Decision Time? Fate of Wild Salmon Hangs in the Balance

December 1998 - January 1999

This is an article from WaveLength Magazine, available in print in North America and globally on the web.

by Laurie MacBride

As we go to press there are rumours that the BC Cabinet may decide in December to lift the moratorium on salmon aquaculture and allow new fish farms on the north and central coast. Yet recent events in BC and around the world underscore the serious risks posed by netcage fish farming.

In New Brunswick and Scotland, fish farms have been devastated by massive outbreaks of Infectious Salmon Anemia (ISA). Over 100 Scottish farms are in quarantine and several British grocery chains have refused to buy Scottish farm salmon, fearing the disease may affect human consumers.

In New Brunswick the provincial government has ordered the slaughter of over half a million fish and agreed to pay $10 million of taxpayers money in compensation to the industry.

ISA has now been found in Atlantic salmon in every country from which Canada imports Atlantic eggs. If the moratorium is lifted, fish farms in BC would need new stocks of eggs-thus ensuring the introduction of ISA here.

In Norway, officials have had to carry out yet another round of deliberate poisoning of river systems in an attempt to eradicate a fish farm-bred parasite. After several rounds of poisonings - wiping out all life in the rivers - scientists are now starting to worry that they may never be able to successfully re-introduce wild salmon to these rivers.

Trouble is also occurring right here in British Columbia. A recent provincial study found sediments under and around fish farms in the Broughton Archipelago to be highly toxic, from drugs used in salmon farming and accumulated fish waste.

In September, researchers found juvenile Atlantic salmon of two distinct age classes in the Tsitika River - indicating escaped Atlantics from fish farms have almost certainly spawned successfully in the river in at least two of the last three years, which fish farmers and the Department of Fisheries said could never happen.

This finding is particularly disturbing since the Tsitika flows into the famed "rubbing beach" at Robson Bight Ecological Reserve where orca whales gather each summer. Whale researcher Alexandra Morton reports that at least one orca has already died from an antibiotic resistant disease never before seen in whales. Imagine the impact if these Tsitika Atlantics should be carrying a disease to which the whales have no immunity.

Since only one percent of BC's coastal streams are even checked for Atlantics, they are likely spawning in other steams as well.

Meanwhile, the BC government and the industry are looking at a possible "compromise" solution that would see some of the most polluting farms in the Broughton and Clayoquot Sound relocated (out of sight, out of mind?) and other new farms approved, including some "closed containment" pilot projects.

Unfortunately the new "closed bag" system being developed in Nanaimo lacks a waste recovery and treatment component and, like netcages, allows for free exchange of water with the marine environment (thus failing to prevent transfer of disease, antibiotics or pollution).

Ironically, truly closed systems are available, as close by as Washington State, but it looks like the "made in BC" criterion may win out, despite the inadequacies of the system.

The fish farm industry is eager to expand to new sites so it is essential that kayakers and tour operators speak out loudly-right now-if we are not to lose access to the beautiful sites we treasure along the BC coast.

Write Premier Glen Clark at the Legislative Bldgs, Victoria, BC V8V 1X4 or fax to his office at 250/387-0087.

Laurie MacBride is Executive Director of the Georgia Strait Alliance and Wave-Length's Environmental Editor. She represented the environmental sector on the year-long Salmon Aquaculture Review