alexandra morton

Fear and Silence

We spent the day touring Grand Manan with Allan Green, who has been a fisherman since he was a boy. Got his own boat when he was 17. The island is so incredibly beautiful! We saw wide sweeping ocean views, gorgeous little towns, and fish boats at every dock. “When I was a boy all you had to do was get up in the morning to get a job.”

While many fishermen are afraid to speak about the impact salmon farming has had on them, this was not the case with Allan. Allan has done work for the salmon farming industry and so he knows a lot about how it got started on his beautiful island home. Why am I not surprised to hear that the Norwegians were involved at the start up? A Norwegian chemical tanker corporation called Stolt, arrived in the mid 1990s and began buying up the family salmon farms that were failing to make money.

This was when Stolt came to British Columbia also and set up salmon feedlots around my home. I always wondered about a chemical tanker company getting leases to the BC coast.

There were rumors right at the start of ISA virus and Bacterial Kidney Disease (BKD). When the virus went epidemic, we heard that Stolt abandoned Grand Manan and Cooke Aquaculture began buying up the farms from Stolt.

As we looked out over ocean a feedlot was anchored off his island home, Al said, “one old guy used to always fish there, that was a prime lobster ground, but they don’t come there anymore.”

When the farms fallow, the people from that site lose their job. A fish farmer I met on the Grand Manan ferry said, “those fishermen could have a job on the farms, but they don’t want work, they just want to fish a few months and collect unemployment the rest of the year.”

We met a fisherman painting the floats on his traps a brilliant orange and heard a terrible story. “Two weeks into the season about 5 years ago the lobster were exceptionally high, I was getting 12 “counters” to a trap.” A “counter” is a legal-sized lobster. “On top of that there were a lot of “bobs,” the immature lobster they throw back. It takes 7 years for a lobster to grow to “counter” size.

“The fish farm well-boat showed up on that farm there,” pointing out past the harbor, “they was treating the farm for lice. Next day, when I pulled my traps half the lobster were curled up and stiff, their tails and claws were tucked in tight, if you pulled on them, they just snapped back into that position. Next day, I learned this was the stage just before they died because the next day all my traps were all empty. Never seen or heard of anything like that.” Although he had lost his season legally fishing for his livelihood, he said, “you can’t take my picture, things happen to people who speak up about what goes on near salmon farms.”

Well boats are used in New Brunswick to suck farm salmon into the hold, bath them in delousing drugs and pump them back out into the pens. The lice have become too drug resistant to be treated in any other way. Everyone knows the bath is then pumped out into the ocean. The fish farmers say the drug is used up and weak when released, but Environment Canada found an illegal drugs had been used that killed lobster. I don’t think this fisherman even thought to approach the industry for money to cover his losses. Too much fear. And the tons of fish farm food move across the island in trucks and out to the farms and poured into the water to pass through the farm fish and out to sea. Fish farmers never shovel their manure.

We heard the same story from another fisherman while riding the ferry off Grand Manan. Lost his lobster, don’t take my picture, bad things happen.

We heard that the tiny sea fleas, a small crustacean, used to crawl into the traps and eat all the bait were gone.

“Sand fleas used to empty the bait in 6 hours, now I can leave a trap for days and there ain’t nothing alive down there to eat the bait.”

“Another thing,” said Allan, “where have all the Eider ducks gone.” Looking out over yet another breath-taking view we scanned empty waves. “there ought to be rafts of them, you should be able to hear them.” All we see is gulls. I ask him if the Eider eat the growth off the farm equipment, he says, “yes they clean off the anchor lines and tag lines.”

I was invited to give a talk at the museum. When I arrived it was pitch black. No lights, no sign, the people we had talked to during the day had not heard about the talk. A few fishermen turned up, no one would introduce me, I just got up and told them what had happened in BC.

Afterwards I learned there were several fish farmers from the small companies there. They were understandably defensive, they said they had paid for studies and there were still lobster around their farms. But they only had a 100,000 fish. The farm I looked over in St Mary’s Bay had two million, the other sites around Grand Manan were also huge. No one from Cooke Aquaculture came to the meeting to present their side. If the industry had stayed small, the problems would never have become obvious.

Leaving the island and later crossing the Bay of Fundy on another ferry, I thought of the scope of DFO’s betrayal of the people of Canada. They have run one important fishery after the next into oblivion. They have robbed future generations. The towns face extinction and will grab onto anything they can even if it makes things worse. They told me they hope their children will leave the island, but Allan says “I don’t want to go to Alberta.” I cannot understand how we can let the government we continue this rampage, destroying the economics of every coastal village on both coasts.

I am in the Maritmes to give the 5th Ransom Myers at Dalhousie. Ransom visited me once and he said, “DFO is a criminal organization.”

He is right.

Birthplace of salmon feedlots in Canada

We drove to St. Andrews in the rain, the yellow and orange foliage standing out brilliantly in the dark weather. We passed the famous Miramichi River, known for wild Atlantic salmon fishing. Cooke Aquaculture has a lodge on this river. I wonder if they would ever put one of their own salmon feedlots near this river?

In St. Andrews we met up with Matt Abbott, with Fundy Bay Keepers and Geoff Giffin, with the Atlantic Salmon Federation.


We drove directly to Lime Kiln Bay, the birthplace of industrial salmon feedlots in Canada. From the dock we can see several farms. They are much lower tech. than in British Columbia and none of the farms I have seen so far in the Maritimes have a feed shed attached to them. I was told the farmers travel out the farms a couple times a day to feed the fish, often by hand.


I hear a story I have never heard before; that a DFO official on sabbatical to Norway came back to Canada with the vision that salmon farms could supplement the local economy. He thought small operations of 30,000- 40,000 fish could round out the year for fishermen involved in the lobster and scallop fisheries. But it did not work out the way he envisioned. Instead of benefiting these fishermen, the industry is now seen as dark threat, sucking their way of life into oblivion.

The community here in New Brunswick tolerated the arrival of salmon feedlots, because at first it was their neighbours who were in the business. When the dreaded ISA virus went lethal, and the sea lice got out of control, these families lost their farms and their investment. Cooke Aquaculture began buying farm after farm.

Now people feel they duped, they let a predator in. They are afraid. No one wants to speak up; their boats might be damaged. Security guards have appeared on docks recording the names of everyone who comes and goes. “What if something happens on the night I go down to my boat,” says one man who does not want to be identified, “we come and go to our boats at all hours and I don’t like the company recording my movements.”

In 2010, the bay was full of chunks of salmon. People said the stench was unbearable…. Everyone looked the other way. Most of the people in the fishing communities know salmon farms are killing their fisheries, but they are afraid.

Janice tells us the salmon farming industry is on the decline in New Brunswick. It is shrinking. It peaked at 37,000 tons, now the New Brunswick harvest is 10,000 tons less. They are suffering from their own waste, disease and lice. I have bought two farm salmon since I have been here that have had about 30 lice each.

Most of the lice were buried under the gill flap, where they were not washed off during cleaning. There could have been far more lice to begin with. Someone has a big lice problem right now. Janice warns Nova Scotia to beware, that the new Brunswick industry is failing and so it has its eye on the little bays of Nova Scotia.

The fishermen noticed the farms are consolidating and moving around to find clean sea floor. They say that while the industry in their area is shrinking, there has been no clean up. Feces and equipment litter the bottom. The used up areas can’t be fished. Some think their fisheries will be corporatized. Soon they fear they will be buying their lobster bait from Cooke.

I think back to Jordon Bay and Ricky Hallett’s 3-year battle to stop a salmon feedlot that wants to go into water so shallow there will only be 3 meters of water under the farm. Is Cooke trying to buy up the actual lobster grounds? Are they looking at lobster? Is DFO tired of dealing with 1,000s of lobster fishermen? Is the tail wagging the dog?

They tell me “Aquaculture has had a privileged status from the start.” No other industry is allowed to dump raw industrial waste over the finest lobster grounds in the world.

Wild Salmon

I finally got to hear about the wild salmon of the Maritimes. In general, Atlantic salmon have been in decline since the 1970s, but the decline in populations that pass close to salmon farms has been much steeper than elsewhere. This is similar to BC wild salmon. Salmon fishing has been closed on all the rivers that flow into the Bay of Fundy. This year the Atlantic salmon that have been in the river for one year have crashed profoundly. No one knows why.


The Atlantic salmon of the Inner Bay of Fundy are a unique strain and unfortunately for them, they never stray far from the Bay of Fundy and Gulf of Maine. These waters are so rich, the salmon did not need to travel out into the North Atlantic.

After the salmon farms arrived the Inner Bay of Fundy, Atlantic salmon populations began to slide downwards from 45,000 to less than 200. In 2003, they were listed as “endangered” and DFO listed aquaculture as one of the top threats to these salmon. But nothing was done – oh this is so familiar sounding!

The wild salmon of the outer Bay of Fundy migrate out towards Greenland. While they are also sliding downwards, their decline has not been nearly so steep. The St John River system in Inner Fundy, was one of the most productive in the world; it rivaled the legendary Miramichi and Restigouch.

The stories pour out. I am told that big aquaculture told the mayors of the local towns to lobby government on their behalf, or they would not use the local dock facilities. They would just benefit towns that worked on their behalf with government.

Herring

Fishermen told me that herring weirs that had produced herring for 100 years became barren two years after the salmon feedlots went into the area. I heard the same observations here as in Freeport, that herring will not go near a place where there has been a large fish kill. The fishermen of St. Andrews told me herring avoid the salmon farms and they think it is the presence of the dying farm salmon or the massive areas of the seafloor covered in the industrial waste.

Cypermethrin

Environment Canada used to be responsible for making unannounced visits to salmon farms to check compliance in delousing drug use. By all accounts Environment Canada was good at this. When fishermen contacted the Fundy North Fishermen’s Association and Fundy Bay Keepers, about massive lobster kills near salmon farms, these groups bravely notified Environment Canada, which did a thorough investigation. While the Canadian Food Inspection Agency was unable to detect Cypermethrin. Environment Canada laid charges.

Senior officials with Cooke Aquaculture each face up to $11 million in fines and up to 30 years in jail. The court proceedings are being conducted behind closed doors and many fear nothing will come of it.

Changes to the Fisheries Act will replace Environment Canada with Health Canada crews who don’t have any boats. They will be hitching a ride on the salmon farm crew boats. How do you make an “unannounced” visit, when you ride with the company?

The sea lice in the extreme high-density sited salmon feedlots in New Brunswick became resistant to the in-feed drug, Slice, and so today well-boats are used. I am told these boats prepare a toxic bath of hydrogen peroxide, or Deltamethrin. The federal and provincial governments funded research into Deltamethrin and even though 3 parts per billion in water kills lobster, they gave the salmon farming industry permission to use this drug and then release the chemical directly into the Inner Bay of Fundy. Research reports this chemical dump produces a plume reaching at least 8 km from the site. The toxin is pouring into lobster nurseries.

Technically no one would be allowed to release such a drug into the ocean. Health Canada, however, will be able to approve these lethal drugs, exempting them from the Fisheries Act and so if a salmon farmer kills lobster in the future, the fish farmers cannot be found guilty of anything.

Young lobster fishermen tell me that the lobster pounds used to see only 2% “shrink.” A pound is a place the fishermen hold the lobster until the price is right. “Shrink” is how many die in these enclosures. Now the same pounds near salmon farms suffer from 15-30% shrink.

When I asked who Cooke Aquaculture really is, a fisherman said, “we don’t know who Cooke really is. We see them flying back and forth to Norway, we believe they are connected to Norway.” Norway – 98% owners of the BC salmon feedlot industry.

One fishermen looked at me, his eyes tearing despite the tight set of his jaw,

“My great, great grandfather started fishing here in 1726 and we been fishing ever since. But I think we are the last generation gonna fish here, I am tired of fighting the salmon farms and their chemicals.” He turns and leaves, can’t talk about it any further.

“It’s a big spider web and we are getting trapped in it.” Anonymous fisherman.

Another town fighting fish farms

We drove from Shelbourne County to Freeport, including a short ride on the coolest ferry I have ever seen, the Petit Princess. Due to the huge tides, there on the edge of the Bay of Fundy, you drive down through the low tide zone onto a landing barge. During the winter Petit Princess runs only when a car shows up.

We arrived at the Freeport Development Center to room full of fishermen, whale watch operators and other local residents.

Many were part of the St. Mary’s Coastal Alliance and deep in a battle to protect their community from salmon feedlots. Despite their fight, several Cooke Aquaculture farms had been anchored in their waters right on top of prime lobster fishing grounds.

“All we have ever said is NO and they still came,” says Sheldon, Lobster fisherman.

The two pen sets in St. Mary Bay holding a million farm salmon each are spaced only about 1,200m apart. I watched the 2 million farm salmon riding the Atlantic swells right in front of Sandy’s home. Sandy worked for years to build a home looking out to sea and now she is staring at two industrial feedlots.

Kathaleen has a farm so close she and her husband are looking right into the pens. She has posted videos on You Tube of the daily operations there.

I hear stories of how the people of Brier Island can’t open their windows due the farm salmon waste on the beach. The value of their homes have fallen.

St. Mary Bay lobster are the highest valued lobster in Canada. Merchants around the world specifically seek out these lobster due to their high protein content which means they survive shipping better than any others.

People like Karen Crocker and others submitted over 1,000 documents to the Environmental Assessment process for these farms and did not receive a single response from the government! “The Environmental Impact Assessment, report is an assessment of how the environment could impact the farms, not how the farms will impact the environment,” says Sandy who seems to know everything about the thick report.

When the fishermen of Freeport refused to give the salmon farmers a place at the dock, government threatened them saying if they didn’t give the fish farmers space, they would not fix the dock. The fishermen said they would fix the dock themselves.

“Feels like we are playing a game with a bunch of cheaters,” said one resident over our dinner - unbelievably delicious lobster chowder.

I was told about a study in West Bay. Before the salmon farms moved in DFO found 12 – 14 lobster per square meter, after one production cycle there were no lobsters. “No one will eat a lobster from West Bay.” They tell me Harper pulled funding for the Lobster Lab, so government research on the most lucrative local fishery has been shut down. I tell they are going to have to do it themselves. The wealth of first hand knowledge in the room is impressive. They know their fish.

While Cooke Aquaculture tries to appease residents by saying they will be using less than 1% of the bay, the fishermen point out that only 10% of the bay is fishable and so 1/10th of their fishing grounds will be lost, under salmon farms. This reminds me of what happened to my prawn fishermen neighbours back in Echo Bay. The farms sat down on some of their best fishing grounds in Sir Edmund Bay, Misty Pass, Burdwood, Simoom Sound etc….

“We pay $2,000 a year to fish lobster,” says Sheldon. “Government doesn’t reduce that cost as they take away the places we can fish.”

But they all know that the problem is not just the area under the farms. The problem pours out of the farms as their bay is used as a dump. Cooke never cleans up after their fish, they never shovel their manure.

“Lobsters are real fussy about spawning habitat,” says Frank. The lobster spawn on cobble bottom in sheltered bays – the same place the fish farmers are muscling their way into. DFO tells them the lobster will find another place. That may well be, but what about the community fishery?

We lost the cod, scallops, herring and now DFO is killing our Lobster. “The Environmental Assessment never even mentioned Lobster landings for Digby County,” says Sandy. They tell me that Cooke Aquaculture is now taking the bulk of the herring to make into farm salmon food and “we are getting the scraps.”

The guys tell me every community that has a salmon farm wants to get rid of it. I hear the New Brunswick fishermen were too scared to tell everyone what happened to them. The families that could afford it went offshore.

Chronicle Herald Article

The local First Nation’s worked to restore the Bear River salmon. For 4 years they limed the river and cleared out old dams and debris. The salmon liked what they did and began returning! Success! Then the next year a whole lot of salmon appeared, but they “did not look right.” DFO came to the village and told residents they were escaped farm salmon and that they should not eat them, but some had already been eaten. The hungry farm salmon bred to eat, attacked and ate the young wild salmon restored to the river. Thirteen chiefs of Nova Scotia signed a statement opposing Cooke Aquaculture sites in St. Mary Bay due to impact on the wild Atlantic salmon of the Inner Bay of Fundy. But similar to the First Nations in BC, they have been ignored there are fewer than 300 wild salmon left.

In closing I want to say Nova Scotia is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. The wide open Atlantic, the beautiful homes and gardens, the rivers and trees in fall foliage are absolutely lovely. The people have fire in their eyes. They are deeply attached to their communities and the communities are banding together. Everyone knows the people we talked to in the last community. Nova Scotia is an incredible part of Canada.

No one can understand why!

The story of Port Mouton was even more disturbing than Sheet Harbour. We left Sheet Harbour early in the morning and drove down to Port Mouton through beautiful scenery of ocean, rivers and trees in fall foliage.

We met Bob Swim, his wife Norma, Brian, Ron and Ruth Loucks and Gloria Gilbert and headed out on Bob and Norma’s boat Lydia Belle, named after his grandmother.

In the stiff offshore breeze and brilliant sunlight we headed out to the salmon feedlot. Spectacle Island, owned by Cook Aquaculture and now Ocean Trout. Strangely they are raising steelhead in this ocean pen.

These Friends of Port Mouton have a long history of trying to protect their community from salmon farming. In exchange for removing this sign from locations around their town, Cooke Aquaculture agreed to fallow the farm for three years, but now it was stocked again.

The farm had the distinctive smell, and a sheen of oil smoothed the tops of the waves. As we sat in lee of the wind Bob explained.

“The farm went in in 1996, by 2000 we were noticing changes. Before the farm went in there were about 15 boats running 150 traps per boat, getting 7-10 lobsters per trap, per day. A few years later there were only 5 boats able to run 100 traps, getting 4-5 lobsters per trap. Twelve years later only one boat and skiff can make a living in the inner bay of Port Mouton, there just is not enough to go around anymore. Lobster fishing is good where there are no salmon farms.”

Gloria who has worked to stop this destruction every day since 2006 said, “There used to be an Irish Moss and muscle harvest here, but that stopped when the farm went in. During the three-year fallow these started to come back, the eel grass came back too, but now the farm is back and things are disappearing again.”

Ron Loucks and Ruth Smith are scientists and without anyone paying them, they decided to measure the copper levels in the microlayer (the very surface of the water). The salmon feedlot nets are often soaked in copper paint to slow down the growth of seaweed and muscles and this toxin flakes off as the nets billow and flex. Ruth and Ron found the copper levels near the farm exceeded government guidelines for 27 months after the farm was emptied. It appeared the copper was being pushed to the surface by the gas being emitted by the waste on the seafloor. The levels exceeded the guidelines for lobster survival by 6-7 times. They wrote a paper on it.

Copper in the sediment and sea surface microlayer near a fallowed open-net fish farm.

This is important because after hatching lobsters swim on the surface for 6 months where the copper can kill them.

Gloria told us, “The premier-to-be, Darrell Dexter stood on the beach over there and criticized the Conservative Government about salmon farming saying The government of the day showed a lack of leadership by not listening to the community. Now that he is premier he supports the industry!” Then on June 20, 2012, Dexter’s government gave $25 million to Cooke Aquaculture to develop an even bigger industry.

Everyone on the boat shook their heads saying this gift to Cooke came at the same time as public services such as hospital beds and schools are being cut. No one could understand why.

They pointed to a piece of open water saying that is where the next farm is supposed to go, right in front of the white sand dunes of Carter Beach. Bob guided his boat back into the harbour and tied it up amongst the fleet of well-kept boats. Each boat representing a benefit to the local economy.

We came off the sea and warmed up with a bowl of corn chowder. The small gathering asked a familiar question, “How do you think we can stop this.” This is what people on both coast are asking. What do you do when politicians turn in circles? When nothing makes sense? When local people seem to no longer count?

Next we met Marian and Herschel Specter. Herschel is a retired engineer. They live on the edge of the Inner Shelbourne Harbour. The Specter’s took Belliveau, Minster of Fisheries and Aquaculture and he is Minister of Environment to Supreme Court because Cooke Aquaculture (Kelly Cove Salmon) were running farms that were not on their leases. In a one-day hearing, the judge ruled the Minister had the right to decide where the farms despite the lease boundaries. So while the company had leases, Belliveau could override the siting rules and permit the farm to exist outside the lease. Why have rules?

The Specters lost a large part of the their retirement funds as they look out at three salmon feedlot sites from their front porch. They continue to research the industry and found records that a salmon feedlot was exceeding sulfide limits on the seafloor up by to five times the recommended levels year after year.

Herschel said: “They appear to be complying, but they are just horsing around – you can’t fool me.”

Inka Milewski, an independent scientist, continues to track the sulfide levels in Shelbourne Harbour around these farms.

Herschel cannot understand why the government would allow this coast to be used as a dumping site for the salmon feedlot industry, when the 5,000 miles of Nova Scotia coastline have a far greater value as an incredibly lovely place to live. The industry is owned by an ambitious, wealthy New Brunswick family and the profits leave Nova Scotia. The salmon grown in Nova Scotia are trucked to New Brunswick for processing. Cooke promised Shelbourne over 300 jobs, in a processing plant by December 2015. But as several people pointed out if they built a processing plant that big, every bay on the coast of southwest Nova Scotia would have to be plugged with salmon farms to produce 3 million farm salmon/year!

Next we met Francis and Ricky and David Hallett commercial lobster fishermen, born and raised in Green Harbour. Signs were everywhere.

In David’s cozy little home, woodstove so hot you could “melt an anchor” as Francis pointed out I heard the story of Ricky’s three year battle to protect his livelihood from the salmon farming industry. Ricky assisted the DFO biologists who came to the bay where he fishes to count the number of egg-bearing female lobsters. He was so interested in their work, they gave him a vial of the preserved larval lobsters. As he held this up he explained the outer Shelbourne Harbour is a nursery area for the lobsters. During their fishery, the fishermen release these females so as not to damage their fishery.

But now DFO was of the opinion that the bay was not important as a lobster reproduction area. Ricky was in disbelief. DFO has over 1,500 pages of fishermen’s log books recording the high number of egg-bearing females that come into the bay to drop their eggs.

They had made a decent living all their lives, but now Ricky felt so uncertain about his future as a fisherman that he was not replacing his old traps. His life was on hold as he fought to bring some sense to government’s pending decision to site salmon farms in a bay so shallow the depth under the pens, would be less than the depth of the nets!

In the schematic below you can see that the depth under this farm would be 3.7m. The depth of the nets holding the fish was 8m, the predator nets 9m.

“They are going to shit themselves an island,” said Ricky, “the waste is going to build up under that farm, until it’s dry land. Then they will be in closed-containment!”

David and Francis both nodded as Ricky described the winter storms. The farm was planned for water so shallow the 30’ waves that roar in from the open Atlantic will be cresting over the farm. Given the length of the farm, the ends will be up on top of two different waves, while the middle of the farm will be hitting bottom in the wave trough.

“Those fish will be smashed, that’s inhumane,” said Ricky in his strong local accent.

They described how the government pays compensation for fish lost, and how if the company does actually grow fish to harvest-size in that incredibly stressful environment, that the revenue and processing will go to New Brunswick, not Shelbourne county. The men clearly did not believe that a processing plant would be built locally, because the plant in New Brunswick was not operating at capacity. They felt it was being dangled as bait to lure their community into a bad deal.

“I have put my business on hold, being compromised by a multi-millionaire from New Brunswick, the fishermen take all the risk, it is not a fair game.”

The story of Port Mouton was even more disturbing than Sheet Harbour. We left Sheet Harbour early in the morning and drove down to Port Mouton through beautiful scenery of ocean, rivers and trees in fall foliage. We met Bob Swim, his wife Norma, Brian, Ron and Ruth Loucks and Gloria Gilbert and headed out on Bob and Norma’s boat Lydia Belle, named after his grandmother.

In the stiff offshore breeze and brilliant sunlight we headed out to the salmon feedlot. Spectacle Island, owned by Cook Aquaculture and now Ocean Trout. Strangely they are raising steelhead in this ocean pen. These Friends of Port Mouton have a long history of trying to protect their community from salmon farming. In exchange for removing this sign from locations around their town, Cooke Aquaculture agreed to fallow the farm for three years, but now it was stocked again.

The farm had the distinctive smell, and a sheen of oil smoothed the tops of the waves. As we sat in lee of the wind Bob explained.

“The farm went in in 1996, by 2000 we were noticing changes. Before the farm went in there were about 15 boats running 150 traps per boat, getting 7-10 lobsters per trap, per day. A few years later there were only 5 boats able to run 100 traps, getting 4-5 lobsters per trap. Twelve years later only one boat and skiff can make a living in the inner bay of Port Mouton, there just is not enough to go around anymore. Lobster fishing is good where there are no salmon farms.”

Gloria who has worked to stop this destruction every day since 2006 said, “There used to be an Irish Moss and muscle harvest here, but that stopped when the farm went in. During the three-year fallow these started to come back, the eel grass came back too, but now the farm is back and things are disappearing again. ”

Ron Loucks and Ruth Smith are scientists and without anyone paying them, they decided to measure the copper levels in the microlayer (the very surface of the water). The salmon feedlot nets are often soaked in copper paint to slow down the growth of seaweed and muscles and this toxin flakes off as the nets billow and flex. Ruth and Ron found the copper levels near the farm exceeded government guidelines for 27 months after the farm was emptied. It appeared the copper was being pushed to the surface by the gas being emitted by the waste on the seafloor. The levels exceeded the guidelines for lobster survival by 6-7 times. They wrote a paper on it.

Copper in the sediment and sea surface microlayer near a fallowed open-net fish farm.

This is important because after hatching lobsters swim on the surface for 6 months where the copper can kill them.

Gloria told us, “The premier-to-be, Darrell Dexter stood on the beach over there and criticized the Conservative Government about salmon farming saying The government of the day showed a lack of leadership by not listening to the community. Now that he is premier he supports the industry!” Then on June 20, 2012, Dexter’s government gave $25 million to Cooke Aquaculture to develop an even bigger industry.

Everyone on the boat shook their heads saying this gift to Cooke came at the same time as public services such as hospital beds and schools are being cut. No one could understand why.

They pointed to a piece of open water saying that is where the next farm is supposed to go, right in front of the white sand dunes of Carter Beach. Bob guided his boat back into the harbour and tied it up amongst the fleet of well-kept boats. Each boat representing a benefit to the local economy.

We came off the sea and warmed up with a bowl of corn chowder. The small gathering asked a familiar question, “How do you think we can stop this.” This is what people on both coast are asking. What do you do when politicians turn in circles? When nothing makes sense? When local people seem to no longer count?

Next we met Marian and Herschel Specter. Herschel is a retired engineer. They live on the edge of the Inner Shelbourne Harbour. The Specter’s took Belliveau, Minster of Fisheries and Aquaculture and he is Minister of Environment to Supreme Court because Cooke Aquaculture (Kelly Cove Salmon) were running farms that were not on their leases. In a one-day hearing, the judge ruled the Minister had the right to decide where the farms despite the lease boundaries. So while the company had leases, Belliveau could override the siting rules and permit the farm to exist outside the lease. Why have rules?

The Specters lost a large part of the their retirement funds as they look out at three salmon feedlot sites from their front porch. They continue to research the industry and found records that a salmon feedlot was exceeding sulfide limits on the seafloor up by to five times the recommended levels year after year.

Herschel said: “They appear to be complying, but they are just horsing around – you can’t fool me.”

Inka Milewski, an independent scientist, continues to track the sulfide levels in Shelbourne Harbour around these farms.

Herschel cannot understand why the government would allow this coast to be used as a dumping site for the salmon feedlot industry, when the 5,000 miles of Nova Scotia coastline have a far greater value as an incredibly lovely place to live. The industry is owned by an ambitious, wealthy New Brunswick family and the profits leave Nova Scotia. The salmon grown in Nova Scotia are trucked to New Brunswick for processing. Cooke promised Shelbourne over 300 jobs, in a processing plant by December 2015. But as several people pointed out if they built a processing plant that big, every bay on the coast of southwest Nova Scotia would have to be plugged with salmon farms to produce 3 million farm salmon/year!

Next we met Francis and Ricky and David Hallett commercial lobster fishermen, born and raised in Green Harbour.

In David’s cozy little home, woodstove so hot you could “melt an anchor” as Francis pointed out I heard the story of Ricky’s three year battle to protect his livelihood from the salmon farming industry. Ricky assisted the DFO biologists who came to the bay where he fishes to count the number of egg-bearing female lobsters. He was so interested in their work, they gave him a vial of the preserved larval lobsters. As he held this up he explained the outer Shelbourne Harbour is a nursery area for the lobsters. During their fishery, the fishermen release these females so as not to damage their fishery.

But now DFO was of the opinion that the bay was not important as a lobster reproduction area. Ricky was in disbelief. DFO has over 1,500 pages of fishermen’s log books recording the high number of egg-bearing females that come into the bay to drop their eggs.

They had made a decent living all their lives, but now Ricky felt so uncertain about his future as a fisherman that he was not replacing his old traps. His life was on hold as he fought to bring some sense to government’s pending decision to site salmon farms in a bay so shallow the depth under the pens, would be less than the depth of the nets!

In the schematic below you can see that the depth under this farm would be 3.7m. The depth of the nets holding the fish was 8m, the predator nets 9m.

“They are going to shit themselves an island,” said Ricky, “the waste is going to build up under that farm, until it’s dry land. Then they will be in closed-containment!”

David and Francis both nodded as Ricky described the winter storms. The farm was planned for water so shallow the 30’ waves that roar in from the open Atlantic will be cresting over the farm. Given the length of the farm, the ends will be up on top of two different waves, while the middle of the farm will be hitting bottom in the wave trough.

“Those fish will be smashed, that’s inhumane,” said Ricky in his strong local accent.

They described how the government pays compensation for fish lost, and how if the company does actually grow fish to harvest-size in that incredibly stressful environment, that the revenue and processing will go to New Brunswick, not Shelbourne county. The men clearly did not believe that a processing plant would be built locally, because the plant in New Brunswick was not operating at capacity. They felt it was being dangled as bait to lure their community into a bad deal.

“I have put my business on hold, being compromised by a multi-millionaire from New Brunswick, the fishermen take all the risk, it is not a fair game.”