As a deadline looms for the federal Fisheries and Oceans Minister to decide what to do about salmon farms in B.C., the salmon farming industry, First Nations who support it and the BC Centre for Aquatic Health Sciences have produced a “textbook” on salmon farming that addresses the concerns raised over the years by activists and First Nations who want open-net fish farms shut down.
Modern Salmon Farming in British Columbia: A Review is a 600-page compendium of data and science on open net salmon farming in B.C., with whole chapters dedicated to topics like food safety, feed, impacts on the marine environment, escapement, sea lice and diseases.
It was produced by the BC Salmon Farmers Association, the First Nations for Finfish Stewardship and the BC Centre for Aquatic Health Sciences to counter what the industry calls the weaponization of science against a $1 billion industry that employs 4,700 people, many of them First Nations.
“We have a lot of politics around the industry with ENGO (environmental non-government organization) groups often scapegoating the sector for the demise of wild salmon,” BC Salmon Farmers executive director Brian Kingzett at a press briefing Friday morning.
As a case in point, earlier this week, Alexandra Morton – an independent researcher who has been campaigning against open net salmon farms in B.C. for more than two decades – issued an open letter calling on Premier David Eby to remove provincial Environment Minister George Heyman for failing to prevent Brown’s Bay Packing plant in Cambell River, which processes farmed salmon, from releasing effluent into the ocean.
In 2017, underwater video of “blood water” (effluent from the Brown’s Bay fish processing plant) went viral. Anti fish farm activist groups pointed to it as evidence that wild fish were at risk of being infected by diseases farmed salmon.
“After a $1.5M upgrade was installed at the Brown’s Bay Packing Company facility just north of Campbell River to sterilize the effluent, DFO reported it was still infectious to young salmon,” Morton writes in her letter, which calls for the plant’s effluent pipe to be removed from the ocean.
She calls for Heyman to removed as Environment minister and “be replaced by someone with the guts to shut off virus infected farm salmon effluent before the Fraser River sockeye swim through it.”
Kingzett said the treatment at the Brown Bay plant includes filtration and ozone treatment that kills or deactivates pathogens. Testing of water near the outfall may detect the DNA of dead and deactivated viruses or bacteria, but that doesn’t mean they are infectious, Kingzett said.
In response to Morton's letter, the Ministry of Environment also pointed out that any discharges of waste from fish processing plants must be treated.
"All facilities with discharges from processing farmed and wild fish are required to disinfect their effluent to deactivate pathogens and protect wild fish stocks," the ministry said in a written statement to BIV News.
"Testing and analysis requirements are set to include parameters that are relevant to ensure treatment plant performance. This testing is performed in commercial labs and so parameters that are tested are limited to what is commercially available."
Activists and First Nations opposed to open net salmon farming in B.C. have been successful in seeing open net salmon farms shut down over the past few years in the Discovery Islands and Broughton Archipelago. They continue to lobby for the wholesale phase-out of open net salmon farming, and a process is undereay now to "transition" the industry.
Those salmon farms that are still operating in B.C. have the support for First Nations, said Dallas Smith, spokesman for the Coalition of First Nations for Finfish Stewardship, who vowed to “push back against the activists that are dividing our communities.”
“We've read the press,” he said at a press conference Friday morning in Campbell River. “We understand the concerns that are out there, and I want to assure British Columbians and Canadians that we are on top of them.
“We have a plan going forward and we almost apologize today for letting the activists mislead people in so many ways.”
One of the reasons for publishing the textbook is to make scientific data more readily available, Kingzett said.
"Most of the data about the sector is already available...but it's mostly behind paywalls, scientific papers, in obscure federal websites."
The 600-plus page textbook has chapters dedicated to various topics of concern – feed ratios, for example. In the past, one of the concerns was that so much forage fish was used to make the fish meal to feed farmed salmon.
“With recent gains in efficiency of feeding and growth, B.C. farm-raised salmon now produce more high-quality marine protein than they consume,” the chapter on feed states. “It takes about 1.15 to 1.2 kilograms of feed to produce 1 kilogram of farm-raised salmon. This is more efficient than chicken, beef, or pork.”
Chapter 11 deals with diseases. The single biggest concern that opponents of open net salmon farms have raised is that open-net fish farms may be transmitting diseases to wild salmon.
While some studies have suggested that piscine orthoreovirus (PRV) may cause or contribute to diseases like heart and skeletal muscle inflammation (HSMI), others have concluded that the strain found in B.C. is benign.
The Department of Fisheries and Oceans has concluded the strain of the virus found in B.C. is apathogenic, and points to experiments where salmon that were deliberately exposed to the virus never got sick.
“As yet, all experimental exposures of the BC strain of PRV to Pacific and Atlantic salmon in BC have failed to induce disease or mortality,” DFO has noted.
There are other pathogens that do cause disease and mortality in wild fish, however, that can be transmitted from farmed to wild salmon. The chapter on disease concludes that the health impacts are low.
It says “a reasonable estimate of total annual marine mortality of BC farm raised Atlantic salmon due to infectious disease is 3 per cent.
“Unlike farm-raised salmon, which spend their entire life in salmon farms, juvenile Fraser River sockeye salmon spend only a few minutes to hours of their life near salmon farms. Therefore, we expect infectious disease from salmon farms to infect and kill much less than 3 per cent of Fraser River sockeye salmon.”
Editor's note: This story has been updated with a statement from the B.C. Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy. Also, an earlier version stated Morton was calling for Heyman's removal for failing to shut down the Brown's Bay Packing plant. It has been changed to reflect the fact Morton was calling for the effluent pipe to be removed from the ocean, not for the closure of the plant.
