Kinda hard to say too much about the proposed operation w/o more details. Maybe it's a real alternative, maybe not. Maybe it's just another proposed venture capital operation.
As we all know - there are many ways to raise many different species of fish, but not all of them will be profitable ventures. The key to selling venture capital shares is to make the illusion seem all wonderful to investors on start-up w/o actually having to be practical or profitable. The CEOs of those venture capital projects collect their salaries as long as they can - until it becomes obvious that they are beating a dead horse after that reality is exposed. Happens often in many industries - esp. mining & energy projects.
Most commercial aquaculture grow out operations try to use what they have locally wrt environment & water supply to match transportation, processing & markets. So, lots of different realities to adapt to - and those pros/cons of those realities are the focus of a whole other post. But briefly - Atlantic salmon need some salt water during their later development, and trout/char do not. Water quality & amounts restricts production methodologies & locations.
And words like "closed" containment are just words and covers a broad assortment of intensities & densities of fish, & production methods.
So, there are restrictions, and pros/cons to different operations & locations.
Some yet answered questions for this site & methodology include:
1/ What's the oxygen like @ the proposed 30m depth of intake, and throughout the year/seasons? Is it consistently above ~5-8 mg/L? If not FF fish might get stressed and/or die. Many if not most inlets on our coasts have seasonal O2 depletion - esp. late summer, and during spring (March-ish). Saanich inlet is one such example.
Omega's now empty site in N. Barkley Sound is also such a prime example of not understanding how inlets & the ocean work, poor planning - and industry ego and inexperience - for these same reasons. Just like why there is substantial overlap with the best sites for Atlantic salmon ONPSF and juvie salmon rearing in the Discovery Islands & the Broughtons. Salmon need the same environmental parameters; and not every coastal site is "prime" for salmon year- around.
Most recently, MOWI had to learn that same lesson in NFLD:
Mowi Canada East has estimated that up to 450,000 fish have died in a mass mortality event at its salmon farm site at The Gorge in Newfoundland and Labrador (NL).
www.fishfarmingexpert.com
O2/WQ is particularly critical for stationary caged FF fish that can only move up and down in the pens a few 10s of meters rather than exiting or migrating out of an area of decreasing seasonal water quality - like wild salmon can. Maybe that's why there is so much plasticity wrt migration timing & marine foreshore usage including temporal & geographic separation between adult & juvies and returning adult salmon lice loads in different species/stocks/clades of wild salmon and their associated adult/juvie life histories & DNA. The survivors transmitted their DNA decoding those successful events to their existing descendants. The ones that died didn't.
2/ What's the energy requirements for pumping and the costs of that energy? How is the energy transportation & supply? Is there a back-up system for power for pumping if it fails? Can those additional electrical costs be covered in a premium for the fillet production?
3/ What's the plan for sewerage disposal & costs?
The main market in Canada (& Chile) for FF farming has been the ONP Atlantic farmed fish market into restaurants & grocery stores and sushi production. Chile production is cheaper than in Canada due to low Chilean wages but transport costs to US market is higher and offsets that competition imbalance. How Trump's impending tariff war will affect the seafood markets & how long - we will find out.
And some grocery markets require certification by 3rd party certifiers like Ocean Wise® and MSC to enter that supply chain. Maybe that's where this operation might gain an advantage and is targeted.
And trout, char, and tilapia markets & supply are slowly increasing; but are more of a niche market due to higher production costs using pumped FW. This one proposes using SW for Atlantics; and is proposed to be located in Neroutsos Inlet near Port Alice to do just that. Maybe they are using some DFO/federal R&D monies to try it out - or are planning to apply to DFO for those monies. Maybe that's why they hired Bernie to be their spokesperson/contact.
But just because there is power and road access available at any site - does not make it a prime site to raise salmon. And I wouldn't expect a farm boy from Ohio or Iowa to have the experience to understand these subtle coastal WQ nuances. But I'd trust them to sell me a tractor, though... Buyer beware!
www.northislandeagle.com
