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[absolon]

It is a mark of modern society that people have very short attention spans.

Thanks for that link. It indicates that Morton's charity alone was re-granted by other charities some $360,000 in the years 2006 through 2010, a number that considerably exceeds the funds raised from other sources. It doesn't, however, indicate who provided that funding or for what purpose.

[chris gadsden]

Fish health regulations called inadequate
 Ex-government biologist questions federal assurances on salmon virus
 By Judith Lavoie, Times Colonist December 13, 2011   Canada's fish health regulations are not stringent enough to prevent viruses from being imported to West Coast fish farms on Atlantic salmon eggs, says a former high-level provincial government fisheries biologist.

Sally Goldes, fish health unit section head at the B.C. Environment Ministry for 17 years, has submitted a paper to the Cohen Commission on the decline of Fraser River sockeye that says iodine treatment of eggs and the testing of overseas providers of salmon eggs - Canada's defence against disease transmission - are inadequate.

Goldes' submission will be made public this week when the commission holds special hearings focusing on the Infectious Salmon Anemia virus.

"The data - [inadequate sample sizes, ineffectiveness of iodine disinfection, etc.] suggests that the current Canada Fish Health Protection Rules do not provide a high level of regulatory security against the introduction of ISAV into British Columbia," the paper concludes.

"It is important to remember that iodine disinfection does not kill ISAV present inside the egg and it is unknown whether ISAV is in this location."

Salmon farms in B.C. import Atlantic salmon eggs from such countries as Britain, the U.S. and Iceland.

The virus has devastated fish farms in Chile and Norway and is also present in Atlantic Canada.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency announced in a news conference this month that no confirmed cases of the disease have been found in wild or farmed salmon in B.C.

Their tests followed others in separate laboratories that found weak positives for ISA.

It was also revealed this month that tests conducted more than a decade ago found the virus in more than 100 B.C. fish.

However, those tests were discounted by officials with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency as unconfirmed.

Goldes, who has not worked as a fisheries biologist since 2001, said she has kept up with all the literature and debate around the virus.

She is concerned ISA could be introduced to B.C. waters and spread to already stressed wild salmon populations.

"If you really look closely at the regulations, from a scientific basis, there is not the high degree of protection that the government, and particularly DFO, states that they have," Goldes said. "It's an issue of trust."

Iodine treatment is designed to rid egg surfaces of bacteria.

"It does that job relatively effectively, but ISA is a virus and is a very different beast," Goldes said.

"I have also always had concerns about the testing of source facilities where the eggs come from," she said.

Goldes would not speculate on whether ISA is present in B.C. waters.

"I think DFO and CFIA have a lot more work to do. I think that press conference was entirely premature," she said.

"The problem is that DFO has a dual mandate for aquaculture and wild fish, and the decisions are political."

B.C. Salmon Farmers Association executive director Mary Ellen Walling said she has not seen the paper and cannot speak to it because of an undertaking not to talk about Cohen Commission evidence until it is made public.

"I am respecting the agreement we all made as part of this process," she said.

"It is unfortunate it is being raised in this way as we are unable to respond. It's not the first time this has happened during this process."

jlavoie@timescolonist.com


Read more: http://www.timescolonist.com/news/Fish+health+regulations+called+inadequate/5850976/story.html#ixzz1gS2HCGTv

[chris gadsden]

Hello Wild Salmon People;

The work we have done together looking for ISA virus and making it public has prompted the Cohen Commission to reopen on the Thursday this week (Dec. 15, 16, 19).  In preparation for this I have done a blog quoting government's fierce internal debate over importing Atlantics into BC.  You can see there are heroes in DFO and the Ministry of Environment who were silenced by the looming threat of Trade Sanctions.  Real or imagined you can see this pressure degraded the safeguards.  Interestingly, first industry brought in Scottish eggs (1985), but stopped suddenly and lobbied for U.S. eggs. Large numbers of eggs poured in from the U.S. and then abruptly stopped.  Industry then pressured DFO to allow Icelandic eggs.  DFO drops the regulations further and eggs flood in from Iceland, and then abruptly stop in 2009.  April 2010, the salmon farmers decide they don't want the provincial government auditing their farms for viruses.  No matter whether we are talking about exotic or endemic viruses, salmon farms destabilize the relationship between pathogen and host.  If commerce and not biology regulates how we deal with disease - we are in trouble.

I think it is important to recognize there have been and still are heroic efforts from within government to protect our fish from disease. Today, Dr. Sally Goldes who headed the provincial fish health lab stepped forward in the Times Colonist to say we never had effective measures against imported viruses. (see my blog).  We need to support these people to represent our need for wild salmon.

I understand the Cohen Commission is refusing to allow live-streaming of this public inquiry.  There are people who have stepped up to do this at no charge.  You can voice an opinion on this: http://www.cohencommission.ca/en/submissions/SubmissionForm.php
Carla Shore carla.shore@cohencommission.ca 604-658-3646, Cell: 604-329-0975 Ms. Shore is only the messenger, you will need to convince Justice Bruce Cohen

This a public inquiry into a public resource,  we are paying for the court time, the lawyers, the judge and the salaries of some of the people on the stand. It is open to the public who can afford to make the trip,  so why can't everyone listen in as they did earlier this year?  What about the people 900km up the Fraser River, don't they get the right  listen too?

Check for times and location at cohencommission.ca go to "Calendar and Transcripts" - it is in a new location

I will be blogging daily at http://alexandramorton.typepad.com, there will be live-blogging at the salmon are sacred Facebook page, hopefully we can inspire Cohen to make this public Inquiry - public to the people of Canada.

There is no question we are in troubled times.  But I think it is important to remember that the reason industry pressured government allow them to pour Atlantic salmon into the Pacific was to make money off the enormous capacity of the North Pacific to grow fish.  If salmon farms contaminate these waters what is the point?   They will lose what they came for, and we will lose what we have.

They can make deals, rationalize bad behaviour, give corporations more rights than local people, but if they destroy what they so blindly pursue - what is the point?

We need to find solid ground and stand on it.  Salmon disease is not a federal secret. These hearings are very, very important.

Alexandra Morton

[alwaysfishn]

It is a mark of modern society that people have very short attention spans.

Thanks for that link. It indicates that Morton's charity alone was re-granted by other charities some $360,000 in the years 2006 through 2010, a number that considerably exceeds the funds raised from other sources. It doesn't, however, indicate who provided that funding or for what purpose.

As a salmon farm supporter, I am sure you would like to see her muzzled, her computer confiscated and all her funding cut off! Thank goodness that there are people out there who are supporting her in the fight to save wild salmon.

How much money has DFO and the fish farms pumped into that industry to try and get the public to believe it is harmless to the wild fish? I think you would agree that Morton's $90,000 a year is a pittance against the resources of the fish farm proponents. I believe I heard somewhere that the recent fish farm advertising was costing over $3,000,000.....   and that has been spent in less than 6 months. I'm amazed that Morton has been able to accomplish so much with so little!

[alwaysfishn]

Fish health regulations called inadequate
 Ex-government biologist questions federal assurances on salmon virus
 By Judith Lavoie, Times Colonist December 13, 2011   Canada's fish health regulations are not stringent enough to prevent viruses from being imported to West Coast fish farms on Atlantic salmon eggs, says a former high-level provincial government fisheries biologist.

Sally Goldes, fish health unit section head at the B.C. Environment Ministry for 17 years, has submitted a paper to the Cohen Commission on the decline of Fraser River sockeye that says iodine treatment of eggs and the testing of overseas providers of salmon eggs - Canada's defence against disease transmission - are inadequate.

"The problem is that DFO has a dual mandate for aquaculture and wild fish, and the decisions are political."

No kidding!

[Dave]

Years ago I worked with Dr. Goldes and I certainly respect her knowledge on these matters.  The iodine bath she mentions is standard procedure for surface disinfection in most hatcheries to prevent vertical transmission of pathogens, and is a protocol strictly adhered to when incubating Cultus Lake sockeye eggs. 
Sockeye are particularly susceptible to Infectious Hematopoietic Necrosis (IHN), a virus found throughout the Fraser River watershed and probably throughout North America. The iodine bath most certainly kills this virus and to my knowledge, IHN has never been transmitted during this program or at any other salmon hatchery, because of this precautionary bath.
The big question of course is if it turns out ISAv is resistant to this iodine treatment (which I doubt), why have there been no outbreaks of this disease in BC farmed Atlantic's?

Looking forward to what comes next  

[absolon]

Once again, I will point you at the fact that DFO has a dual mandate because Morton carried the battle to court to make that so. I'll say it yet again.

DFO has a dual mandate because Morton caused that to happen.

It is up to her to explain why she fought so hard for something she thinks so unconscionable.




As a supporter of the truth, I think the best thing that can happen with Morton is that she remain front and center. She remains her own worst enemy; her actions remain the greatest threat to her own declining credibility. What I would like to see, as I indicated to you earlier, is an accounting of who is supporting her with grant money. As I also indicated to you earlier, Morton does not reveal who is sponsoring her campaign.

I'm sure you are completely aware that $360,000 is only the amount that has been provided to Morton; there are many other ENGOs involved in this campaign and all of them feed at the same teat. The sums involved grossly exceed Morton's share. The industry is finally fighting back against the misinformation campaign; though many think they should have started long ago, I understand the tactical reasons why they haven't. Any response by the industry represents earned media for the reactionaries and contributes to raising their profile, a concept well understood by the reactionary campaign strategists and the farm industry. Problems aren't solved by trying them in the media nor are they adjudicated by the uninformed public. Co-operating with the reactionary agenda by responding to every little provocation is a waste of energy and funds and does not promote solutions. Morton wants to fight to evict the industry; the industry wants to work with the regulators to find ways to make farming safer and more efficient. Obviously, the industry will favour a constructive solution over reacting to Morton.

[absolon]

Years ago I worked with Dr. Goldes and I certainly respect her knowledge on these matters.  The iodine bath she mentions is standard procedure for surface disinfection in most hatcheries to prevent vertical transmission of pathogens, and is a protocol strictly adhered to when incubating Cultus Lake sockeye eggs. 
Sockeye are particularly susceptible to Infectious Hematopoietic Necrosis (IHN), a virus found throughout the Fraser River watershed and probably throughout North America. The iodine bath most certainly kills this virus and to my knowledge, IHN has never been transmitted during this program or at any other salmon hatchery, because of this precautionary bath.
The big question of course is if it turns out ISAv is resistant to this iodine treatment (which I doubt), why have there been no outbreaks of this disease in BC farmed Atlantic's?

Looking forward to what comes next  

Goldes also overlooks the required quarantine rearing and ongoing screening program (including ISAV testing) that has always been in place when eggs are imported. The products of those eggs are never released from quarantine until they have been certified clear. The other elephant in the room, as you suggest, is that nearly 5000 farmed fish have been tested over the last ten years or so and no trace of the virus has ever turned up nor has there ever been an ISA outbreak among farmed stocks. It would appear that the procedures Goldes deems to have been inadequate have been completely adequate.

[alwaysfishn]

Once again, I will point you at the fact that DFO has a dual mandate because Morton carried the battle to court to make that so. I'll say it yet again.

DFO has a dual mandate because Morton caused that to happen.

It is up to her to explain why she fought so hard for something she thinks so unconscionable.

You fail to recognize that prior to DFO taking on the responsibility, the provincial government had taken on the mandate of implementing the fish farms. This of course was totally illegal and actually a worse situation than what we have now. Putting the blame on Morton for organizing who legally had the mandate to administer fish farms is lame.

As a supporter of the truth, I think the best thing that can happen with Morton is that she remain front and center. She remains her own worst enemy; her actions remain the greatest threat to her own declining credibility. What I would like to see, as I indicated to you earlier, is an accounting of who is supporting her with grant money. As I also indicated to you earlier, Morton does not reveal who is sponsoring her campaign.

Your concern over Morton's credibility rings hollow....... stick to criticizing her. It helps you sound more genuine. 

Morton obviously abides by all of CRA's rules on disclosure otherwise she would have been de-registered.

[Dave]

Your concern over Morton's credibility rings hollow....... stick to criticizing her. It helps you sound more genuine. 

You once said that about me - best to find some new stuff af
Will you be at the rally against farmed salmon here in Chilliwack on Thursday?

[chris gadsden]

You once said that about me - best to find some new stuff af
Will you be at the rally against farmed salmon here in Chilliwack on Thursday?

I believe Dave will have a change of heart on Thursday and will be marching with us, with a placard too, not sure what irt will say though.

[Dave]

I believe Dave will have a change of heart on Thursday and will be marching with us, with a placard too, not sure what irt will say though.

Gawd, I do indeed need to see this but Chris, I won't be marching with you; but you knew that .  Should be fun and we all will see who aligns where, politically.

[alwaysfishn]

You once said that about me - best to find some new stuff af
Will you be at the rally against farmed salmon here in Chilliwack on Thursday?

If the shoe fits....... and apparently both of you wear the same size.   

It's the last day of "wild" blacktail season so I'll be climbing the hills looking for one.

[absolon]

You fail to recognize that prior to DFO taking on the responsibility, the provincial government had taken on the mandate of implementing the fish farms. This of course was totally illegal and actually a worse situation than what we have now. Putting the blame on Morton for organizing who legally had the mandate to administer fish farms is lame.

Your concern over Morton's credibility rings hollow....... stick to criticizing her. It helps you sound more genuine.  

Morton obviously abides by all of CRA's rules on disclosure otherwise she would have been de-registered.

You're missing the point, intentionally I suspect due to the thorny nature of the problem. If DFO is legally required to administer fish farms and is also legally required to administer the wild fishery how can you then complain that the situation is untenable. What can the DFO possibly do to appease Morton when she says it is a conflict of interest for the DFO to administer both and yet goes to court to force the DFO to take on salmon farming in addition to it's previously existing wild fishery mandate? Should they now divest themselves of responsibility for the wild fishery? Instead of pitching rocks, maybe you would take the time to explain how this Morton-created paradox can be solved. It's a textbook example of accommodating cognitive dissonance to not see the issue here.

CRA's disclosure rules are irrelevant in this case. Those are tax laws. We really need to be looking at laws that apply to lobbyists, and rules for lobbyists require that they disclose who they are acting for. It is in the public interest to know who is backing Morton's and the other participating ENGOs campaign to dismantle an industry that contributes substantially to the provincial economy. That we don't, that it hasn't been volunteered by Morton, suggests that she thinks it is better that we don't know.

[alwaysfishn]

You're missing the point, intentionally I suspect due to the thorny nature of the problem. If DFO is legally required to administer fish farms and is also legally required to administer the wild fishery how can you then complain that the situation is untenable. What can the DFO possibly do to appease Morton when she says it is a conflict of interest for the DFO to administer both and yet goes to court to force the DFO to take on salmon farming in addition to it's previously existing wild fishery mandate? Should they now divest themselves of responsibility for the wild fishery? Instead of pitching rocks, maybe you would take the time to explain how this Morton-created paradox can be solved. It's a textbook example of accommodating cognitive dissonance to not see the issue here.

CRA's disclosure rules are irrelevant in this case. Those are tax laws. We're really need to be looking at laws that apply to lobbyists here, and rules for lobbyists require that they disclose who they are acting for. It is in the public interest to know who is backing Morton's and the other participating ENGOs campaign to dismantle an industry that contributes substantially to the provincial economy. That we don't, that it hasn't been volunteered by Morton suggests that she thinks it is better that we don't know.

Oceans are constitutionally required to be under federal jurisdiction and until Morton challenged it in court, BC was messing in that area. The courts straightened everyone out, all Morton did was bring it to their attention. DFO is doing what the government of the day asks them to do. One way to avoid the obvious conflict of interest that DFO is in, would be for the government to move the responsibility for these farms to another agency....   Salmon farming was obviously not well thought out since the beginning!

If the supporters haven't been been disclosed, how can you even suggest they are lobbyists??  After all you are the ultimate "supporter of truth".  

They are probably just concerned citizens like myself who fear the demise of the wild salmon and are putting their money where their mouth is. The honorable thing about these folks is they are doing it because they care about the wild salmon.