Innovation in a 'tight' spot
Scotland's Salar Solutions believes its Smoltscreen can keep out sea lice while allowing seawater to pass through. However, one word means the solution falls outside Norway's environmental flexibility scheme - and things won't change for now, insists ministry's head of aquaculture.
Published
The aquaculture chief at Norway’s Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Fisheries has reiterated that a Scotland firm’s lice-proof pen liner doesn’t meet the requirements for its environmental flexibility scheme, which allows fish farmers to use suspended production capacity in floating closed containment.
Salar Solutions has developed Smoltscreen, a permeable fine-meshed fabric that will keep sea lice and jellyfish out of salmon cages.
Model tests at Sintef Ocean showed, according to the company, that the solution can work without pumps. Calculations showed that the water in a 23,000m³ cage can be replaced in less than three minutes if the site has sufficient water flow.
The company believes the technology may be relevant for fish farmers who have had their production capacity reduced in red production areas.
Requires a 'tight' barrier
However, today it falls outside the environmental flexibility scheme.
The reason is that the scheme requires a “tight” barrier, and that precludes the permable Smoltscreen, even though it ticks the same boxes as an impermeable “bag” inside a net.
In response to enquiries from Fish Farming Expert’s Norwegian sister site, Kyst.no, Yngve Torgersen, head of the ministry’s aquaculture department, said the requirement for a tight barrier was selected based on the risk the ministry believes the scheme should address.
“The requirement for a tight barrier, which prevents natural water flow between the farming volume and the surrounding environment, was chosen, among other things, based on the desired risk profile for the scheme,” Torgersen told Kyst.no.
The requirement follows from Section 15 of the Production Area Regulations.
Must follow existing conditions
Kyst.no asked whether a solution that lets water through, but documents that it keeps sea lice out, could still be included in the scheme.
Torgersen pointed out that current conditions must be met.
“At the current time, the conditions in Section 15, first paragraph, of the Production Area Regulations must be met in order for production to be included in the scheme.”
He also emphasised that other technologies can be used in ordinary production if they otherwise meet the requirements of the aquaculture regulations.
No immediate plans for change
Salar Solutions has previously said that its Norwegian advisor Inaq has been in dialogue with the ministry about the solution.
The company believes that a fine-meshed, permeable cloth should be able to fulfill the purpose of the scheme if it can document that sea lice are kept out.
However, the ministry is not signalling any imminent rule changes.
“The ministry has no immediate plans to change the scheme. We would like to emphasise that we are positive about technological developments that can lead to an improvement in the environmental situation, and technological developments are something we continuously monitor,” said Torgersen.
He concluded by saying that the ministry is keen to receive input from industry players.
“We have many meetings and meeting points with various stakeholders. We always take their input further into our work.”
Smoltscreen is produced in Norway by Plany AS.
