DFO RAS Study Has Big Flaws - Jonathan Wilkinson?

Hi Jonathan Wilkinson (<min@dfo-mpo.gc.ca>)

So you want to do a study of RAS systems, do you: https://www.undercurrentnews.com/2019/03/07/canada-salmon-aquaculture-study-kicks-off-to-take-close-look-at-ras/?utm_source=Undercurrent+News+Alerts&utm_campaign=78312ab316-Americas_briefing_Mar_07_2019&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_feb55e2e23-78312ab316-92426209.

There are several problems:

1. Lack of 'evidence and science' based DFO decision making. I cite a dozen examples on this site in the past year. A current one is that after the Feb 5, 2019 decision by Strickland that DFO must test for PRV, you coalesced your 'rapid science response' people to say PRV is not a problem.

See the well respected Brian Riddell nix your RSR: http://fishfarmnews.blogspot.com/2018/11/fake-science-by-dfo-riddell-response.html. Note that Riddell, currently CEO of the Pacific Salmon Foundation, was formerly a scientist with DFO.

2. The recommendations you cite from the Popham finfish committee, are tainted. The committee had fish farm representatives on it. The committee that has come after it is the Wild Salmon Secretariat, for bringing back wild salmon. It has no fish farm representatives twisting the recommendations.

Here are the tainted recommendations that you cite:

• “A brief overview and economic analysis of existing and emerging technologies, including their state of commercialization; (Fish farms are dead set against on-land and will argue all day long that it doesn't make money, ignoring the huge value in protecting the ocean/salmon from using it as a free open sewer);

• “An analysis of the environmental impacts of these technologies; (Fish farms say there is no land for on-land, and use far more electricity than in ocean, overlooking the $10.4B in sewage damage they have caused in BC, PRV and so on, lice explosion in Clayoquot Sound in 2018, algal bloom for Grieg, etc).

• “An analysis of how sensor technologies and data could further address potential environmental impacts; (Sensors largely monitor the fish and do not assess environmental impacts).

• “An analysis of the social implications, including job creation and impacts on coastal/rural communities; (Fish farm stats are false. They claim 7,000 multiplier jobs, when the BC govt's own figure is 1800, making the fish farm stat 390% too high. I will shortly crunch the new BC Stats report, released in 2019).

• “A financial assessment of commercially available technologies, including an analysis of the main factors influencing their financial performance; (I have dozens of studies on how on-land makes money. See the 270 on land post below. It is led out by dozens of studies).

• “An analysis of trade-offs between environmental, economic and social impacts of the technologies reviewed; and, (The reality is that using the ocean as a free, open sewer far exceeds the revenue from the in-ocean sector, $777M is only 7.5% of the sewage damage: $10.4B. We can completely avoid the sewage cost and have increased revenue on land).

• “Recommendations to address potential obstacles to adoption of each of the technologies reviewed.” (Fish farms will argue all day long that on-land can't be done, even while the USA takes away almost 85% of its market by the big four on-land systems coming on line: Atlantic Sapphire, Whole Oceans, Nordic Aquafarms and Aquabanc, a total of 218,000mt).

Here is my list of 270 on-land fish farm systems, comprising almost 20,000 actual farms around the world: https://fishfarmnews.blogspot.com/2016/05/152-different-on-land-fish-farm-systems.html.

Here is my list of global news items on on-land, more than 70 items in the past three months:  http://fishfarmnews.blogspot.com/2018/11/links-to-on-land-closed-containment.html. Note Pure Salmon in the list, aiming at 260,000mt on land around the world. The BC industry is slightly less than 100,000mt, or only 38.5% of this one companies plans. The in-ocean industry in BC is toast.

Jonathan how about you see the light and choose on-land fish farms? You might consider the hundreds of thousands of votes you'll get in the 2019 election, and announce on-land right now. BC residents, like all citizens who must live with in-ocean fish farms around the world, hate in-ocean fish farms.

D

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Here is another example of DFO not doing science/managing fish farms:
368. DFO Not Managing Fish Farms - https://www.thetelegram.com/opinion/letter-to-the-editor/letter-aquaculture-piling-more-pressure-on-salmon-stocks-296199/?utm_source=Watershed+Watch+Email+List&utm_campaign=e72633df9d-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_04_03_11_24&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_405944b1b5-e72633df9d-166907249&mc_cid=e72633df9d&mc_eid=5777c92bcd. Quote: "
A spring 2018 report on Canadian aquaculture, in both B.C. and Atlantic Canada, by the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development stated, “We concluded that Fisheries and Oceans Canada did not adequately manage the risks associated with salmon aquaculture consistent with its mandate to protect wild fish. Although the Department had some measures to control the spread of infectious diseases and parasites to wild fish in British Columbia, it had not made sufficient progress in completing the risk assessments for key diseases that were required to understand the effects of salmon aquaculture on wild fish. It also had not defined how it would manage aquaculture in a precautionary manner in the face of scientific uncertainty. Moreover, the Department did not adequately enforce compliance with aquaculture regulations to protect wild fish.”" This is the link to the 2018 report: http://www.oag-bvg.gc.ca/internet/English/parl_cesd_201804_01_e_42992.html.

Integrated Fisheries Management Plans and Managing Salmon into Extinction

Hi Everyone

You can find the IFMP PDF - Integrated Fisheries Management Plan - for southern BC as well as northern BC here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/szdnyx8ui3a891l/AAD111_a8wsfyk0BUicKD_Pga?dl=0. 

At 586 pages, the southern plan demonstrates a high level of technical wizardry and high cost. Ditto for the northern plan. 

And there are many interesting sections of this report. I would go after what you are interested in the table of contents, click on it and the document will take you to read it. It’s all here, for example, Cowichan chinook, Fraser chinook, Fraser pink (this is an odd year), WCVI chinook, SEP program (Salmon Enhancement Program) along with a link to the plan for 2019 releases ( I sent out a link to the actual output in 2018 some time ago) and so on.

Much fascinating reading in this document – for several days; however, for all the mastery of the document, the fifteen pages of DFO phone numbers and links, the reality is that BC wild salmon, after 50 years, have been managed into extinction by DFO, along with the SRKWs that have been managed down to 74 + 1 whales.

I have given you my answer to solving the SRKW problem, which is multiple netpens of 2,000,000 each, fin clipped, sterilized chinook around southern BC, every year for the next ten, along with habitat restoration cash, epigenetic enhancement, seal cull and so on. However, the thrust of both of these documents is the same as it always is: ratcheting down fishing, but not looking at the overall picture and coming up with a workable plan to save wild salmon.

Here is the link to my take. It has been viewed  more than10,000 times: http://fishfarmnews.blogspot.com/2018/05/dfo-salmon-and-killer-whales.html. Note the number of big springs in this morning's take off the Nahmint River.

And here is a link to an update: http://fishfarmnews.blogspot.com/2018/11/southern-resident-killer-whales-sport.html. 

Do pour over the IFMP document. It has much of the information you will need on stocks when you are looking for facts when thinking about salmon issues all year long.  

One last thing, I would say that you should support the Wild Salmon Secretariat (WSS) in their work to bring back salmon. BC has the local knowledge, the BC govt cost is manageable, and BC has responsibility for freshwater habitat restoration, which I would do through the Pacific Salmon Foundation.

Here are a bunch of problems and I think that focusing the WSS on achievable outcomes could solve a lot of the problems that have gone unanswered by DFO over the years: http://fishfarmnews.blogspot.com/2018/10/lets-take-global-look-at-srkw-problem.html. In this one I broach the subject that DFO says it bases decisions on ‘evidence and science’, pointing out several cases where it did just the opposite; one glaring one is when DFO and the CFIA went looking for a lab that would produce ‘no disease’ in BC fish farms.

Have some good reading.

Oh, and one more thing, Jonathan. I started a post on all the on-land fish farm news around the globe. It has been an avalanche of news in the past year, and I now have almost 70 articles, papers and so on in the past three months. See:  http://fishfarmnews.blogspot.com/2018/11/links-to-on-land-closed-containment.html.

D

4,000 Problems in 3 Years - No Problems in BC Fish Farms???

I don't think so. 

Here is the note I sent to government and press today. It is tiring, less than a week after Marine Harvest and Cermaq said they would go along with closing Broughton Archipelago farms, for their Atlantic trade association to be saying there are no problems. No problems? Well, there are those 4,000 I have found in the past three years in the global fish farm/seafood industry press.  See below.

Dear All:

As much as I wanted to believe that the fish farms were willing to close farms in BC last Friday, Dec 14, 2018 in the Global News video of the announcement of closures in the Broughton, less than a week later their Atlantic fish farm association is spouting the same tired spin they invented almost 50 years ago, and disagreeing there is any problem with fish farms in BC, and elsewhere in Canada.

Leopards don’t change their spots. As I have mentioned before, the strategy for saving wild BC salmon is to use the precautionary principle for putting fish farms on land (because asking for science is a never ending circle) and Indigenous rights along with their court wins such as the Tsilhqut’n Decision. And pump money into freshwater habitat restoration.

Also today, Cooke, just south of BC, has to kill 800,000 smolts infected with 'exotic' PRV, the same virus that affects more than 80% of BC fish farm smolt stocks and been shown by Dr. Kristi Miller to cause HSMI, and jaundice/anemia in wild chinook. The WA government ordered the cull. You might do the same.

See: 

494. Communications Spin - Atlantic Canada salmon ass still spouting the false 1970s spin about feeding a hungry world, being sustainable, and so on, while disagreeing that fish farms are a problem in BC: https://www.fishfarmingexpert.com/article/controversy-lurks-in-canadian-waters/.

493. Disease - Cooke kills 800,000 fish infected with an exotic strain of PRV, WA: https://www.fishfarmingexpert.com/article/cooke-culls-800000-fish-after-exotic-prv-found/?utm_campaign=newsletter__19_12_2018&utm_source=netflex&utm_medium=email.

These two items come from my most recent post on the problems in the global fish farm/seafood industry. I have found 4,000 problems in the last three years. Cruise the boldfacing for a quick look: https://fishfarmnews.blogspot.com/2018/08/bad-news-bites-aug-20-2018.html. 

DC Reid

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And then, take a jaundiced look at DFO's plan:  http://asf.ca/ministers-wilkinson-and-duncan-on-report-of-panel.html.

Here are links that work to DFO's plan: https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/joint-statement-by-ministers-wilkinson-and-duncan-on-the-report-from-the-independent-expert-panel-on-aquaculture-science-702713602.html?utm_source=Watershed+Watch+Email+List&utm_campaign=cd69a32c07-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_12_20_12_28&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_405944b1b5-cd69a32c07-166907249&mc_cid=cd69a32c07&mc_eid=5777c92bcd.

And here is a fact-setting list from Living Oceans:  https://livingoceanssociety.blogspot.com/2018/12/normal-0-false-false-false-en-us-x-none.html#comment-form.

John Horgan Closes 10 Fish Farms!!!, Updated, Jan 7, 2019

John Horgan is speaking right now on:

From Greater Vancouver: 604 681-0260 From elsewhere in Canada and

>>> the U.S. (toll-free): 1 877 353-9184 Participant Pass Code: 28711#

Dec 14, 2018

Please, all my followers, go and listen. Also, see video link to Global News coverage below.

Chief Bob Chamberlin speaking now: 10:17

Jonathan Wilkinson speaking as of 10:21. He says 17 farms will move out of the Broughton A. He is also talking about the precautionary principle, which is the method I said was the important one, along with freshwater habitat restoration.

David Kimmel from Cermaq: 10:29 He says a bunch of stuff that could be good: habitat, climate change. Still saying fish farms have lowest carbon footprint, ignoring the $10.4B in sewage they put in the BC ocean. Talks about feeding people.

Diane Morrison, Marine Harvest (Mowei) saying good things about speaking with one another, reconciliation. Business must evolve and that means us. 600 employees (it is only about 500), wild salmon/environment and blah blah, transition in BA to... indigenous monitoring in their territories. We care about wild salmon....And this consensus based approach (Hmm)

Lana Popham: we came in with wanting to do reconciliation. Still she is not talking specifics. Strengthening wild salmon while strengthening aquaculture.

HMM.

Horgan speaking, 10:40, we are moving forward. Cohen Commission, starting point. 10 removed to create channel for smolt migration from Fraser (also Broughton pinks, as well).

Bob; 10:45. Let's get it done (he has a cold). It's a one way street, meaning government, but we now come as equal partners (reconciliation). To improve wild salmon, this is one, then forestry, water licences, etc. global warming, WA state, Bolt Decision 50% of salmon to Indigenous. Salmon need help and this does help. Let's move forward, no more what we have done in the past, integration is good and we want Indigenous partners in Cascadia, all of it, management, WRT survival of fish.

Horgan, 10:48, 54% of biomass eliminated by 2022. Indigenous will now work with business to move forward. Create more wild salmon at the same time.

Wilkinson: 10:51, area based management. Need aqua, and Wild stocks. 'Absolute comfort with this.'

Horgan: 10:53, all options are on the table. But thinks Marine Harvest/Cermaq will move to transition. Cooperation moving forward. Template can be moved to other BC industries. DFO has a new announced budget ($100M but it doesn't have details.)

Nelson Bennett: job losses? Why are companies okay?

Horgan: 10:55, 7 remaining will remain. Skepticism? We are all here

Bob: to Nelson, 10;56, 2022 must have agreement, or out. That is the longterm. We wind down farms and have indigenous monitoring at all times. Sea lice treatments, for example, we are skeptical of health on fish farms, we define that, the testing, drugs, lice, we will train and do it on sites, so we can tell our own leadership out there. FN/BC/Fed. Window of opportunity for new technologies. (Sure, the Egg?)

11: it's a wrap. Legislative Conference Call.

Here is a link to the video conference:  https://www.facebook.com/kwakwabalas. And, specifically: https://www.facebook.com/GlobalBC/videos/291081291540806/UzpfSTY0ODAyMTg5ODoxMDE1NTg1MTQwNTQzNjg5OQ/

****

Now, what do I think? Well this sounds good, but there are those almost 4,000 problems I have found in the industry over the last three years: https://fishfarmnews.blogspot.com/2018/08/bad-news-bites-aug-20-2018.html.

It sounds good to talk of wild salmon, with fish farms working around them, however, the problems still remain, of disease, lice, chemicals, the Second Silent Spring, sewage, relatively small GDP input by fish farms with the straight forward way forward is to put fish farms on land, move feed to insect based, use sewage for hydroponics...

But there is Wilkinson seeming clued in, Lana seeming clued in, JH, and BC seeming clued in. Hard not to feel a warm fuzzy after so many decades of deception and fish dying.

As mentioned previously, the stats show: fish farms (all of aqua) only a $61.9M GDP contribution, meaning the bulk of the $469M (all of aqua) going back to Norway, only 1700 multiplier jobs in fish farms, with only 850 actual jobs, sport revenue of $2.52B, the most conservative sewage cost to us of $10.4B.

And the four major problems remain: freshwater habitat restoration (DFO number of $100M is short on detains), DFO, fish farms and climate change.

The proof will be in the pudding.

******

And now, watching the video for the first time, rather than just audio, I am struck by how ill informed people are on the employment in fish farms. It is only 1700 multiplier jobs, and actual employment is only 850 jobs (I determined this myself). That means the Indigenous jobs, at 20% are only 170 jobs. Are we going to continue with fish farms in the water, when only 170 aboriginals are employed, and only 1,700 economic effect? Sport is 8,400 jobs. Why do we talk so much about fish farm jobs rather than the vastly more jobs in other parts of the salmon world?

And Jon W goes on to say they will do a study of on-land and closed containment, to determine 'industry readiness'. Well what about the 218,000 MT coming on stream on land in the USA? Atlantic Sapphire, Whole Oceans, Nordic Aquafarms, and Aquabanq? What about the additional 260, 000 that PE Fund is going to put around the entire world? And what about the 260 on-land fish farms that I have found? What planet are you guys on? You need to do your homework.

Jon W goes on to trumpet his new aquaculture act, which is simply words, like transparency, best practices and so on. The issue is where the rubber hits the road, and I am not hearing: we are putting you on land for free! A $32- t0 $40-million huge subsidy, as in the same as Norway!

And Jimmy Kibble for Cermaq says that he is sure wild salmon will be better with fish farms in the water. Sorry, I fell off my chair at that one, after all of his first five minutes of puff stuff.

And when he went on to straight face claim that fish farms have the lowest carbon footprint of all farming methods, I fell off my chair again. It is a conservative $10.4B that we pay, for your sewage. And other farming methods at least keep all the crap on land, where it can be used, rather than sprayed all over the ocean where it can only cause eutrophication and algal blooms, and change in pH.

And then he went on to claim the same Blue Revolution BS that the Norwegians have been claiming since the 1970s, 'farming the ocean will be essential' ... and when he claimed sustainability, I decided I had better not write anything more and just grit my teeth until he was finished.

Then Ms Morrison from Marine Harvest, soon to be Mowei: says Jon's work will be critical, even though Jon is talking science. Then she says there are 600 MH employees. There are not, they may reach 500, and I have several references for that figure. She then says the agreement will not lead to any staff changes in the Broughton. Hmm. Could that be because, on many farms there are no employees and they are visited by employees who see many farms? After all it only takes 2 people to run a farm.

I like the Indigenous oversight part of her talk, though the devil is in the details, as Alex Morton's work showed how DFO and the CFIA essentially fraudulently tried to find a lab that would give a no-disease response to them. They will do the same thing again.

Then Lana goes on to say we want lots of wild salmon and a sustainable fish farm industry. Hmm. I don't think they really get the point of on-land.

John seems to get that we need more wild salmon as he answers Keith Baldry, about BC and WA working together on salmon/SRKW. Not to mention that there are 300,000 sport fishers who aren't keen on DFO, meaning we don't believe them anymore.

He does mention that the Cohen Commission was used to take the 10 fish farms out of the Broughton, and goes on to mention Discovery, just south of there, at Campbell River.

Bob is quite eloquent about the one-way street of the past, being government/court/government, and now that may be changing. Roughly minute 46 if you want to go directly there. He goes on to say that on this one topic the door to Indigenous inclusion has been opened. I hope he's right.

He has a good comment on management based on survival versus management based on the economy (minute 50), when referring to cross border Indigenous inclusion in the process.

Jon comes back to talk about area-based management. But then he destroys it by using the old shibboleth of fish farms talking about a growing world population needing protein and we need to use the ocean, and fish numbers are going down, and the same old fish farm spin stuff that they have been using for 50 years. It is sad to hear the same words from the DFO minister, for example, the ocean fish decline of 20 global fish stocks is directly caused by the fish farm industry killing for feed.

And then John has to ruin what he has to say by saying that Cermaq and Marine Harvest are leaders in technology, when that just isn't true. I refer you to the USA, PE Fund, and my list of 260 on-land farms. Marine Harvest has the Egg, which allows it to release its sewage from the tank, and Cermaq has iFarm that looks at every fish, and releases its sewage. We need them just to put the farms on land. That is all this is about.

Bob also spoke at the end, saying it is a time to test new technologies. Sad, as Trump would say. As I have mentioned, the industry 'advances' don't look anything like on-land for solving all the problems of being in the water, and letting the sewage, etc. float away.

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Finally, the Times Colonist article, Dec 15, 2018, by Les Leyne on fish farms being taken out of the Broughton:  https://www.timescolonist.com/opinion/columnists/les-leyne-fish-farm-foes-score-major-victory-1.23538930.

Here is another article, by Nelson Bennett: https://biv.com/article/2018/12/salmon-farms-broughton-archipelago-be-shut-down.

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And, from Alex Morton, Jan 7 2019, a video on the closing of the Glacier Falls fish farm site: https://www.facebook.com/alexandra.morton.1671/posts/2374198266142054.