Klemtu awaits approval for its latest fish farm plans

With unemployment down to 40% now, the villagers of Klemtu are hoping for approval for two new sites at Sheep Pass.

Many northwest communities seem leery of the prospects from aquaculture, while a few are down right hostile to the idea. An opinion not shared to the south as Klemtu has found the partnership with Marine Harvest to have been a beneficial one for the village residents.

The Daily News had some background on the story in Tuesday’s paper.

ANXIOUS WAIT FOR VILLAGERS OVER FISH FARMS
By James Vassallo
The Daily News
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Pages one and two

In the mid-1990’s unemployment in the Kitasoo village of Klemtu was 80 per cent. The around 500 people in the community were getting by, but not much more and many feared for their future. The problem was the same faced by many coastal communities – the slow death of the commercial salmon fishery that was once the economic backbone of the region.

“Today, unemployment has been cut to forty per cent – that’s still too high but it is a huge improvement in less than 10 years,” said Percy Star\r, Kitasoo Elder and a member of the band council. “Today, the people of Klemtu have a mission and a routine they have something to believe in and a sense of purpose that did not exist a few short years ago.”

The turnaround was the byproduct of joint aquaculture venture between the Kitasoo people and Marine Harvest Canada. In 2006, Kitasoo Seafoods processed 11 million pounds of Atlantic salmon – or around 1 million fish- raised in Kitasoo owned farm sites at Goat Cove and Kid Bay. Fifteen Kitasoo worked full-time on the farms, another 30 worked full time in the processing plant during its 10 month operating schedule and seven more worked on the Kitasoo owned harvest vessel during those 10 months.

With those successes in the past, the Kitasoo and their partners are now looking to the future and have applications with the provincial Ministry of Agriculture and Lands for two new sites within the Kitasoo traditional territory at Sheep Pass.

“Clearly, this is a remarkable success story and it is one we want to build on,” he said. “But we need these two new sites, and unfortunately the approval process is dead slow. It was so slow in the past that we were unable to stock young salmon in 2003 or process fish in 2005.

“Unless our new applications are approved by mid-March we face the same problem in 2007 – no smolts, no production. The loss of these processing jobs and the $1 million payroll that goes along with them would be a big blow to our community.”

Starr acknowledges that some First Nations in the region have a different view of aquaculture than his community, but stresses that these approvals would not expand production in Klemtu. Rather, they would add to the security of the operation and provide the capacity to support Ecosystem Based Management through improved crop rotation. It would see the community have six aquaculture sites with three or four sites operating each year and the same level of about one million smolts entering the farms yearly.

”Neighbouring First Nations may have a different view of aquaculture but we have experienced the benefits this venture has brought to our people,” he said. “We have also live with aquaculture for 20 years. We believe that we are operating in harmony with local wild salmon stocks and the crabs, seals, whales and dolphins that share our waters. We monitor our operations closely and regularly and can see that water quality has not been hurt and neither has the ocean bottom under our farms or the nearby shoreline.

“For centuries, the Kitasoo people had a close connection to the sea. This connection was lost for a generation when the commercial salmon fishery collapsed and our boats were tied up. Aquaculture is giving this connection back to us, and with this connection has come a sense of purpose and a belief in the future.”

Starr is calling on Premier Gordon Campbell, Agriculture and Lands Minister Pat Bell, and the province of British Columbia in general to recognize how important this approval is to the health and future of the Kitasoo community and not to delay any further.

NDP members of the Special Committee on Sustainable Aquaculture have demanded that no approvals be handed out to any aqua culture sites until a bi-partisan report is issued sometime prior to May 31.

However, the government has shown in some cases it will continue to push forward with plans as with the recent approval of three geoduck sites in the Powell River area.