Regulators and industry defend BC's new rules
A letter from a group of 120 Eastern Canada business leaders, commercial and recreational fishing associations, scientists and environmentalists urged the federal government not to implement proposed regulation changes.
In a response to the letter Francis Campbell of the Chronicle Herald reports, Aquaculture Management Director with DFO (the Department of Fisheries and Oceans) Eric Gilbert said that concerns about proposed changes to aquaculture regulations are unfounded. “I’ve read the letter that was sent to the Prime Minister, and I was a bit surprised with words like exemptions to the Fisheries Act and less oversight, when in fact the proposed aquaculture changes will increase oversight”. According to the newspaper; The group believes that changes would exempt the aquaculture industry from Fisheries Act provisions that prohibit the release of harmful substances into waters frequented by wild fish. “The bottom line is that we’re going to, for the first time, have regulations under the Fisheries Act dealing with aquacultural activity,” Gilbert said. “We are imposing new rules on the industry in order to make sure that the industry will comply with the Fisheries Act.”
DFO reportedly explained that; Aquaculture operators will be forced to provide written reports of alternatives to pesticide and drug use that were considered before using any regulated products, to have mitigation measures in place to minimize potential negative impacts on wild fish species and to report these activities to the department annually. The department will then make the overall data available to the public.
Gilbert also took the letter-writing group to task for suggesting that new pesticides could easily be introduced under the regulation changes. He said that hydrogen peroxide and Salmosan are the only two pesticide products the aquaculture industry now uses. “Hydrogen peroxide does its job rapidly, in less than a few hours, and it has a very, very low impact after it does its job,” Gilbert said.
There is more risk related to Salmosan, but Gilbert said 99 per cent of the pesticide used in the aquaculture industry is hydrogen peroxide. “These two products, the federal government has to authorize the use of them, and they do a risk assessment. New products would go through the authorization process.”
He said new products might be approved, but the product and the company or individual using them would be put to a rigorous test. “Our mandate is all about protecting the commercial fishery. Aquaculture is a legal fishery, but to allow a product to be used by that industry, we need to be totally confident that the impacts are manageable and that the mitigation measures in place are doing their jobs.”
And the Executive Director of the Atlantic Canada Fish Farmers Association, Pamela Parker, said to CBC News correspondent Neville Crabbe that the new rules proposed for the aquaculture industry will improve the environmental performance of salmon farmers. "What this is actually, we believe, going to do is strengthen the environmental protection measures." Parker says that the Fisheries Act, which prohibits depositing toxins or waste in the marine environment, is not suited to fish farming. "It was never intended to manage a food production industry like aquaculture." Parker says the result is a cumbersome mix of provincial and federal rules with no clear standard across the country. "What this [new] regulation is trying to do is clearly articulate what is in the federal baliwick and what is in the provincial." Pamela Parker says Canadians can be confident about the use of Salmosan and hydrogen peroxide. "Salmosan and hydrogen peroxide pose little to no risk to either the marine environment or the fisheries."
