land fish farms around the world, so what he is saying is not true: http://fishfarmnews.blogspot.ca/2016/05/152-different-on-land-fish-farm-systems.html. MH people review my site, so they know the same.

And Ian Roberts knows perfectly well that the Atlantic Sapphire on-land plant coming on stream in Florida, at 150,000 tons, is going to severely impact the BC industry, about 85,000 mt. In fact, Marine Harvest executives have been jumping ship to sign on to AS. They can see the writing on the wall.

Furthermore, I have pretty much cornered Roberts and Marine Harvest on its claims that millions come into BC to support the anti-fish farm stance of our citizens. I will post this shortly on my blog, as above.

DC (Dennis)