fish farm siting criteria & politics

Craig Delahunt on You Tube, 1st May 2010

The Get Out Migration; Why People Are Walking For The Wild Salmon Campbell River

Individuals describe what fish farm sea lice and the Provincial and federal governments have been doing to wild salmon and why they are walking for the wild salmon to Victoria

Watch online now via: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1E4VdR_Vsw
 
Earth Justice, 1st May 2010
Joining Alexandra Morton's Get-Out Migration
Charles Justice

Thank you George Baker for bringing to my attention Alexandra Morton's march down Vancouver Island to protect the wild salmon (prdnews Apr 23). Your article inspired me to buy plane tickets to go to Vancouver Island and join the “Get-out Migration”.

I called friends, my family... I found one other person from Prince Rupert who wants to go. Anybody else out there in Prince Rupert? Give me a call I'm in the phone book.

Up here in the north, it may seem as if that whole salmon farming thing is over. There's a moratorium here. We won. But let me tell you something. It's partly because of Alexandra Morton that we got our moratorium. She did the science, she publicized the issue, she took the salmon farming companies to court, and she has been a relentless voice in defence of the wild salmon.

“We will lose our wild salmon if government continues to carelessly put farm salmon before wild salmon.” Here's a person of great integrity standing up to the Norwegian Fish Farm Corporations, and calling the government repeatedly to account for their failure to protect wild salmon.

There's not many people like Alexandra. She knows that letting the wild salmon die is wrong to the very core of her being. “Salmon embody the essential unity of mountain, forest and stream.” She says.

Meanwhile the government sits on the evidence that open-net fish farms kill salmon smolts and does nothing. The government's view is that salmon are not sacred. They are a stream of income. And if farmed salmon yield a bigger stream of income then wild salmon then so be it.

The character of the north pacific coast, the ecosystem the identity of the people who live here – that doesn't matter to the federal or the provincial governments. It's all about money. But of course no politician has the guts to admit that out loud.

Bill Vander Zalm will be up here in a couple of weeks flogging his American style anti-tax campaign. Who has the integrity? Who is standing up for what's really valuable ?

Look what's happening in the United States. The big banks and the investment firms brought the global economy to the brink of disaster, and then got the government to bail them out and gave themselves million dollar bonuses. And recently the Supreme court took away all limits to corporate contributions for election campaigns. It's official, the U.S. Government is for sale to the highest bidders.

Back in BC we have a government that pretends to be green, but like our American neighbours, really just listens to the sound of money. It's only people with integrity like Alexandra who have made the fish farming moratorium possible. But let's not take the absence of fish farms here for granted.

Money talks and government listens, but government also listens if sufficient numbers of people make their feelings known. When you get down to it it's either we the people or it's the corporations. If we don't join together and make our voices heard they win and the wild salmon go extinct.

What's important to you? Do you fish for salmon? Do you smoke and can salmon? What would it mean to you if there were no more wild salmon?

Before I moved to Prince Rupert salmon didn't mean much to me, but after living here almost twenty years I see things very differently. I'm going down to Vancouver Island to support Alexandra Morton and to tell the BC government to get the Norwegian salmon farms out of our ocean.

Come and join us. Or, even if you aren't planning to go, go to Alexandra's website www.salmonaresacred.org. And check out the progress of the get-out migration. E-mail a comment of support, sign the petition. Show Alexandra and the BC government that Prince Rupert cares about wild salmon.

http://earthjustice.blogspot.com/2010/05/joining-alexandra-mortons-get-out.html
 
Urgent Evoke, 29th April 2010

Alexandra Morton ~ A Woman Who Walks The Talk

I have known about Alexandra Morton for many years, she first spoke out that the decline in Killer Whales on the west coast of Canada was related to human behaviour. As a biologist studying the whales for a long time, she not only researched what was happening and why, she truly cared about the whales and became their voice. I remember thinking at the time, what a cool job that would be and I admired her from a distance.

Fast forward twenty years, and her whale research led her to the declining salmon population, which led her to her findings of today that open-net fish farming is a breeding ground for tiny lice which have the power to kill off our wild salmon population. I know that if these lice were a good thing she would be the first to start fostering their growth.


She's my hero because she is trying to make change for the good happen and does so with a passion and conviction that is inspiring.


It shames me that we have allowed foreign business to dictate our government, angers me that things can change by simply standing up and saying no but they aren't. No, you aren't allowed to put open-net fish farms near the salmon migration routes, Norway or anyone else. No, you can't put them in the zones we have designated out-of-bounds. No, you can't continue to do your business here the way you always have, isn't it enough that the lice have taken over your waters?


This is not even talking about the issue Alex ran into with the confusion between federal and local government trying to decide who exactly should be saying no. This is about the people taking a stance and standing up for our country. We all need to say no.


To be clear, Alex is only wanting the open-net fish farm industry to get out of the waters and on to land. To change the way they do things, to keep up with the times the same way people have with smoking. Who would have thought one little conversation in an elevator could change the western world with their smoking habits. Who would have thought one little walk could force my government to protect not just our salmon but our waters. Alex does and so should you. If you can't walk with her, be with her and sign the petition wherever you are. www.salmonaresacred.org
http://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/act1-alexandra-morton-a-woman
 
The Times Colonist, 11th May 2010

Pesticide likely to lose potency against sea lice

Conference explores implications for harvest of salmon on West Coast
By Judith Lavoie

It is almost inevitable that sea lice at B.C. salmon farms will become resistant to the chemical pesticide used to kill them, scientists at an international sea lice conference in Victoria said yesterday.

"One of the biggest issues is that in Norway and Chile there's a documented resistance to treatment -- and that is really huge," said Ben Koop, biology department professor at the University of Victoria and a conference organizer.

"I think resistance on the West Coast is inevitable. It worries everybody, but because our ecosystems are different, I would expect a slow evolution to resistance," he said.

The only universal treatment for sea lice at salmon farms is the product Slice, which uses the chemical emamectin benzoate to kill lice.

However, lice living in isolated communities, treated only with Slice, develop resistance.

Strangely, the saving grace for B.C. salmon farms might be lice on wild fish.

"The large wild salmon population brings wild sea lice back to the coast every year and that dilutes the population," said Simon Jones, Department of Fisheries and Oceans scientist.

In B.C., there are between 50 and 100 wild fish for every farmed fish. That compares to one wild fish to every 100 to 200 farmed fish in Norway.

"In Chile, there are such vast numbers of farm fish that the sea lice have become devastating to the aquaculture industry," Koop said.

Crawford Revie, the Canada research chair at the University of Prince Edward Island, said lice in B.C. have not yet shown any tolerance for Slice, but research and more precise tests are essential.

"In B.C., we have to make sure we don't get caught on the hop with tolerance three, four or five years down the line," Revie said.

"In other countries, people became too relaxed. The treatments are very effective and, if you have a silver bullet, you think the problem is solved. These parasites are clever little critters and will tend to develop resistance."

Currently, B.C. salmon farmers have no official access to alternate treatments, such as "bathing" the fish in chemicals, as was recently done as an urgent measure on the East Coast.

In Norway, various methods of lice control are being tried, said Tor Horsberg of the Norwegian School of Veterinary Science.

"The signs are very clear in Norway, in Scotland and Ireland and on the East Coast of Canada pointing in one direction -- and that's the increasing tolerance of parasites to Slice," Horsberg said.

Some fish farms have stopped using the pesticide, except in emergencies. Instead, they have adopted a rotation of other chemicals, even though they do not work as well, he said.

In other farms, "cleaner" fish are used, Horsberg said.

"They like the large, juicy, female lice and, in a couple of areas, they keep sea lice under control in a very sustainable way."

Unfortunately for Canada, cleaner fish like warm waters and are not found off the B.C. coast, Horsberg said.

The aim of the conference, attended by 230 delegates from around the world, is to bring together experts to discuss the latest science and methods for studying sea lice and their effects on wild and farmed fish.

The tiny copepods, which have been co-evolving with salmon and other fish for up to 100 million years, arouse high emotions and conflicting claims about their effects on wild salmon runs.

"We hope we can agree on some of the problems and the best ways to approach them," Koop said.

The conference comes just two days after biologist and fish-farm opponent Alexandra Morton arrived in Victoria after a two-week walk down Vancouver Island to sound the alarm that wild salmon stocks are being wiped out by sea lice from fish farms.

Her walk culminated with a rally at the legislature.

A police report estimated the crowd at 1,000 to 2,000, but organizers claimed the number was around 5,000.

http://www.timescolonist.com/techno...+lose+potency+against+lice/3012490/story.html
 
The Vancouver Sun, 7th May 2010

Fish farms should be on land: report

Establishing tank-based salmon-growing operations would be profitable and is 'a must do,' author says
By Derrick Penner

A B.C.-based conservation group has put forward a business case to move salmon farms from their contested existence in the ocean onto land.

The SOS Marine Conservation Foundation, on Thursday, released a report that analyzes land-based systems and concludes contained tank-based farms, without ocean pollution concerns or fears of transferring sea lice to wild salmon stocks, would be profitable.

"I would say [establishing land-based farms] is a must do," in a province that needs to develop new industry, report author Andrew Wright said in an interview.

The fish-farming industry does have an opportunity to grow, Wright added, "but because of the current mode of practice, it has no social licence to expand."

The B.C. industry produces some 80,000 tonnes of salmon a year, but its growth has remained stalled over environmental concerns.

Wright's report was commissioned by the SOS Foundation and funded by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and B.C. Ministry of Agriculture.

In his report, Wright concluded that B.C., with its advantages of clean water, cheap hydro electricity, the ability to reasonably lease Crown land and an existing workforce skilled in salmon farming techniques could start expanding on land using off-the-shelf systems already available and in use elsewhere.

He costed out an example of a farm that would cost $12 million to build, $6 million a year to operate and would produce about 1,750 tonnes of salmon a year that could generate $5 million to $13 million in operating profits.

The kicker, Wright said, would come from being able to take fish waste and recycle it as fertilizer and feedstock for hydroponic agricultural production.

Part of the business case relies on the assumption that an operator would start producing salmon for high-end markets and be able to charge premium prices for "ocean-friendly" fish, which Wright believes is a proven strategy, noting that B.C.'s Overwaitea Food Group last year adopted a sustainable seafood policy favouring salmon farmed on land systems.

As land-based farms are expanded, Wright believes they would achieve economies of scale similar to ocean-based farms.

Trevor Swerdfager, director general of the DFO's aquaculture directorate acknowledged that the technology exists to make land-based farming possible, but it will be up to the industry to adopt it.

"But we're not a fish-farming organization, we don't grow fish," Swerdfager said. "The industry will ultimately decide what technology it will use," which DFO will regulate accordingly.

The industry is watching the development of closed-containment systems with interest. Marry Ellen Walling, executive director of the B.C. Salmon Farmers Association, said one of its member companies, Marine Harvest, is setting up a land-based farm as a pilot project.

However, the industry has concerns over capital costs of such facilities, access to power and the living conditions of fish during production in tanks that would be more cramped than the net pens used in ocean farming.

Walling said farm companies understand land systems well from operating their own fish hatcheries, "and understand the limitations of the technology."

The SOS Foundation, however, believes in the principle and its president, Eric Hobson, said they are backing a plan to set up a farm off northern Vancouver Island with the 'Namgis First Nation using the principles outlined in the report.

http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Fish+farms+should+land+report/2997902/story.html
 
The Courier-Islander, 7th May 2010

First-hand look at sea lice problem revealing

"Get the facts, balance the sources, see the whole picture." So says the banner of a BC Salmon Farmers Association advertisement. Good ideas. To that end our governments have sponsored studies. Then they have willfully ignored their own studies. For example, the Pacific Salmon Forum, which cost millions, proposed solutions for resolving disputed science. The PSF also recommended establishing thresholds for biological markers of ecosystem health and monitoring them. However, the fish farm industry did not accept the restraints, and the governments have not forced them to. Our politicians are allowing greater risk to salmon than they have been advised to do.

The next bit of the BC Salmon Farmer's ad brings up the complexity of the problems facing wild salmon, and claims that critics are blaming declines solely on fish farms. Solely is their word. No one is saying that. This is a dishonest mischaracterization of their critics. And, it uses the other stresses on salmon as cover for harmful effects from farms. The writers carry on with more corporate spin to effect the views of the public and probably their own employees.

There is so much wrong, and it begins at a high level, a political level. The Department of Fisheries has the mandate of protecting the environment and wild salmon. It should not be also the promoter of salmon aquaculture, a clear conflict of interest.

Who to believe? Alexander Morton saw smoke and cried fire. It was the right thing to do. I don't think there are many of us who could withstand the scrutiny and criticism that she received and still have the strength of her convictions to carry on. She researched how to do the needed science and did it, and did it well enough to receive an honorary doctorate from SFU acknowledging her contributions. I am also impressed by the character of many who joined her. And impressed by those who, like Tom Davis writing in the Boatjournal, thought this through and changed over 10 years from being cautious optimists for salmon farms to fence sitters to dissenters.

I have seen schools of the little salmon fry covered with sea lice, most of those with many lice each, right here where I keep my boat in Quathiaski Cove, Quadra Island, last spring, 2009. Is that normal? I don't think so. I didn't see DFO checking. I didn't see salmon farmers checking. Thankfully, I did see someone checking, a boat and young man I recognized to be Jody Eriksson, setting a small net in the north cove. He was carefully netting and counting fish and lice, doing what we would hope and expect Fisheries and our government ought to do, or fund. The small funding for this study comes from a coalition of concerned groups including the Georgia Strait Alliance. Vital salmon protection research should not be a charity cause relying on volunteers and donations.

At that time I wondered how all those little salmon could be bringing so many lice with them as they migrated north out of Georgia Strait. But this spring a video was taken of the outfall at Walcan fish processing plant showing the thick plume of blood and fish bits that was found to have lice as well. And what other diseases potentially? The strong currents here easily spread that around Discovery Passage. Jody says the numbers of sea lice are low in Georgia Strait, and increase dramatically at the entrance to Discovery Passage and in the eastern channels they increase in proximity to the fish farms. Do we require a salmon disaster in order to prove conclusively that this link is fact? Why should we agree to buck the odds here when salmon farming has worked out very badly for wild fish everywhere else on earth.

I am worried about all the good people working in the salmon farming industry. The precautionary principle indicates that, to save wild salmon, they will be put out of work unless the farms move on land or are contained and quarantined. The workers need a bailout from the same governments that ignored their own studies and authorized the great risks that put workers in this position in the first place.

What to do? This a problem of political will. We need to ask our politicians at all levels if they put wild salmon first. Ask them. How much risk to wild stocks do you think is appropriate? Don't you believe that wild salmon are the lifeblood of the coast? Listen and vote. Salmon are sacred.

I'm going to Victoria on Saturday May 8 to join the last part of the Get Out Migration walk to the Legislative Buildings with Alexandra Morton. (Ms. Morton I am sorry I didn't support you better, sooner.) It is a political demonstration for the hearts and minds of the electorate and politicians, full of signs and slogans. Come along too, we need to do this, salmon are sacred. I mean to say SalmonAreSacred.org. See the whole picture. Walk on.

Rick Hackinen,

Quadra Island

http://www2.canada.com/courierislan...l?id=a91c2e1c-bc15-4ea9-9988-5f8203a013cc&p=1
 
The Vancouver Sun, 14th May 2010

Is salmon farming sustainable?

By Chris Genovali, Special to the Sun

Mary Ellen Walling's opinion piece ( Farmed salmon is more than just another meal option, May 10) conveniently skips over every single substantive problem salmon aquaculture presents to the marine environment, both locally and globally.

One-dimensional economic arguments aside, the first and foremost concern should be whether farming carnivorous species such as salmon is sustainable. In order to farm salmon, harvesting of wild fish and krill for fishmeal is required to produce the feed.

Leading fisheries experts, such as Daniel Pauly of the UBC Fisheries Centre, have cautioned against "farming up the food web" because of the inefficient and wasteful use of biological resources, all of which are already used by humans and other organisms, and some of which are commercially valuable. Estimates indicate that farming salmon requires anywhere from two to four kilograms of wild fish to produce one kilogram of farmed fish. In contrast, farming herbivorous species, like tilapia and carp, requires minimal inputs of fishmeal.

Corey Peet is an ecologist researching the impacts of aquaculture on the marine environment. As he explains: "Natural food webs take the shape of a pyramid. At the bottom of the pyramid lies an abundance of organisms that gain their energy directly from the sun or chemical processes. The next step up the pyramid are the slightly less abundant organisms, mostly herbivores, that feed on those below them. With each step up the pyramid, only 10 per cent of the energy is passed on to the next step, as 90 per cent of energy is lost to heat. Therefore, fewer organisms can be supported as you step up the pyramid, leaving only a few predatory species at the apex. There is a reason why we only see a few carnivores in the wild; nature only has so much energy to go around. Thus, when we consider the farming of salmon against the fundamental basics of ecology, it makes no sense to claim that this practice is sustainable."

With the majority of the world's fisheries in crisis, scientific evidence suggests that salmon farming is hurting more than helping the global fishery problem. In fact, the volume of harvested fish required to support the salmon farming industry in Europe is larger than the productivity of the entire North Sea, requiring the industry to depend heavily on fishmeal imported from South America. The practice of taking protein sources from the Southern Hemisphere raises significant ecological concerns. The aquaculture industry in this province is also accessing, inadvertently or not, B.C.'s wild fisheries to feed its farmed salmon. Although the industry will claim that it is continuing to lower its dependence upon marine derived protein through the development of alternative feeds, such as soy protein, these gains have been offset by the rapid growth of the industry.

Peet also points out that more than 85 per cent of the world's aquaculture production, primarily in Asia, involves the use of non-carnivorous species (freshwater fish, shellfish, and seaweed), and this has resulted in global aquaculture production adding to world seafood supplies. However, while the global aquaculture industry is a net fish protein producer, aquaculture of carnivorous fish is a net fish consumer.

Past and current scientific information suggests that farming salmon and other carnivores is not sustainable, contrary to industry claims. Farming carnivores is inherently illogical from an ecological perspective and layering additional risk factors, such as disease transfer and sea lice infestation, upon B.C.'s salmon via open net-pen aquaculture when our wild stocks are already under a suite of pressures makes no sense at all.

Accommodating salmon aquaculture in B.C., whether it is by eco-certifying "good" farmed salmon versus "bad" farmed salmon, or promoting closed containment or land based systems, will likely prove fruitless, unfortunately, as the industry has shown time and again it has no serious interest in embracing alternative technology. In light of this continuing intransigence, it might be time that multinational aquaculture corporations just got out of B.C. Period.

Chris Genovali is executive director of Raincoast Conservation Foundation.
http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/salmon+farming+sustainable/3026596/story.html
 
Hey Agent,

Have you read tyher report by Dr Wright on the Viable Technologies for salmon aqauculture that the SOS group is flaunting as proof that closed containment works?

Notice anything wrong with it? I don't mean in the grossly overstated revenue stream value and the resulting inflated profits. I mean in the heart of his proposal?

His production timetable indicates an annual production of 880 mt not the 1750 mt he predicts. He obfiously has not taken a look at this on a rotating calender. Since 2 types of fish cannot occupy the same tank. He must wait until the first crop exits before he can use the tank space he allocated for the second. Under his scheme in each 100mt cell he says he can produce 4 crops of 44 mt one each quarter. In reality he can only produce 2. And no matter how you arrange it the 10 cells will only produce 880 mt per year.

Too bad cause he does a good job of explaining the technolgoies involved. and he is quite right, the technologies are both off the shelf and have been available for years. Don't you think that if it was really as rosy a profit picture as is potrayed that some other company and not necessarily a fish farming company would have set one of these up already?
 
quote:Originally posted by sockeyefry

Hey Agent,

Have you read tyher report by Dr Wright on the Viable Technologies for salmon aqauculture that the SOS group is flaunting as proof that closed containment works?

Notice anything wrong with it? I don't mean in the grossly overstated revenue stream value and the resulting inflated profits. I mean in the heart of his proposal?

His production timetable indicates an annual production of 880 mt not the 1750 mt he predicts. He obfiously has not taken a look at this on a rotating calender. Since 2 types of fish cannot occupy the same tank. He must wait until the first crop exits before he can use the tank space he allocated for the second. Under his scheme in each 100mt cell he says he can produce 4 crops of 44 mt one each quarter. In reality he can only produce 2. And no matter how you arrange it the 10 cells will only produce 880 mt per year.

Too bad cause he does a good job of explaining the technolgoies involved. and he is quite right, the technologies are both off the shelf and have been available for years. Don't you think that if it was really as rosy a profit picture as is potrayed that some other company and not necessarily a fish farming company would have set one of these up already?
Click to expand...
No I haven't. Got a web address for that report, SF?
 
How fish can tell us what we are doing wrong

'Fish are the canaries in the mine shaft,' SFU biologist says as university hosts symposium aimed at finding new ways to track pollution

By Randy Shore, Vancouver Sun May 18, 2010

Vancouver Sun Files / The way that sea lice jump from one salmon to another was a key discovery in a study of an infestation of the parasite in the Broughton Archipelago.

Vancouver Sun Files / The way that sea lice jump from one salmon to another was a key discovery in a study of an infestation of the parasite in the Broughton Archipelago.
Photograph by: Bill Keay, Vancouver Sun

Fish can tell us about the environmental stressors that are depleting their numbers in B.C. and around the world, if we can just figure out what they are saying, according to an organizer of an international symposium on fish behaviour.

"Fish are the canaries in the mine shaft," said Felix Breden, chairman of SFU's biology department. "They can help us learn much more about climate change and human impacts on the environment."

"The missing sockeye in the Fraser River are obviously telling us that there is a problem," he said, citing B.C.'s most infamous ecological mystery.

More than 100 scientists who have gathered at Simon Fraser University this week are pooling their knowledge to find novel ways to use observed fish behaviour to monitor pollutants in the environment.

Projects at SFU studying the effects of environmental estrogens and estrogen mimics (which mimic the action of the body's natural estrogen) are getting sobering data about what constitutes a safe level of such pollutants, Breden noted.

"They were having trouble finding a concentration low enough that it wouldn't have an effect on the fish," said Breden. "The genes governing reproduction are so sensitive that even the tiniest amount would turn on some of the genes they were watching."

Sometimes real sleuthing is required to determine just whose behaviour bears watching.

While studying the effects of sea-lice infestation on salmon in the Broughton Archipelago, researcher Brendan Connors found that it wasn't so much the behaviour of the salmon that was telling. Rather, the unexpected acrobatics of the sea lice were key to the puzzle.

Pink salmon that return to salt water soon after hatching are particularly susceptible to sea-lice infestation because of their small size. In-water pens of farmed Atlantic salmon in the Broughton area are believed to release large amounts of sea-lice larvae that directly attack the pinks, said Connors, a behavioural ecologist.

"We were watching the behaviour of pinks and how sea lice influenced their interactions with other salmonids, such as coho, which feed aggressively on them," he said. But it wasn't so much what the pinks did, but the sea lice. "

A by-product of some of our early experimental work was [finding out] that sea lice are adept at jumping off of the pink salmon as they are being eaten and attaching themselves to the coho that were eating them," he said. "The infected pinks were passing on a portion of their parasite burden to the coho."

Connors and his associates examined the coho returns to watersheds in the mid-coast region to see how their health compared to that of coho populations that were feeding in areas further from known outbreaks of sea lice.

"What we showed was that their populations have suffered and were depressed during a period that coincided with elevated sea-louse infestations," he said. "We can see how the behaviour of juvenile salmon is influenced by a human activity, which is fish farming, and what the consequences of that are."

The 2010 Ecological and Evolutionary Ethology of Fishes symposium continues to May 20.
© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/fish+tell+what+doing+wrong/3040755/story.html#ixzz0oJMlz6jD
 
Agent,

I guess I thought you had read it because you posted the article about it. I do not know the website proper, but if you google: SOS Marine Conservation Foundation you should get the home page.

He does a very good job of the presentation, and has covered alot of the areas requiring attention. I think he needs to revisit his production schedule, and maybe change his recirc system. This may not make it as good a money maker, but will certainly make it more realistic, whereever the economics end up.
 
quote:Originally posted by sockeyefry

Agent,

I guess I thought you had read it because you posted the article about it. I do not know the website proper, but if you google: SOS Marine Conservation Foundation you should get the home page.

He does a very good job of the presentation, and has covered alot of the areas requiring attention. I think he needs to revisit his production schedule, and maybe change his recirc system. This may not make it as good a money maker, but will certainly make it more realistic, whereever the economics end up.
Click to expand...
Ya, I did that when the news article first came-out (but didn't revisit that process until now)- and didn't find it. Tried it again, and I found it at:
http://www.saveoursalmon.ca/files/May_draft_05-04-10.pdf

Guess the news report was ahead of the website update. I'll have a read...
 
quote:Originally posted by sockeyefry

Hey Agent,

Have you read tyher report by Dr Wright on the Viable Technologies for salmon aqauculture that the SOS group is flaunting as proof that closed containment works?

Notice anything wrong with it? I don't mean in the grossly overstated revenue stream value and the resulting inflated profits. I mean in the heart of his proposal?

His production timetable indicates an annual production of 880 mt not the 1750 mt he predicts. He obfiously has not taken a look at this on a rotating calender. Since 2 types of fish cannot occupy the same tank. He must wait until the first crop exits before he can use the tank space he allocated for the second. Under his scheme in each 100mt cell he says he can produce 4 crops of 44 mt one each quarter. In reality he can only produce 2. And no matter how you arrange it the 10 cells will only produce 880 mt per year.

Too bad cause he does a good job of explaining the technolgoies involved. and he is quite right, the technologies are both off the shelf and have been available for years. Don't you think that if it was really as rosy a profit picture as is potrayed that some other company and not necessarily a fish farming company would have set one of these up already?
Click to expand...
Had a quick skim of it...

Well numbers are your field of expertise, SF. I don't dispute what you are saying, except to point -out:

1/ does the extra tank space required mean it becomes economically un-viable, or just less financially rewarding?

2/ the reviewers include quite a number of noted pro-industry types, including:

a/ Dr. Myron Roth, British Columbia Ministry of Agriculture and Lands
b/ Andrew Thompson, Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada
c/ Dr. Brian Riddell, Pacific Salmon Foundation
d/ Mr. John Holder, JLH Consulting Inc.
e/ Professor John Reynolds, SFU & Pacific Salmon Forum
f/ Donald W. MacQuarrie, Aquaculture Biologist, Unlimited Aquaculture Corporation
g/ Ian G. Shand, Aquaculture Technologist, Unlimited Aquaculture Corporation
h/ Gary Myers, AquaMaof Aquaculture Technologies, Ltd

Think they didn't catch the error? why, do you think?

3/ I liked the understatement (p.8): "Biological security, defined by a range of parameters, is non-existent in an ocean net-pen, leaving the operator exposed to a huge “value at risk”, for whole harvests of cohorts can be lost due to disease outbreak."

The reciprocal corollary to this acknowledgment (by those pro-industry types listed above) is: "Biological security, defined by a range of parameters, is non-existent in an ocean net-pen, leaving the public exposed to a huge “value at risk”, for whole watersheds of cohorts can be lost due to disease outbreak."

That's the crux of the problem with open net-cage technology.

4/ Even if the profits are not as large as open net-cage technology (not sure if they are, or not) - don't you think we should be using closed systems for all the obvious reasons?
 
Hey Agent,

1) I don't know the answer to this question, but either having the annual production cut in half or having to build and operate twice as many tanks to get the projected production can't be good for the bottom line.

2) Maybe because they are not looking at it ther same way I would. When you grow fish, especially whe you are trying to get multiple crops out of a facility, and reduce the number of tanks required you have to look at what tanks are occupied when. You can't have the same tank trying to grow 2 different crops at the same time. There fore you have to wait until the previous crop vacates the tanks before you can start the second. Somewhere in the tank usage scheme there always is a bottle neck which must be dealt with. I guess Dr Wright and the reviewers did not subject the production plan to a tank usage test. It of course was the first thing I did when I read the report. The problem with this plan is it requires the tanks to produce a crop per quarter, but with the way he has the tank timetable laid out, it is not possible. Each phase must last 1 quarter. He has an intermediate grow phase lasting 2 quarters, which requires a delay in the start of the next crop to allow for these tanks to become empty in order for the crop to move through the system.

3) Yes, a net pen is wide open. The key is of course to ensure clean stocks are used, but a RAS would pose very minimal risk. Interesting way to spin the corollary. Although I do not believe that net pen farms have that big of an impact, I get your point.

4) Problem with CC is that the profits are very limited at best. The return on investment is not there. Its not that it cannot be done because it is being done all over the world with various species. The problem is enticing investors to part with their money on the promise of such slim returns. What you need is some one or company with alot of money. alot of patience, and a love for salomon farming from a technical or culural aspect.

This Dr. Wright seems to have alot of stuff worked out in his paper. Alot of it makes sense. I would like to help him out with his production planning and RAS management, but do not have a contact for him.
 
Look look Sockeye, not so many months ago you wanted to tell us that there is NO technology available that could ever work for closed containment without huge economic losses. I told you right there that this is BS and only based on blind denial and outright greed. If the industry was forced to make the appropriate changes you will see how fast and simple it will be possible all of a sudden. Shame shame that your alike's own ethics weren't able to pull this off but instead you will have to be forced to be smarter than you pretend to be. Values first, money second - not reverse.
 
Sockeye I think the biggest issue is that like every investor big or small expects too big a return on the dollar. That problem occurs in every business. I would call it greed. I as an investor in some stocks is just as guilty. This creates a huge barrier for environmental concerns.:D

IMG_1445.jpg
 
I never said that the tech did not exist, but simply that the economics do not make sense to an investor. You see you need the people to put up the money, and they will not do it unless they have a reasonable expectation of a profit. Closed containment does not have a reasonable expectation of a profit without being very optomistic on the cost of production and the sale price paid.

Yes Greed is one of the seven sins is it not

Thanks Charlie, i will try that site.
 
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