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[aquapaloosa]

You seem fairly rehearsed  in the anti salmon farming arguments.  That is why I asked. 

[absolon]

Apparently Staniford has been bullied many times. The incident I referenced was when "Staniford said he faced his first legal threat in 2001 from a Scottish salmon farming company, but no trial ever took place".

Staniford has been very effective in revealing the short cuts that the salmon farming industry has been taking in their rush to generate profits for their shareholders without regard for the environment or in years past, people's health. He has called them to come clean on the use of malachite green, high levels of dioxin in their salmon, and the fact that it takes 3-4 kg of fish to grow 1 kg of farmed salmon. He has warned about the pollution that fish farms generate from the chemicals and salmon waste as well as the harm to wild salmon from the sea lice.

As a result governments around the world are requiring the feedlots to become more responsible in looking after the environment as well as the safety of the product they produce. The industry has obviously come a long way but until they become land based the industry will continue to pollute our environment. People like Staniford, Morton and others are critical to making the industry safe.

Don Staniford is seen as a formidable opponent of the fish feedlots and as such is going to continue to be bullied by them in an attempt to muzzle him.

It seems that Staniford has a history of legal trouble associated with his statements about salmon farms and after doing a bit of research, it seems he has something of a history of misuse of the truth as well; the latter seems to be the reason for the former. I don't think I'm inclined to take anything he says as gospel; you, however, are free to apply your own standards.

You have come on here purporting to be an expert on aquaculture..... and now you seem to be implying that you are an expert on legal matters. Your arrogance is unbelievable! If you stuck to the topic and provided input your attitude would be tolerable. Instead you belittle people and now you are threatening them. It may make you important in your own mind, it does nothing for your reputation on this board.

It does seem to be the fish farm industry's way to approach any adversity.

Does this mean I'm off the Christmas card list?

[alwaysfishn]

Does this mean I'm off the Christmas card list?

I won't answer that right now, as I have the whole year to think about it.

[Sandman]

I think it is time to reboot these arguments.  How about we take a moment to restate our arguments for our support of open net salmon farms vs our opposition to them.  Let us not "cut and paste" from other sources but simply state why we feel these "agri-businesses" should be allowed to continue to operate in BC waters.  I personally have been opposed to farming of Atlantic Salmon in BC waters from the beginning.  The idea that any level of government would allow and even promote the transplanting of an alien species in this day and age is beyond me.  There have been enough studies done on the negative impact of the introduction of an alien species into an ecosystem that the whole business should never have received approval in the first place.  The risks were simply too high.  Whether the current salmon farms in BC are responsible for the introduction or spread of ISA is, quite frankly, irrelevant. Many have argued that salmon farms are no different than the giant cattle and chicken feedlots that operate around the country and feed millions of North Americans, and no one is complaining about them.  Really? No one? Where have you been for the last 30 odd years?  The argument that salmon farms are necessary to feed the world's growing populations is laughable, just as it is laughable that there is a need for a quarter pounder or a bucket of chicken for dinner.  There is no need for these giant feedlots to feed the world's populations.  It is a want and nothing more.  The American (and Canadian) meat diet is not a "necessity" and in fact it is the very cause of many of the world's food shortage problems, as well as many of the world's environmental problems. It takes over 4 times as much land to grow feed for cattle than it does to grow food you would consume yourself.  From the sounds of the ratio of feed to pounds of harvested salmon, the same is the case for farmed salmon.  It has been argued that the farms are needed to meet the demand for salmon, a demand that would put undue pressure on wild salmon stocks.  This is only true if we accept that the rich restaurant patron in mid town USA needs a salmon dinner.  This is simply not the case.  She needs a salmon dinner as badly as I need an Australian orange (I saw some in my local grocery store today).  How much air plane fuel was consumed to ship that Australian orange to me?  Is it necessary?  Do I need an Orange from Australia?  Would an orange from California not due?  In fact, locally grown strawberries are a better source of Vitamin C, and with the help of greenhouses, we can get them practically year round.  Even if you were to accept the argument that we need feedlots to feed the masses (I personally do not buy that), the major difference between the cattle and chicken feedlots, just like a greenhouse (which has it's own negative environmental impacts), and open net salmon farms, is that the environmental outputs (be they excess fertilizer runoff, wastes, pesticides, etc) can be more easy controlled on land than in the open sea where environmental outputs are released unchecked, into the environment.  You do not need a Ph.D. in Biology to see that this is not responsible.  The only need associated with salmon farms is the need for profits.  You need profits to operate, you need profits to pay shareholders, you need profits to make this enterprise worthwhile.  Open net farming is cheaper, therefore the profits are greater.  That is the ONLY reason open net farming is practiced in BC.  It is the same argument the forest companies made for clear cut logging.  It is more efficient and really, who is it hurting?  Do you have any scientific proof that removing biodiversity is going to have a negative impact in the long run?  What? You environmental wackado's  think some insect infestation is going to come along and wipe out BC's forests?  Give me a break.  That can never happen.

So now.  Why SHOULD open net farming of Atlantic Salmon continue in BC?

[absolon]

You aren't arguing against salmon farming here. You're arguing against the economic paradigm that our society has adopted and the social paradigm that arises from that economic paradigm. Your argument with respect to the paradigm is indeed valid and I agree with you but the vested interests supporting it are so great and so well established that continuing the system as it currently exists is inevitable. Any discussion of the costs and benefits of salmon farming has to assume that the existing paradigm is a given, that wants rather than needs are and will remain the drivers of the system, and that costs and benefits must be looked at within that framework.

Under those conditions, an argument for or against the farms needs to focus on the specifics of the harm done versus the gains arising from it's practice; the discussion must address measurable outcomes as opposed to philosophical concepts. Further, the discussion needs to deal with actual outcomes rather than theoretical outcomes. Any unrealized outcomes need to be considered in light of the real probability of occurrence rather than given the weight of actual outcomes. In other words, the rhetoric needs to be removed from the discussion leaving only the facts to be evaluated if the discussion to have real value.

By the way, the pine beetle infestation is a result of fire suppression and warming climate eliminating the hard freezes necessary to kill the insect, not a result of clearcut logging.

[Sandman]

You aren't arguing against salmon farming here.

Not true.  I am clearly arguing against farming Atlantic Salmon (an exotic species) in BC waters in open net pens.

You're arguing against the economic paradigm that our society has adopted and the social paradigm that arises from that economic paradigm. Your argument with respect to the paradigm is indeed valid and I agree with you but the vested interests supporting it are so great and so well established that continuing the system as it currently exists is inevitable. Any discussion of the costs and benefits of salmon farming has to assume that the existing paradigm is a given, that wants rather than needs are and will remain the drivers of the system, and that costs and benefits must be looked at within that framework.

Agreed.  My point is that costs (be they potential or actual) of open pen farming of Atlantic Salmon in BC waters, far outweigh the proposed benefits, if we accept that there is no real need for feedlots in our oceans.

Under those conditions, an argument for or against the farms needs to focus on the specifics of the harm done versus the gains arising from it's practice; the discussion must address measurable outcomes as opposed to philosophical concepts. Further, the discussion needs to deal with actual outcomes rather than theoretical outcomes. Any unrealized outcomes need to be considered in light of the real probability of occurrence rather than given the weight of actual outcomes. In other words, the rhetoric needs to be removed from the discussion leaving only the facts to be evaluated if the discussion to have real value.

So in other words we need to see an actual environmental disaster caused by the open net farms to occur before we even consider that they may be a higher risk to the natural environment than the so-called benefits.  I have got to say I am glad you are not our environment minister.

By the way, the pine beetle infestation is a result of fire suppression and warming climate eliminating the hard freezes necessary to kill the insect, not a result of clear-cut logging.

True. However, the affects of any insect infestation is magnified by the loss of bio diversity, just ask any wheat farmer on the prairies in the 1930s (a pine beetle population will spread more easily through a forest consisting of only pine trees of a similar age faster than through a stand of mixed trees in various stages of their growth cycle).

You see, the problem with the arguments that we must have documented scientific proof that the salmon farms are harming the environment, ensures that any lessons learned from the past (from similar but perhaps not identical situations) are negated, and that ensures that we will only act when it may be too late to stop the damage done. 

Those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it.

Bottom line line here is that you have made no arguments for having Atlantic Salmon farmed in BC waters in open net pens, only more attempts to suggest there is no reason for not having them.  If there is good no reason for having them here, why risk our natural environment at all?  Even if the risks are astronomically small, they would outweigh nil (the size of the arguments "for" as expressed thus far).

[absolon]

You may be trying to argue against salmon in ocean pens, but you are using arguments against the social paradigm, and those arguments do not cross because like it or not, we exist and must function within that paradigm.

There is a very good reason for having fishfarms operating, one so obvious that I'm surprised I need mention it. That of course would be the economic impact; the direct, indirect and induced activity and jobs that are associated with the industry. We do need the jobs and wages in the hinterlands, the taxes raised contribute to the operation of the province and businesses benefit by supplying and servicing the industry. Direct output exceeds $500 million and the multipliers for indirect and induced output associated raise the total to greater than $800 million in economic impact every year. That number comes close to the combined economic impact of both the commercial and sport sector.

Farms have been operating over thirty years in the province and we have not yet seen that "imminent" catastrophe the reactionaries have been claiming is about to strike for 29 years. Farming is not done blindly and without regard to potential risks and impacts. The industry has been under tight regulation and careful scrutiny from regulators, scientists and reactionaries since it's inception. The problems that have been identified have been addressed to mitigate those problems; that process is and always has been ongoing. For all of the caterwauling and keening about the catastrophe that is salmon farming in BC, there is a thirty year history of successful operation and there has yet to be discovered a direct and irrefutable linkage to the decline of wild stocks or environmental disaster.

The industry contributes too much economic value to be shut down on the unsubstantiated whim of those whose total knowledge of the industry is based on subjective impressions derived from the media and "gut feeling". It takes more than platitudes such as "Those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it" to effect change. Those merely serve to underline the lack of specific knowledge and understanding of what one is condemning with that statement.

If you would like to see changes, the way to accomplish that is to first educate yourself so that you truly have a grasp of the industry and it's operations, the biology of both fish and environment and the regulatory regime that applies so that you have a real understanding of the risk and the probabilities. The people who are involved with operating and regulating farms have that knowledge and if you want to get through to them to make changes, you need to be operating near their level of understanding and be prepared to engage in a two way discussion where you listen as much or more than you talk.

Here are some readings on the economic impacts:

http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/omfd/reports/4-sector/toc-intro-highlights.pdf

http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/omfd/reports/4-sector/multipliers-notes.pdf

http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/aquaculture/ref/aqua-es2009-eng.htm#ch32

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:i0YIX-fZLVMJ:www.truetofinonews.com/pdfs/Aquaculture-Vol2-SCSA.pdf+bc+salmon+farm+production+trends&hl=en&gl=ca&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESjk0WkG79WpMR1QU1OAeaFpfntcAawk-rfQXWGohBaGIInjBHurahActKqb3EeET8HLk3PUjDHPCTlYhr5fFNqIVNzly3Vv8K3gIFqGgknqIJbj0e4PLTjYuEXgqbnZoDhZ-Bgg&sig=AHIEtbQhWnJqHSYB0aA1c7NliT3Q6n0T7Q

[troutbreath]

"Farms have been operating over thirty years in the province and we have not yet seen that "imminent" catastrophe the reactionaries have been claiming is about to strike for 29 years. "



At the beginning there was a lot less numbers of fish being farmed. BC Liberals allowed major expansion and some farms even expanded without permit. Much like building a house using monkeys. As the numbers go up the likelyhood of a disaster goes up. But of course that may seem like shottishe of the anti fish farm people to you.

I'm also hoping your kidding about your blind support for the current cheap method of raising farmed Salmon. But somehow I don't think you are.

[absolon]

some farms even expanded without permit

Details please.

your blind support for the current cheap method of raising farmed Salmon

This would be the underlying error in your assumptions about me. My support is informed by both education and first hand experience. There is nothing blind about it.

What do you back your opposition with?

[alwaysfishn]

The fish farm industry like any business is driven by profits (no problem there). In order to generate profits the industry must convince(advertising) the public  that their product is necessary. In order to grow product profitably, they need to be able to control (minimize costs) and maximize the price they sell the product for. Anything that comes in the way of maximizing profits is not good for business and not good for investors.

The open net salmon farming business started up because business saw an opportunity to make a profit. Just think; free rent, minimal utility costs, growing a product that the public likes to eat and being able to do this out of sight of the general public. They promised government that they would generate jobs and in return asked for and got the right to place their open net farms in pristine ocean waters.

Then the problems started; diseases broke out, sea lice multiplied, chemicals had to be developed to treat these conditions, consumers learned about the PCB’s and misc other chemicals in the product, salmon escaped from the cages, wild salmon started disappearing, etc, etc. Every one of these “problems” is costing the industry profits, by increasing costs, reducing selling prices, and lowering sales (or slowing growth of sales).

In order to make sure that profits grow, the industry has done some practical things to try and minimize diseases, lower PCB levels, etc. However for everything they are doing, our environment picks up the tab, by being exposed to more pollution and diseases.

So......  When you can’t fix a problem, the next best thing is to convince the public that there isn’t a problem…. To do this they have developed a fairly successful PR campaign. This includes advertising, publishing news releases, discrediting naysayers, having posters working public internet forums, and even starting lawsuits against individuals daring to contradict their propaganda.

Their PR theme is consistent on 3 main points.
1.   Salmon is good for you. It’s better to eat some PCB’s, rather than not eat any Omega 3’s.
2.   The salmon farming industry is creating jobs and generating export and local sales which benefits the BC economy.
3.   The feedlots are not damaging the environment because there is no concrete scientific proof that they are.

As far as eating salmon because it is good for you…. The fact is, were it not for the supplements that they feed these salmon, there would be minimal Omega 3 benefits from these salmon. My suggestion is, just go out and buy an Omega 3 supplement like fish oil, and bypass the middle man (or in this case the middle farmed salmon). This will ensure you are getting the Omega 3’s without the PCB’s.

The salmon farming industry generates about $500 million per year in sales, which is equivalent to less than 1/2 of 1% of our total economy. It is not worth risking our oceans and wild stock for this small a portion of our province’s economy.

The truth, and the reason salmon farming should be removed from our oceans is that the feedlots are damaging our oceans. Whatever the industry tells you and what government tells you, is what they think you should hear. The Cohen commission has revealed just the tip of the iceberg with respect to how their PR machine works. Industry disease reports are voluntary, so we don’t have any real idea of the diseases they are producing. When dealing with pollution, damage is usually irreversible by the time it’s recognized. Waiting for major viral disease outbreaks and mutations is not good science. Government wants the tax revenue so they don’t even want to test for the diseases, and when confronted by their own scientists, they launched a PR campaign to discredit these experts and cut off their funding.
 
Moving the farms to closed containment (or getting rid of them) is the only way to protect our oceans and our wild salmon.

[Bassonator]

Whatever the industry tells you and what government tells you, is what they think you should hear.



Insert anti farmers for industry and government.........same thing...

[chris gadsden]

http://www.fishnewseu.com/latest-news/world/7344-fish-farm-opponent-in-new-battle.html

[Easywater]

Whatever the industry tells you and what government tells you, is what they think you should hear.

Insert anti farmers for industry and government.........same thing...

The problem I have is the question of profit.

Fish farmers are doing what they are doing and saying what they are saying to make money - "fish pimps" as it were.
"Anti-farmers" as you call them are doing it for the good of the environment.

[Dave]

Sandman asked why salmon farms should be in BC and absolon answered the question very well.  Really, what government would end an industry that employs thousands of people and is the backbone and tax base of many coastal communities, without a well defined reason?  I could see it perhaps if there was evidence wild fish are impacted by salmon farms but as should be obvious to readers who have been following this debate, clearly that is not the case.
 Just saying consumers don't need to eat salmon won't stop millions wanting it so as the world wide demand for this quality product increases where will it come from?  I can't think of a salmon stock in BC that could withstand increased harvest pressure to meet this demand, and with the continuing increase in human population, threats of climate change, pipelines, oil tankers, Pip's, overfishing, habitat destruction, etc, I can't see that situation changing.  To me that leaves 3 choices:

1)  consumers purchase ranched Alaskan salmon.  This is of course the desired end result of the financial backers of the anti salmon farmers, American politicians, and the activists involved in the “remove salmon farms from BC” campaign.  Those that haven't studied the environmental impacts just surfacing regarding salmon ranching by China, North Korea, Japan and Alaska really should.  Scary stuff biologically, and most definitely affecting wild and hatchery BC salmon.
2) consumers purchase farmed salmon from other countries, Chile for example.  Problem with that is the regulatory and monitoring process in Chile is far removed from that practiced in say, Scotland or Norway.  Not sure if even I would eat a farmed salmon from Chile and don't even factor in Sandman's good analogy of the Australian orange!
3) consumers purchase BC farmed salmon. This province has in place the best farm site locations, best available science, best screening, monitoring and regulatory procedures in North America. And despite the naysayers (Chris, alwaysfishin, I can feel your rage at this next comment), a government that is committed to working with the aquaculture community to make BC an economic power house in this burgeoning industry.
IMO, it's a no brainer and I'm all for it.

[Sandman]

You may be trying to argue against salmon in ocean pens, but you are using arguments against the social paradigm,

Nonsense.  Your using a  Red Herring.  My arguments against open net pen salmon farming of Atlantic salmon were directly against the introduction of an exotic species into BC waters and the direct discharge of effluent and other environmental outputs from the operation directly into the surrounding environment.  It is the same argument I use against a city like Victoria discharging its sewage untreated into the Georgia Strait - no good can come of it, no matter have efficient and cheap it is.  My arguments against the social paradigm was directed against the arguments FOR open net farming of Atlantic salmon in BC waters (the so-called economic benefits).

and those arguments do not cross because like it or not, we exist and must function within that paradigm.

Not true. However difficult it might be, a paradigm shift is not only possible...it is imperative.

There is a very good reason for having fishfarms operating, one so obvious that I'm surprised I need mention it. That of course would be the economic impact; the direct, indirect and induced activity and jobs that are associated with the industry. We do need the jobs and wages in the hinterlands, the taxes raised contribute to the operation of the province and businesses benefit by supplying and servicing the industry. Direct output exceeds $500 million and the multipliers for indirect and induced output associated raise the total to greater than $800 million in economic impact every year. That number comes close to the combined economic impact of both the commercial and sport sector.

Except that, while the economic outputs (as measured by GDP) of the Sports Sector are slightly less (and therefore less attractive to investors and tax collectors) the Sport Fishing sector employs more people (7,700 vs 2100 for aquculture, in 2005) and generates more revenues ($885 million vs $328 million for aquculture, in 2005) so it would seem to be more valuable as a producer of economic activity and jobs and would therefore, I would think, be more important to the average Joe. Also, because of the difficulty of assessing the economic value of service industries, I can't help but feel that the contributions of the Sports sector to GDP is under estimated, especially with its close ties to tourism (what is the fisherman's wife doing while he is out fishing all day?).  If that is the case, I would think that an activity that might jeopardize that (such as a catastrophic decline in wild fish caused by disease spread from open net farms, however unlikely that might be) should be avoided.  More should be done to protect, promote and expand the sport fishing and tourism industries, not promoting and expanding a less valuable industry that has the potential (however remote) to negatively affect the single largest industry (by employment) in the fisheries/aquaculture sector.

Farms have been operating over thirty years in the province and we have not yet seen that "imminent" catastrophe the reactionaries have been claiming is about to strike for 29 years. Farming is not done blindly and without regard to potential risks and impacts. The industry has been under tight regulation and careful scrutiny from regulators, scientists and reactionaries since it's inception. The problems that have been identified have been addressed to mitigate those problems; that process is and always has been ongoing. For all of the caterwauling and keening about the catastrophe that is salmon farming in BC, there is a thirty year history of successful operation and there has yet to be discovered a direct and irrefutable linkage to the decline of wild stocks or environmental disaster.

But we have seen it.  It is evident in the dramatic declines in stocks of wild salmon and steelhead since the 1990s.  What we have not seen is the scientific proof that this dramatic decline in salmon and steelhead stocks was caused by the farms, which you need to see before you are willing to admit that farming exotic species in open net pens that discharge their environmental output directly into to the surrounding environments (often the very same environments that millions of young and maturing salmonids swim through to and from their natal streams) is probably not a good idea.

If you would like to see changes, the way to accomplish that is to first educate yourself so that you truly have a grasp of the industry and it's operations, the biology of both fish and environment and the regulatory regime that applies so that you have a real understanding of the risk and the probabilities. The people who are involved with operating and regulating farms have that knowledge and if you want to get through to them to make changes, you need to be operating near their level of understanding and be prepared to engage in a two way discussion where you listen as much or more than you talk.

Really?  You think I need a biology degree to understand that farming exotic species in open net pens that discharge their environmental outputs directly into the environment is not good science?

Sandman asked why salmon farms should be in BC and absolon answered the question very well.  Really, what government would end an industry that employs thousands of people and is the backbone and tax base of many coastal communities, without a well defined reason?

The problem is that they should never have been allowed in the first place.  Now that there are here, the argument seems to be that we will need to see the collapse of wild fish stocks and the proof that it was caused by the farms before we will stop farming exotic species in open net pens that discharge their environmental outputs directly into the surrounding environment.

I could see it perhaps if there was evidence wild fish are impacted by salmon farms but as should be obvious to readers who have been following this debate, clearly that is not the case.

I am sorry but I do not think that it is "clearly" not the case.  I think the evidence is there, perhaps not of a "catastrophe" yet, but of certainly of definite impacts from sea lice blooms for example that are having a negative impact of outgoing wild salmon especially small pink and chum salmon, but the evidence, and the people collecting and reporting the evidence, are being discredited so we can say it is not the farms.

Just saying consumers don't need to eat salmon won't stop millions wanting it so as the world wide demand for this quality product increases where will it come from?  I can't think of a salmon stock in BC that could withstand increased harvest pressure to meet this demand.

This is my point.  You are saying that the increased demand for salmon must be met, and that would be true only if it this increased demand was a need.  If we can agree that the increased demand is a want, and not a need, then there is no increased pressure on wild stocks.  If demand goes up and production remains the same, what happens?  Prices rise and...oh look... the commercial fisherman can actually make a living again selling his salmon to the highest bidder.  Salmon farmers want us thinking that eating salmon is necessary, and they are the only ones that can produce enough fish to feed everyone.  I do not accept that gospel.  One ounce of walnuts has as much omega-3 as 5 ounces of salmon and can be produced in environmentally sustainable ways (what environmental outputs do walnut trees discharge in the surrounding environment?).  Sardines and mackerel are better sources of omega-3 as well if you must eat fish to get it.


Oh yeah...and did I mention that open net farms discharge their environmental output directly into the surrounding environment?