By Ralph Surette: reprint from Chronical Herald, May 12. 2012

Serious salmon farming is coming to Nova Scotia. Wonderful news, you’ve surely heard. Lots of jobs. A few people are against it, of course, but this shouldn’t be a problem — just come-from-aways fretting about the views from their fancy properties.

If that’s how you understand it, think again.

Salmon farming has gone from being a good idea on a modest scale to a pernicious excess worldwide involving noxious chemicals, harm to wild fisheries, lavish taxpayer subsidies and unwholesome government/industry collusion.

What’s coming to Nova Scotia is what’s going awry elsewhere. The recent wipeout of salmon farms in Shelburne Harbour by infectious salmon anemia — after the entire industry in Chile was similarly wiped out — may have perked your attention. The fact that you, the taxpayer, will be paying to restore the operation should perk it even more.

Nova Scotia is late to salmon farming. Our bays are becoming available because of global warming. The fish in the first operations 35 years ago often froze. We have time, in other words, to do it right. Alas, the government, even as it prepares an aquaculture strategy, is giving little indication of that. Applications for cages have been rubber-stamped; regulations run over; a vast coalition of opponents from the commercial fishery, tourism, sports fishing and others wanting a moratorium on open-pen aquaculture until it’s all worked out can’t get the time of day from government, and so on.

Nova Scotia is the next phase of operations for Canada’s salmon farming multinational, Cooke Aquaculture, the largest in North America, which is finding things tricky in its main operations in New Brunswick. Ditto for Loch Duart, bursting out of Scotland, that wants to set up in Eastern Shore bays and inlets.

In New Brunswick, Cooke is up for trial on 72 counts of dumping illegal substances after a two-year investigation into dead lobsters by Environment Canada in the salmon farming areas of the Bay of Fundy. Cooke CEO Glenn Cooke and two other executives are named. Penalties are up to three years in jail or a $1-million fine per count or both.

Plus this, from recent hearings of the Senate fisheries committee in Ottawa. In 2010, the New Brunswick Fisheries Department OK’d the use of a powerful chemical called AlphaMax against sea lice in the salmon cages, after some cursory tests. Sea lice are a big problem, and they get progressively immune to the chemicals used against them. They’re also crustaceans, so poisons used against them will affect other shellfish. Suspicious agents from Environment Canada showed up, put dye in the chemical as it was being applied, and followed the plume as far as eight kilometres out, immersing caged lobsters in it as they went. The lobsters all died. A stop was put to its use.

Here’s the kicker. The Harper government is gutting the Fisheries Act and Environment Canada. In future, the committee heard, stopping such activities will be harder, maybe impossible.

There are other problems.

The caged salmon industry trades on the image of the leaping wild salmon. In fact, the nice pink you see on farmed salmon in the stores is food dye (“lucantin pink” from BASF chemicals or “carophyll pink” from Roche pharmaceuticals). In some cases, there are antibiotics and hormones. There was a bust-up in Britain this winter: cautions from health authorities, and a headline in the admittedly over-the-top Daily Mail that proclaimed “pink poison.”

Aquaculture was meant to supplement declining wild stocks of fish. Mostly it has. But in the case of farmed salmon, it takes four to seven kilograms of feed to make one kilogram of salmon. The feed is fishmeal from herring mackerel, anchovies, Arctic krill and others along the food chain. Thus, it’s far more destructive than helpful to the world’s fisheries. Plus, almost invariably, wherever fish farms appear, wild salmon stocks disappear. The St. Mary’s River and others of Eastern Nova Scotia are marked waters if Loch Duart gets its way.

Not least, salmon cages are extremely polluting. It’s like a sewer outfall wherever they establish — from excess feed and feces and sometimes heavy metals, like zinc and copper, from cage de-fouling agents.

And the promise of jobs is largely illusory. According to Susanna Fuller, co-ordinator of the marine divisions of the Ecology Action Centre, even within aquaculture, salmon farming is near the bottom as operations become more automated. She has produced an analysis on behalf of the “responsible aquaculture” coalition. It’s available on the EAC website under “marine.” It was created for the benefit of government. “They weren’t giving us any information, so we gave them some,” she says.

The coalition, which includes most of the commercial fishery, don’t want an end to salmon farming. They want it sustainable, an addition rather than a detriment to the wild fishery — an end, for example, to “open-pen” farming in favour of shore-based pens. The companies complain this is not economically feasible. A big mouthful for an industry which, says Fuller, has a 50 per cent rate of return and is stuffed silly with subsidies.

Ralph Surette is a veteran freelance journalist living in Yarmouth County.

(rsurette@herald.ca)

‘Clean Across Nova Scotia’ is part of an international collaboration that aims to deal with litter and dumping through grassroots community engagement.  91 countries have already signed up to take action in their own regions.

By September, 300 million people in over 100 countries are expected to participate, and Clean Nova Scotia is the official contact for Canada, and the first province to take part.

We are expecting over 25,000 participants in this initiative, and are excited to raise the profile of Nova Scotia once again in regards to how we handle waste issues.

Please see the website at www.cleanacrossns.ca, and contact Neil at 420-7943 if you have any questions.

This movement has tremendous potential. TREPA will be keeping you posted.

The Earth Day clean-up started at 9 o’clock and ended at 1 o’clock on Saturday, April 21st. We began at the intersection of Hwy. 103 and the Raynardton Road. We proceeded northward on the Raynardton Road for 2 kilometres as far as Civic #491.

Forty bags of garbage and two bags of returnables were collected. Nothing was found in good enough condition to recycle. Among the items found were a lawnchair, a tire rim, some building material, an easy chair, a car fender, a pair of Hanes underwear, a prescription, a credit card and a piece of steel railing left by the Department of Transportation when they repaired Hewitt’s Bridge.

Those who turned out to honour Mother Earth were Bob Barlow, Mil Nickerson, Curtis Nickerson, Barb Cook, Phyl Hayes, John Sollows, Gerald & Carol Jacquard. Bags were donated by Waste Check and Department of Transportation will take the garbage to the landfill. It began to rain around noon so we were all drenched by the time we finished. This portion of the Raynardton Road looks much better now. Thanks everyone.

In a follow up report: The team finished the cleanup at 1:00. By 5:30 a fresh fast-food container had already shown up as a discard along the freshly cleaned stretch.  All of us who do spring cleanups are amazed at how quickly the litter bugs get busy again, in spite of all the educational effort to combat old and unthinking behaviour. 

Trepa held it’s 5th Annual Electronics Freecycle Event on April 14th at Beacon Church auditorium. This was the best year to date. We had three computers donated and there was no junk. Promptly at 10 o’clock when the doors opened the public rushed in. About 10 minutes later there was nothing left but two monitors. That was all that had to be taken to the recycling depot, making this year a huge success. It appears that the public have learned about this annual event and look forward to it. This year we were strict about not allowing the public in prior to 10 o’clock. It worked well and was fair to all.

The Annual General Meeting of the Tusket River Environmental Protection Association was held on the 18th of April 2012 at the Lake Vaughan Firewall, Tusket Falls, NS.

Meeting convened at 7:00pm with Dan Earle in the Chair and twelve members present.

Motion by Dan Earle, seconded by Aurel Mooney that the Agenda be accepted as presented. Motion carried.

The Minutes of the 2011 AGM were read and it was moved by Carol Jacquard, seconded by Mil Nickerson that they accepted as written. Motion carried.

Arthur Earle presented the Financial Statements showing an Adjusted Operating Deficit  and  Retained Capital as of the 31st of March 2012. Arthur Earle moved the acceptance of these statements, seconded by Mil Nickerson. Motion carried.  Appendix A.

The proposed Budget for 2012/13 was presented by Arthur Earle, who moved that it be accepted as presented, seconded by Aurel Mooney. Motion carried. Appendix B.

The President’s Annual Report was read by Dan Earle in Margrit Robinson’s absence. This report outlined Trepa’s many involvements and activities over the past year.  Appendix C.

John Sollows presented his Executive Director’s report, giving a rundown of his activities and accomplishments during the year.  Appendix D.

There was no business arising from the Minutes and no new business brought forward.

Mil Nickerson acknowledged that Trepa Board Member, Aurel Mooney, was chosen as Volunteer of the Year. She attended a ceremony in Halifax for this occasion.

Dan Earle noted that Trepa’s website is doing very well with an average of 22 hits per day. Our website is very informative and updated constantly.

John Sollows presented the proposed slate of officers for 2012/13, namely:

President – Mil Nickerson
Vice-President – Dan Earle
Secretary – Carol Jacquard
Treasurer – Erin Comeau

As there were no further nominations from the floor it was moved by Arthur Earle, seconded by Gerald Jacquard that nominations cease and this slate of officers be accepted. Motion carried.

Arthur Earle noted that all offices may be held for a maximum of two years only.

As there was no further business, at 7:40pm John Sollows moved that the meeting adjourn. Following the meeting Gus Greene of Waste Check gave a very informative presentation.

]]> http://www.trepa.com/2012/04/19/agm-overview/feed/ 0 http://www.trepa.com/2012/04/19/earth-day-mural-at-agns/ http://www.trepa.com/2012/04/19/earth-day-mural-at-agns/#comments Thu, 19 Apr 2012 16:49:52 +0000 Dan Earle http://www.trepa.com/?p=1055 Continue reading →]]>

There was an unveiling of the Earth Day mural done by students at Meadowfields Community School at 11 am, April 21st, at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Western Branch. This mural was sponsored by Waste Check and the AGNS. Ten elementary school students under the artistic guidance of Dan Earle, TREPA vice-president, worked after school for five sessions to create and complete the work. It will be on exhibit for the rest of the month at the AGNS and become a fixed feature at the Waste Check offices after that.

]]> http://www.trepa.com/2012/04/19/earth-day-mural-at-agns/feed/ 0 http://www.trepa.com/2012/04/15/canada-bird-observatory/ http://www.trepa.com/2012/04/15/canada-bird-observatory/#comments Sun, 15 Apr 2012 14:25:51 +0000 Dan Earle http://www.trepa.com/?p=1049 Continue reading →]]> We know there are many TREPA members who are also bird watchers. The relatively new Canada Bird Observatory site provides a location where you can record and keep track of your sightings. You can add comments and photos of the birds if you have them. This site gives natural scientists much useful information about migration patterns and bird species distribution if there are enough contributions. It has the potential to enhance you birding experience and allow you to share your sightings with others. There is only one person providing reports on Nova Scotia at present so we appear a bit bird deficit. Click on the logo to visit the site and register if you wish to participate.

The AGM starts at 6:30 with a finger food and coffee/tea reception. The AGM starts at 7:00 pm with the talk immediately after the short business meeting.