A Friday afternoon apparently wasn’t the best day to choose to try and get information out about the controversial fish farming question in Prince Rupert.
A scheduled meeting put on by the Ministry of Environment for last Friday was poorly attended by the community, with far less than the expected 40 to 50 participants taking the time to drop in.
The hot button issue has been percolating along the North Coast for a number of years now, but last week you wouldn’t know that it was controversial at all, as the five members of the Ministry from Nanaimo and Victoria nearly matched those few Rupertites that bothered to come out and learn more.
The Daily news reviewed the day’s events in Monday’s paper.
FISH FARM MEETING FAILS TO ATTRACT EXPECTED INTEREST
Only a handful of people turn out to offer their input
By Kris Schumacher
The Daily News
Monday, June 25, 2007
Page3
The scheduled community meeting to discuss fish farming practices, put on by the Ministry of Environment (MOE), was a poorly attended affair this past Friday afternoon.
Instead of drawing a crowd of 30 or 40 Prince Rupert residents as expected, the five MOE members from Nanaimo and Victoria nearly matched the six people who showed up at the Crest hotel to take part in the meeting, and two of those were from the media.
A planned three hour session at 3 p. m. was meant to be a chance for the public and other stakeholders to voice their opinion on changes they would like to see in the Finfish Aquaculture Waste Control Regulation, under the Environment Act. The ministry had extended invitations to industry and First Nations people, NGO’s, local government officials and the public.
The regulation, that determines the rules for waste disposal created by fish farms, has reached its five-year clause and must undergo review before being amended. What the ministry hoped to achieve at this meeting was to “engage stakeholders early on in the amendment process and to solicit their input on the proposed changes to the FAWCR,” according to the e-mail sent out to Mayor Herb Pond and city council.
The FAWCR is the document that encompasses acceptable rules and limits for dealing with all kinds of garbage and waste that is produced by fish farms, including sewage disposal, fuel storage, mortality storage and disposal, antibiotic and disinfect disposal, refuse, feces, feed, metals, litter and metabolites.
This means that the document outlines how many toxins are allowed to be in the water surrounding the fish farms, as well as what is to be done with the rest of the waste that fish farm is able to extract from the water.
With some 130 fish farms already on the coast of British Columbia, and an average of 500,000 fish in each farm’s “growing crop,” the waste and toxins released into the surrounding environment and ecosystem may be of some concern to the province’s residents.
Similarly disconcerting is that any farms above hard-bottom ocean floor have no compliance standards with any of the current regulations, largely because the ministry does not have the means to collect floor samples. What was also revealed by the ministry at Friday’s meeting was that as of yet there is no research into, or limits upon, fish farms’ impacts outside of the few kilometer range in which testing is currently done.
A scheduled meeting put on by the Ministry of Environment for last Friday was poorly attended by the community, with far less than the expected 40 to 50 participants taking the time to drop in.
The hot button issue has been percolating along the North Coast for a number of years now, but last week you wouldn’t know that it was controversial at all, as the five members of the Ministry from Nanaimo and Victoria nearly matched those few Rupertites that bothered to come out and learn more.
The Daily news reviewed the day’s events in Monday’s paper.
FISH FARM MEETING FAILS TO ATTRACT EXPECTED INTEREST
Only a handful of people turn out to offer their input
By Kris Schumacher
The Daily News
Monday, June 25, 2007
Page3
The scheduled community meeting to discuss fish farming practices, put on by the Ministry of Environment (MOE), was a poorly attended affair this past Friday afternoon.
Instead of drawing a crowd of 30 or 40 Prince Rupert residents as expected, the five MOE members from Nanaimo and Victoria nearly matched the six people who showed up at the Crest hotel to take part in the meeting, and two of those were from the media.
A planned three hour session at 3 p. m. was meant to be a chance for the public and other stakeholders to voice their opinion on changes they would like to see in the Finfish Aquaculture Waste Control Regulation, under the Environment Act. The ministry had extended invitations to industry and First Nations people, NGO’s, local government officials and the public.
The regulation, that determines the rules for waste disposal created by fish farms, has reached its five-year clause and must undergo review before being amended. What the ministry hoped to achieve at this meeting was to “engage stakeholders early on in the amendment process and to solicit their input on the proposed changes to the FAWCR,” according to the e-mail sent out to Mayor Herb Pond and city council.
The FAWCR is the document that encompasses acceptable rules and limits for dealing with all kinds of garbage and waste that is produced by fish farms, including sewage disposal, fuel storage, mortality storage and disposal, antibiotic and disinfect disposal, refuse, feces, feed, metals, litter and metabolites.
This means that the document outlines how many toxins are allowed to be in the water surrounding the fish farms, as well as what is to be done with the rest of the waste that fish farm is able to extract from the water.
With some 130 fish farms already on the coast of British Columbia, and an average of 500,000 fish in each farm’s “growing crop,” the waste and toxins released into the surrounding environment and ecosystem may be of some concern to the province’s residents.
Similarly disconcerting is that any farms above hard-bottom ocean floor have no compliance standards with any of the current regulations, largely because the ministry does not have the means to collect floor samples. What was also revealed by the ministry at Friday’s meeting was that as of yet there is no research into, or limits upon, fish farms’ impacts outside of the few kilometer range in which testing is currently done.
While Prince Rupert doesn’t have an established fish farming industry, it may be something residents will have to deal with in the future.
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