Oscar Garay clearly refutes Marine Harvest’s position
Since General Manager Alberto Romero of Pesquera El Golfo criticized the salmon industry’s inability to recognize the sanitary hazards of continuing with smolt production in fresh water lakes and insists that farming concessions in lakes should be removed, an ongoing debate sparked throughout the industry. General Manager ¡lvaro JimÈnez of Marine Harvest Chile was one of the first to oppose of such a drastic measure (See 28.01.09 "Marine Harvest against the elimination of lake usage"). The ex-Director of Fresh Water for Marine Harvest Chile however, Oscar Garay, had this to say in Aqua.cl about his ex-employers stance, "I am in complete agreement with El Golfo. In fact, this was the route we took over seven years ago when the company was Fjord Seafood. Prior to the merge with Marine Harvest two years ago, we had moved completely out of the lakes." With respect to Marine Harvest Chile’s trust in both SalmonChile’s and Sernapesca’s new regulations to control the spread of infectious disease Garay adds, "The new measures established for the fresh water phase of production are basically intended to calm current fears, but in the long run their effects will be quite poor. The only way to get control of the current sanitary problem is to firstly get all of the broodstock in recirculation systems as soon as possible, and secondly put a parenthesis in the production cycle by not transferring smolt to sea for at least six months, ideally a year."
