Volcano takes its toll
The recent eruptions have caused destruction all around Calbuco, due to pyroclastic material and ash covering the area to the north of the volcano and because of melted snow causing flooding to the south.
According to information provided by the Association of the Chilean Salmon Industry (Salmonchile), Chile has about 200 freshwater facilities, eight of which are in the emergency zone (20km radius from the volcano).
Regarding these eight freshwater sites, four freshwater facilities have severe or total damage, one has moved most of its fish and is still evalauting the damages, and three farms are still moving fish. The five damaged facilities represent 2.5 per cent of all the Chilean freshwater sites, according to Salmonchile.
The eight sites effected produce 28 million fish from a total of 300 million fish in freshwater stages currently being farmed in the country - around 8.3 per cent of Chile's freshwater production.
“The first production stage of fish can be replaced, so although losses cannot be quantifiable yet, they should only be incidental", said Salmonchile.
Likewise, Salmonchile considers that the emergency protocol activated by Sernapesca worked properly, granting special permissions that authorized movements of fish, under the biosafety conditions in force.
Company by company Invermar, which owns the freshwater site ‘Lago Verde’ reported a power outage that left this facility without electricity. “It is not yet possible to determine the extent of the damage, which will be reported as soon as we access the affected area”, said the company.
Australis Seafoods reported that, although its facilities and subsidiaries are not affected, there has been damage to third parties that may have effects on the company, including one hatchery of its supplier of eggs, Aquagen.
Patrick Dempster, general manager of Aquagen Chile, said that the hatchery ‘Río Sur’ "has disappeared”. He also commented that all their workers in the facility were evacuated within a half hour of the eruption and are in good condition. This loss represents about 70 per cent of Aquagen’s production of coho salmon eggs.
In addition, Australis Seafood informed they had 1,246,596 Atlantic salmon smolts in a farm belonging to Camanchaca, which is located within the emergency zone and reportedly is one of the most affected facilities.
Meanwhile, Camanchaca said its hatchery and smolt farm ‘Río Petrohue’ - located 14km from the volcano, has significant damage. By the eruption, the facility had 14.4 million fish at different life stages, and although not yet quantified, there are significant biomass losses.
"So far it has been noticed destruction in some roofs and structures because of the weight of the ash accumulated on them. However, the RAS system, filters and oxygen supply still work properly and have autonomy for five days,” said Camanchaca on April 24th.
Cermaq Chile confirmed severe damage in one of its broodstock farms, which housed its entire generation of coho salmon for 2015. The company emphasized they hold replicas of that genetic programme at other freshwater facilities. However, they considered the next generation of coho salmon as lost.
“Today, we completely lost our generation of eggs for the next cycle. This is a very challenging situation for our growing operations in Chile, but we are comforted knowing that all our colleagues and their families are safe and secure”, said the CEO of Cermaq Group, Jon Hindar.
Rodrigo Cid, general manager of Cultivos Yadrán, said its freshwater site ‘Los Tilcos’ would have no major problems, either in infrastructure or health of the fish, while its site ‘El Volcán’ presents larger damage, which has not been fully quantified yet. Meanwhile, the company’s freshwater manager said that apparently they have no losses in biomass.
Aquachile has three freshwater sites within the emergency zone. The company reported no damage to its facilities. Currently, the company is moving all their fish from the closest site to the volcano towards more distant facilities.
