Not all salmon farmers comply with industrial liquid waste regulations

Kate Casey In May of the year 2000 Chilean Legislature approved the Executive Decree Num. 90 – “Regulation of the discharge of industrial liquid waste within surface waters”. Although the decree was announced in 2000 it was not enacted until September of 2006. The Superintendent of Sanitary Services (SISS), enforcing agency responsible for the regulation ran its first 6-month survey of compliance that finished in March of this year. Last week Visión Acuícola notified of a seminar titled, “Industrial liquid waste and the application of Executive Decree Num. 90 for salmon hatcheries and processing plants”. The purpose of the seminar organized by the SISS and Fundación Chile’s professional training company, Aquagestión Capacitación S.A., was to inform the salmon industry of its obligations specific to the decree. Simply put, the regulation states that any economic activity producing liquid waste levels equal or superior to the amount of sewage produced by a population of 100 must comply with the parameter limits defined in the decree. Carola Soto, regulation enforcement administrator of the SISS in the 10th Region, announced the results of the first compliance survey as “disappointing”. 32 companies within the 10th Region are under investigation for accounts of non-compliance, and 4 of these are salmon companies.