Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Still seeking infestation records four years later


It’s a battle that has been going on for four years now, pitting the T. Buck Suzuki Environmental Foundation against the Provincial government, all in the quest to release numbers of sea lice infestations in BC‘s aquaculture industry.

The Foundation has moved on to a submission to B. C.’s Freedom of Information and Privacy Commissioner claiming that the government is putting commercial secrecy ahead of the right of the people to know what dangers may lurk in the province’s fish farms.

The story was featured on Tuesday as the front page piece in the Daily News.

'HAND OVER SEA LICE DATA’ FISH FARM CRITICS DEMAND
Environmental group wants official numbers for lice infestations in B. C.
By Kris Schumacher
The Daily News
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Pages one and three

The T. Buck Suzuki Environmental Foundation is continuing a four-year battle against the province to obtain records of sea lice infestations that the Ministry of Agriculture and Lands has gathered during visits to British Columbia salmon farms.

The Foundation filed a legal submission to B.C.'s Freedom of Information and Privacy Commissioner through Ecojustice this month, claiming the government is wrongly putting commercial secrecy before the public's right to know about the extent of sea lice infestations on sites owned by Mainstream, Canada's second-largest salmon farm operator.

Ecojustice (formerly Sierra Legal Defence Fund) Executive Director Devon Page said the government information data would help conservation groups determine whether farm operations are spreading disease and parasites into B.C.'s natural waters, what the magnitude of the problem is, and what can be done about it.

"The B.C. government has assured the public that salmon farms are not harming wild salmon, yet it refuses to release the data that would allow the public to judge that position, and does not even want the public to know results of environmental sampling conducted by public servants," said Randy Christensen, a staff lawyer with Ecojustice.

While Canada's largest salmon farm operator Marine Harvest voluntarily releases some of its sea lice data to the public, the T. Buck Suzuki Foundation says Mainstream has consistently refused to. The T. Buck Suzuki Foundation's Executive Director David Lane is adamant the provincially collected data should be available, and was in Norway last week to present a resolution to Mainstream's parent company Cermaq at their Annual General Meeting.

Representing the Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform (CAAR), Lane made a request to Cermaq and its controlling shareholder, the Norwegian government, asking for full compliance with Norwegian state policies on sustainability for state corporations.

"It's outrageous that the Norwegian government professes to run sustainable state-owned companies, yet their salmon farms in B.C. are causing serious environmental harm and operate in a manner that would not be allowed in Norway," said Lane.

"The Norwegian government must take immediate action to ensure Mainstream Canada stops harming the B.C. environment and putting B.C. wild salmon runs in jeopardy."

CAAR maintains that Mainstream open net-cage salmon farms in the United Nations Biosphere Reserve in Clayquot Sound, the Northern Georgia Strait, and the Broughton Archipelago are depressing wild salmon runs and putting some stocks at risk of extinction.

No comments: