Legacy - November 2015

Legacy

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Since 2011

eMagazine of Wild Game Fish Conservation International

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Cover: Courageous Ahsousaht wild salmon defenders, with support from Alexandra Morton and others, celebrate their historic victory following removal of Cermaq’s ocean-based salmon feedlot near Yaakswiis.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

Legacy Wild Game Fish Conservation International Wild Game Fish Conservation International (WGFCI): Established in 2011 to advocate for wild game fish, their fragile ecosystems and the cultures and economies that rely on their robust populations.

LEGACY – Journal of Wild Game Fish Conservation: Complimentary, nononsense, monthly publication by conservationists for conservationists LEGACY, the WGFCI Facebook page and the WGFCI website are utilized to better equip fellow conservationists, elected officials, business owners and others regarding wild game fish, their unparalleled contributions to society and the varied and complex issues impacting them and those who rely on their sustainability.

LEGACY exposes impacts to wild game fish while featuring wild game fish conservation projects, fishing adventures, wildlife art, accommodations, equipment and more. Your photos and articles featuring wild game fish from around planet earth are welcome for possible inclusion in an upcoming issue of LEGACY. E-mail them with captions and credits to Jim (wilcoxj@katewwdb.com).

Successful wild game fish conservation efforts around planet earth will ensure existence of these precious natural resources and their ecosystems for future generations to enjoy and appreciate. This is our LEGACY.

Wild Game Fish Conservation International Founders

Bruce Treichler

Jim Wilcox

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

Contents Breaking News ____________________________________________________________________________________ 6  Fantastic News: Nestlé To Be Sued For Californian Drought Crimes! ______________________________________ 6  Nestlé faces renewed criticism as B.C. drought continues ________________________________________________ 8

Opinion __________________________________________________________________________________________ 11  Smell that crude _____________________________________________________________________________________ 11  Bad Things Happen when Transporting Crude Oil ______________________________________________________ 12  Making the case against a salmon hatchery in Marystown _______________________________________________ 14  OP-ED: PADDLING AGAINST DEADBEAT DAMS AT THE FREE THE SNAKE FLOTILLA ____________________ 17  Sockeye death toll a predictable disaster ______________________________________________________________ 21  Guest Opinion: Idaho’s wild salmon and steelhead are in peril ___________________________________________ 23  Chehalis River Flood Damage Control – A Bottomless Money Pit ________________________________________ 25  Our Views: Dam News Encouraging ___________________________________________________________________ 26

Community Activism, Education and Outreach ______________________________________________________ 27  Stopping Farmed Salmon at the Cash Register _________________________________________________________ 27  Preliminary examination of contaminant loadings in farmed salmon, wild salmon and commercial salmon feed _________________________________________________________________________________________ 27  Feedlot salmon boycott: Chilliwack Walmart ___________________________________________________________ 28  Irelad Supports the “Ahousaht Nation” Against Toxic Saalmon Farms ___________________________________ 29  Save the Salmon – No to LNG on Lelu Island ___________________________________________________________ 30  Lexie on Duty for Wild Salmon ________________________________________________________________________ 31  Activists protest natural gas projects; march on FERC __________________________________________________ 32  Rally: Take to the Streets, Get out the Vote (Vancouer, BC) ______________________________________________ 33  Video: No Exploding Oil Trains in Seattle ______________________________________________________________ 34  No Crude Oil Terminal Grays Harbor, Washington ______________________________________________________ 35  Rally riles oil denouncers amid public hearing _________________________________________________________ 37  Thank You: Peoples Climate Movement ________________________________________________________________ 40  No Tankers, No Fish Farms, No Joke __________________________________________________________________ 41  FLY FISHING FOR SALMON AND STEELHEAD _________________________________________________________ 42

Climate___________________________________________________________________________________________ 43  SFU faculty opposes Kinder Morgan pipeline ___________________________________________________________ 43  Alaska mulls extra oil drilling to cope with climate change ______________________________________________ 45

Habitat ___________________________________________________________________________________________ 49  Puget Sound 'S.O.S.' Act announced by congressmen __________________________________________________ 49  Endangered Coho Salmon Choke On Urban Runoff; Simple Filtration Could Save Them ___________________ 51  Judges hear Washington challenge to fish-passage ruling ______________________________________________ 53  Sitka Spruce Planted to Improve Sockeye Habitat ______________________________________________________ 55  NEW LAW PROTECTS CA RIVERS FROM GOLD MINING ________________________________________________ 57

Hatcheries________________________________________________________________________________________ 59  Race on to save Kootenay Lake’s crashing kokanee population _________________________________________ 59

Legislation _______________________________________________________________________________________ 61  Canada: The Trans-Pacific Agreement Will Sap Whatever Is Left of Our Sovereignty ______________________ 61  TPP worse than NAFTA _______________________________________________________________________________ 64

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots Salmon feedlots __________________________________________________________________________________ 65  What’s Missing…SCIENCE ____________________________________________________________________________ 66  Shooting seals around Scotland’s factory farms in the sea ______________________________________________ 67  Map: Wild salmon dangerously scarce in Highland rivers _______________________________________________ 69  Marine Harvest loses 17,000 salmon during sea lice treatment ___________________________________________ 73  Nova Scotia land-raised salmon proof business is viable: environmentalists _____________________________ 74  Alexandra Morton: Interviewed by Cameron Dennison (Tuff City Radio} __________________________________ 76  Ahousaht First Nation Warriors Win B.C. Salmon Farm Standoff _________________________________________ 77  Protesters threaten to renew blockade in B.C. fish farm dispute _________________________________________ 80  Joe James Crow and Alexandra Morton witness historic removal of Cermaq’s weapon of mass destruction (salmon feedlot) from wild salmon habitat __________________________________________________ 83  We wrote to Cermaq regarding the Yaakswiis salmon feedlot removal ____________________________________ 85  Ur-koppevirus kveler norsk oppdrettslaks______________________________________________________________ 86

Energy Generation: Oil, Coal, Geothermal, Hydropower, Natural Gas, Solar, Tidal, Wind _______________ 92 Petroleum – Drilled, Refined, Tar Sands, Fracked _________________________________________________________ 93  Petropolis - Rape and pillage of Canada and Canadians for toxic bitumen ________________________________ 93  Bitumen: It isn’t oil, it’s ASPHALT and it sinks when spilled _____________________________________________ 94       

Vancouver firefighters union opposes oil terminal at port _______________________________________________ 95 Hundreds testify on oil terminals proposed for Grays Harbor ____________________________________________ 98 Officials hear overwhelming opposition to crude terminals ______________________________________________ 99 Shell abandons Alaska Arctic drilling _________________________________________________________________ 103 Obama cancels Arctic drilling lease sales _____________________________________________________________ 106 10,000 Ton Texas Tanker traveling the B.C. Coast _____________________________________________________ 108 Fracking is not safe – Let’s prove it ___________________________________________________________________ 109

 National Energy Board seeking more information on Trans Mountain expansion project before making its decision _________________________________________________________________________________________  B.C. leaders join rail-safety alliance under threat of train derailments ___________________________________ Coal __________________________________________________________________________________________________  Save the Chuitna ____________________________________________________________________________________

110 112 113 113

 The oil boom in one slick infographic _________________________________________________________________ 113  The Proposed Chuitna Coal Strip Mine ________________________________________________________________ 114 Hydropower / Water Retention __________________________________________________________________________ 115  Water power Industry is not creating green electricity it creates Mordor! ________________________________ 115  Free the Snake ______________________________________________________________________________________ 116  Large flotilla of outdoor enthusiasts takes “Free the Snake” message to the water _______________________ 117  Orca advocates call for end to Snake River dams ______________________________________________________  Don't be fooled by Hydropower Industry talking points_________________________________________________  Aging And Underfunded: America's Dam Safety Problem, In 4 Charts ___________________________________ Natural Gas ___________________________________________________________________________________________  Coos Bay LNG Pipeline ______________________________________________________________________________  15.8 Million Tonnes of CO2___________________________________________________________________________ Solar _________________________________________________________________________________________________  Solutions Not Pollution – Skilled, Trained, Ready ______________________________________________________

119 121 122 129 129 130 131 131

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots Mining – Precious Metals _________________________________________________________________________ 132  RE: Transboundary Mining Threats to Southeast Alaska _______________________________________________ 132  New B.C. $5.4 Billion Gold and Copper Mine Will Improve Water Quality in River, Says Company _________ 133  A video reminder of the worst mining disaster in Canadian history. _____________________________________ 136  BRISTOL BAY MINE _________________________________________________________________________________ 137

Fishing Pictures _________________________________________________________________________________ 140  Another derby-winning ling cod on Charterboat Slammer – Westport, Washington _______________________ 140  Kevin’s sidekick, “Strike Indicator” ___________________________________________________________________ 141  South Fork Snake River Trout Fishing ________________________________________________________________ 142  Doug with an ocean-bright coho______________________________________________________________________ 143  Rhett Weber’s Charterboat Slammer Leaving Westport Boat Basin______________________________________ 144

Forward The November 2015 issue of “Legacy” ( Volume 5, Issue 1) marks forty nine consecutive months of our complimentary eMagazine; the no-holds-barred, watchdog journal published and distributed by Wild Game Fish Conservation International.

Conservation of wild game fish is our passion. Publishing “Legacy” each month is our self imposed responsibility to help ensure the future of these precious gifts that have been entrusted to our generation for safekeeping.

Please read then share/forward “Legacy” with others who care deeply about the future of wild game fish and all that rely on them.

Sincerely,

Bruce Treichler James E. Wilcox Wild Game Fish Conservation International

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

Breaking News

 Fantastic News: Nestlé To Be Sued For Californian Drought Crimes!

Their permit to extract water expired 27 YEARS AGO, but the corporation just kept on going. Finally, activists hope justice will be served...

October 13, 2015

Campaign group The Story Of Stuff Project have just announced they will be pursuing legal action against Nestlé for illegally extracting groundwater in California for its Arrowhead brand, which has been a key contributor to the State’s drought crisis.

Thanks to generous donations from a huge number of furious citizens, The Story Of Stuff Project was able to raise enough money to film a mini-documentary called ‘This land is our land’. It tells the story of Nestlé’s removal of millions of gallons of water from the San Bernardino National Forestand it details evidence of criminal activity by one of the world’s most unethical corporations.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots The Story Of Stuff Project reports: “While filming in southern California our team uncovered hard evidence that Nestlé has been operating outside the bounds of the law. When Nestlé’s permit to remove water expired 27 years ago, the U.S. Forest Service should have turned off the spigot. But instead, it has allowed Nestlé to continue operating unabated, in violation of the terms of its own permit.

“So to defend the public resources at stake we’ve joined with two great partners—Courage Campaign and the Center for Biological Diversity—to turn up the heat on Nestlé by filing a federal lawsuit challenging the company’s illegal occupation of these public lands.”

This is great news for campaigners and terrible news for Nestlé’s CEO, who is insane enough to believe that water is not a human right and should be privatized. Activists have already shut down a plant in California, and this is the next step in the fight against greed and corporate ecocide.

Please share this (very moving) video to support the campaign, and if you are still buying bottled water, please stop!

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

 Nestlé faces renewed criticism as B.C. drought continues Companies like Nestlé will pay $2.25 to bottle a million litres of water starting in 2016 July 10, 2015 Criticism against Nestlé is picking up momentum once again as drought plagues B.C., wildfires rage in parts of the south coast, and residents are facing water restrictions.

Nestlé Waters Canada bottles roughly 265 million litres of water from B.C. every year.

Starting in 2016, it will have to pay $2.25 per million litres due to new regulations. Currently the company and other corporations take the water for free. 

Nanaimo, Parksville move to level 4 water restrictions with extreme drought conditions



Nestlé B.C. water deal too cheap, says NDP

"It's simply scandalous that a company like Nestlé can take hundreds of millions of litres of groundwater at basically pennies at the same time as other B.C. residents are being asked to conserve water because it's in the middle of a drought," said Liz McDowell, campaign director of an on line petition opposing the new regulations.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots Nestlé Waters Canada defends its water use, noting it is not withdrawing water from rivers, lakes and streams that are currently affected by drought. Instead, the company draws its water from a groundwater aquifer, said corporate affairs director John Challinor.

"We withdraw less than one per cent of the available groundwater in the Kawkawa Lake subwatershed," he said in a written statement.

"Each year we publicly report on our withdrawals and monitoring data in an annual hydrologic monitoring report. These reports conclude that Nestlé Waters Canada has had no negative impact on the Kawkawa Lake sub-watershed in the 15 year history of our operations."

The Kawkawa Lake sub-watershed is near the District of Hope, where stage four water restrictions are prohibiting outdoor water activities and watering of lawns.

Petition gathering thousands of signatures McDowell says the $2.25-rate is much lower than those set in other parts of Canada. Her petition, which began earlier in the year and has now gained more than 160,000 signatures, is urging the B.C. government to set a much higher water rate to encourage conservation.

"We're fortunate we do have groundwater reserves at the moment, but in California, after two, three, four drought years in a row, their groundwater reserves are actually running dry," she told On the Coast's Stephen Quinn.

"In B.C., right now we're in a position where we can actually stop and think responsibly and make sure we can preserve our groundwater for years to come."

McDowell says she will present the petition to Environment Minister Mary Polak once it reaches 200,000 signatures.

Government defends water fee In an interview with Stephen Quinn on The Early Edition, Polak insisted that the province is not selling water but just charging a fee to industry for "accessing" the water for free.

She says raising fees could raise legal questions about who owns the water in the province.

"That's a dangerous thing in these days when water is fought over around the world and we see what's happening in California," she says. "We will never sell that right of ownership. We will allow access but it is tightly controlled."

This has been the norm in B.C. for generations, Polak says. Water is not treated the same way as other resources, such as minerals or oil and gas, which have become a source of revenue for government.

"What would happen if you start to generate a profit, start to generate revenue from water? What behaviour does that create in government?"

Nestlé not treated differently A higher fee for industry would probably not affect Nestlé's ability to do business in B.C., she says, but would more likely affect dozens of smaller local bottled water companies that employ people and are "good clean businesses."

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots The way to control water use by industry is never going to be money, she says. Instead, she points to strong laws and regulations, such as the new Water Sustainability Act coming into effect in 2016, which regulates groundwater use and gives the provincial government the authority to step in with mandatory restrictions on all industry in cases of drought.

Nestlé is treated no differently than any other industrial operation in B.C., she says "It's a straw man that is set up by folks who are, and I understand why, folks who are concerned about Nestlé as a company.

"If we want to talk about preserving water, it's about making sure we have strong laws to regulate how much anyone can use — whether they're Nestlé or anyone else — and ensuring that we never open to allowing multinational corporations to come in to British Columbia and actually buy ownership of some water.

Listen to the interview: Renewed criticism against Nestlé sparked by B.C. drought Listen to the interview: Mary Polak

Kawkawa Lake

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

Opinion

 Smell that crude September 24, 2015 Grays Harbor County and its surrounding area are strategically important to the security of our region and nation. We are the gateway to the coast of Washington, with an international seaport, a rail connection to the main line, a certified airport and a freeway to our state’s population center and military bases.

We have been muddling too long. Our varied economy is important but weak, unable to maintain and strengthen our security. We must come together as a region and country, to develop a vision and pursue it. Our ecosystems and infrastructures are in jeopardy, with potential choking points.

Smell that crude, a smothering oil with volatile gases. It’s on the horizon, a threat to our security and livability, a temptress that can be easily triggered by a terrorist attack, a natural disaster or a train derailment.

Without realizing it, we have built “cluster bombs” in the form of hazardous liquid tanks on our waterfront, served with rail and sea tankers, “bombs” in their own right.

Grays Harbor is now at risk, even without crude oil. The transfer, storage and processing of large volumes of hazardous liquids should be suspended, until those companies that are responsible, provide a cleanup and recovery system, with an ironclad guarantee to pay for the damages that may occur.

We must replace the two rail bridges that were torn down on the Chehalis River, with combination train, truck and car bridges, relocated to join Aberdeen, Hoquiam, Cosmopolis and Junction City into one industrial serving area, including a “holding and switching” yard, isolated, for dangerous products. These new connections, will bring an added efficiency to our emergency departments, while enhancing the security of our region and nation.

Of particular concern, is North Korea’s developing nuclear and delivery systems, by leaders that have no compassion, playing dice with our lives.

Through government grants, we can safeguard our ecosystems and rebuild our infrastructures, backing-up our region and nation in the event of a catastrophe.

Our common security depends on the quality of our ecosystems and infrastructures, the multipliers of our economy and well-being.

David R. Furford Aberdeen

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

 Bad Things Happen when Transporting Crude Oil

by Jim Wilcox The incident history below speaks volumes to the insanity of transporting fracked Bakken Formation crude oil via tankers and barges from oil terminals cited on America’s west coast and why the proposed oil terminals in Grays Harbor are ill-conceived and irresponsible.

The magnitude of risks associated with Grays Harbor terminal oil spills are incomprehensible given the many concerns including impacts to robust wildlife and public health.

Although great, these risks are vastly exacerbated when one considers the risks associated with transporting this highly-explosive crude oil from Grays Harbor as planned to refineries along America’s uniquely productive west coast – American-sourced crude oil must be refined in America.

Certainly, Grays Harbor crude oil terminals could also be utilized to export very dirty and dangerous diluted bitumen from Canada’s tarsands fields in Alberta to oil-thirsty Asian markets.

The point of this is to share the real concerns associated with west coast oil spills and their impacts to our way of life as Pacific Ocean tides and prevailing winds will carry crude oil hundreds of miles devastating everything in their path Incident history of the Nestucca barge (May 20, 2010).

As compiled by Jon Neel, Dave Byers and Curt Hart, Washington Department of Ecology.

The Sause Brothers Ocean Towing Co. cargo barge, Nestucca, that broke loose from the tug Miki Hana on May 19, 2010, once was a fuel barge that played a critical rule in Washington environmental history.

1988 Nestucca barge oil spill In the early morning hours of December 23, 1988, the fuel barge Nestucca spilled 231,000 gallons of heavy fuel oil along Washington’s outer coast, offshore to the entrance to Grays Harbor. Tow line breaks near Grays Harbor The incident occurred when the Sause Brothers Ocean Towing Co. tug, Ocean Services, lost its tow of the Nestucca after the line broke after crossing the Grays Harbor bar.

To try and retrieve the tow and keep the Nestucca off the Ocean Shores jetty, the tug captain backed into the starboard bow of the barge to get two crew members onto the barge to re-establish the tow line.

Collision causes significant oil spill Unfortunately, the collision between the Ocean Services and Nestucca ripped a gash in the barge, causing heavy fuel oil to spill.

While the bulk of the oil washed ashore near Ocean Shores, the spill harmed wildlife and fouled beaches as far south as Oregon and north to Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Patches of oily sheen were reported as far west as Dungeness Spit.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots Spill devastating to area seabirds The spill also killed or injured an estimated 56,000 seabirds in the area. Once a seabird is coated with oil, their feathers no longer act to repel the cold effects of sea water. The birds also ingest the toxin when they preen their feathers in an attempt to remove the oil.

1988 spill defines Washington’s current spills program Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire was Director for the Washington Department of Ecology when the Nestucca spill occurred. The spill helped define Washington's current spill prevention, preparedness, and response strategy.

Pacific State-British Columbia Oil Spill Task Force formed Among the first actions was the creation of the Pacific States-British Columbia Oil Spill Task Force to determine how best to share spill response resources, build on lessons learned from spill incidents, identify risks, and prevent spills.

The first meeting was held on March 23, 1989, the day before the Exxon Valdez catastrophe in Alaska.

Washington Legislature passes critical spill prevention, preparedness, and response laws In 1989, the Washington Legislature passed legislation enabling the state to seek compensation from spillers for damages to the public’s natural resources caused by oil spills.

In 1990, state lawmakers passed the first set of oil spill preparedness laws for companies handling and shipping oil in Washington waters.

In 1991, the Legislature adopted a comprehensive bill establishing vessel and oil-handling facility spill prevention laws and created the 5 cent barrel tax on oil imported into Washington to pay for the new activities.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

 Making the case against a salmon hatchery in Marystown The Marystown hatchery is part of a larger picture that includes where the hatchery product, i.e. smolts and small salmon, end up.

October 13, 2015 A hatchery is a part of a production chain in which all the links must be considered.

Before considering this expansion any sensible approach would need to have gathered base-line disease studies of resident and migratory fish and shellfish to ascertain what was there naturally before the development happens.

We know brand new to science mutated strains of deadly fish viruses have been found in the dying caged fish but no serious wild fish have been tested. Ditto for more than 50 other pathogens amplified, mutated and/or spread by the pens.

There is no serious green crab population data to monitor the dramatic affects of net pens. Rotten fish (millions of salmon were left to rot all fall, winter and spring recently) feed invasive diseasecarrying green crabs, diseases that decimate local shellfish, as was recently proven in a UPEI study and Nova Scotia lobster harvesters’ project.

Despite being decades old, there has never been any attempt at an effective local long-term monitoring of wild fish for population declines and health state due to aquaculture initiated, amplified, mutated and transferred pathogens (what industry calls “spill over”). This is despite a recent review of over 300 scientific papers that showed very significant negative impacts.

There is no effective re-capture method for escapes and no required reporting of escapes under 100 fish or even effective monitoring for escapes.

The current industry, before any suggested expansion, can have 20,000-plus fish become “unaccounted for” and blame the numbers on counting errors, etc., and not escapes due to the constant and consistently found numerous holes in the net pens. This is nearly as many salmon as all the wild rivers on the south coast are producing annually! Escaped fish eat food required by wild fish, spread diseases over vast areas, attract predators, interbreed with wild fish causing negative population affects by watering down good DNA with bad DNA, etc., etc.

There has been no long-term monitoring of pesticide effects and affects for toxins used to treat lice and disease, despite stacks of research publications, some by muzzled federal agencies, that show how detrimental this industry’s chemical addiction is to our once pristine bays.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots What does dumping tens of millions of pounds of oily fish pellets do to migratory predators? There is no effective predator protection methods (e.g. sharks, tuna, seals, etc.). These predators make holes in flimsy net pens, which result in constant escapes.

This is not Norway. We have ice issues on bird protection netting which results in untold dead eagles annually. The deaths do not have to be reported publicly and no one is watching anyway. The eagles die due to rotting fish oil that constantly peculates up inside the net pen rings from the constantly dying fish and rotting feed pellets. As the eagles go for a snack, this oil fouls their feathers so they can’t fly or stay warm in winter. There is no effective solution and approximately 20 eagles died at one of the 55 sites recently. All never publicly reported.

The industry suggests there will not be any effluent from the proposed hatchery. But we all know that when tanks need to be sterilized and cleaned from disease outbreaks there will be effluent. This is inevitable. Will they pump out (millions of litres) the water laden with antibiotics and disease in the nearby (mere feet away) brook? The brook passes right next to the tank taps! Did they plan to build feet from a brook that is metres from the ocean? Who is monitoring what happens behind the barbed wire when the brook passed almost under the buildings? The hatchery project at St. Albans at least had enough guts to put on paper in their plan that they wanted to dump into the adjacent salmonid stream when things got nasty!

These companies have unrestricted access to deadly neurotoxins (used by the hundreds of kilograms annually) and enjoy voluntary reporting by convicted illegal pesticide smugglers and abusers. Moreover, their co-investor, the Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture, will not reveal amounts and types of antibiotics used nor require third party monitoring for antimicrobial resistance in the nearby environment despite World Health Organization and Canadian Antibiotic Resistance Alliance warnings targeted at this antibiotic addicted industry.

More than 60 per cent was recently exported to the many mainland temporary foreign workers this industry used. This occurred during our industry disease caused complete collapse. The processing done to those that stayed were mainly simply gutted. The actual people hours of employment are always hidden and mixed with other processing numbers and these generalized employment statistics never stand up under scrutiny. Those plants that do process have ineffective effluent treatment on every one of them that will not stop viral pathogens according to the most comprehensive study ever done on the subject – consisting of an esteemed panel of European Union fish vets. Blood filters simply don’t work against viruses, even when they are operating as designed, which is not every day.

There is no updated actions on the flimsy aquaculture plan, despite government making an announcement almost a year ago. There is no effective waste management of net pens dumping tens of millions of pounds of feed pellets into the bays annually – that also can result in wild fish larva eating tunicate and salp blooms on a biblical level as recently witnessed along our south coast! Isn’t it illegal to dump at sea for these very reasons? Dumping on this scale results in predator baiting on an industrial scale. Pity the fish outside the net pens.

Norwegian-made feed pellets have proven to be highly toxic. Nobody believes the self-reported conversion ratios of wild fish ground up to make salmon – stats that do not consider escapes, disease losses, etc.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots The current level of policing of the vast areas involved is completely ineffective and requires some study as certainly the two or three staff involved have too many hats to wear already. Who’s watching? No one.

Where is this companies “social license”? Many, many residents do not want this, but instead want stable, total land-based, cleaner, moreefficient production. Government’s own survey shows 80 per cent disapproval of the current methods! NLOA, FFAW and every single eNGO in Canada from British Columbia to Newfoundland and Labrador want this industry contained on land. Perhaps that is why the Norwegian government just announced a $200 million NOK fund involving 18 of the top industry members to develop land-based salmon aquaculture into a off the shelf mass production “kit.” Maybe we should be backing one of the Canadian companies that are successfully growing salmon to market size in self-contained landbased tanks.

Doesn’t this company have a horrid reputation internationally for lies, cover-ups, misreporting, smuggling and refusing to do the research required to show how large the negative impacts are of the open net pen method? Simply buying cheap wild fish protein in poor areas, depriving local cultures, and use it to make feed pellets to feed wealthy G8 consumers is fish reduction. With free bio-insurance (funded by tax payers) for self-created disease outbreaks, free labs and support, and the least protective laws in the G8, no wonder the Norwegians are running here after wearing out their welcome and facing financial/biological messed in Chile and Norway! Pity our Canadian landbased operations.

I beg the people of Marystown to speak with people like me about using bio-insecure wild lakes as grow-ops, thus amplifying diseases like whirling disease in the predator excluding pens and then allowing these constantly sick fish to be sold as human food to carry these deadly fish pathogens all over Newfoundland and Labrador and Canada as is happening right now in our province.

Please consider the risks of having open net pens and miles of three-inch ropes strewn across bays used by oil super tankers. How many cages have been lost at sea in the last 10 years? Lots! Study the many facets of this method and the ramifications of allowing deadly toxins to be imported in uncontrolled amounts and administered in uncontrolled amounts, using unwatched methods, and then voluntarily reported by convicted smugglers of illegal pesticides. It’s criminal.

Bill Bryden Lumsden

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

 OP-ED:

PADDLING AGAINST DEADBEAT DAMS AT THE FREE THE SNAKE FLOTILLA 350 BOATERS, FISHERMEN, CONSERVATIONISTS, AND TRIBAL MEMBERS CAME TOGETHER TO SUPPORT DAM REMOVAL OVER THE WEEKEND

Words by Sam Mace, Inland Photos by Ben Moon, Patagonia

Northwest

Director,

Save

Our

Wild

Salmon

Spokane, WA: More than 300 people launched from Wawawai Landing for Lower Granite Dam Saturday where the colorful flotilla of kayaks, canoes, drift boats and motor rigs rallied around a 100foot banner with a simple message: “Free the Snake.”

Early morning rain, wind and clouds left and the sun came out as spectators cheered the flotilla from shore. Boats adorned with banners and salmon art carried costumed paddlers, orca advocates, anglers from Idaho and eastern Washington, river conservationists, salmon advocates, musicians, artists, scientists, and Nez Perce tribal members across the reservoir. After returning to shore, the group celebrated the largest gathering of dam removal advocates in recent history with baked salmon and fry bread.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

Photo: Matt Stoecker The flotilla included several sportsmen who remembered the bounty of the lower Snake River Canyon before slack water inundated thousands of acres of prime hunting lands, wildlife habitat, steelhead runs and hiking, not to mention the productive fruit orchards and farm lands. Some were part of the battle waged by sportsmen to stop the dams in the 1960s and 70s before the four reservoirs flooded the Snake River corridor from Asotin, Idaho, to Pasco, Washington. Though the dams were built, the debate has never ended, and in recent years voices speaking out in favor of dam removal have multiplied.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

This summer endangered Snake River salmon died by the thousands due to hot water in the reservoirs. The water behind the lower Snake dams became especially lethal. In 2015, conditions were so brutal that endangered Idaho sockeye had to be trucked from Lower Granite Dam to central Idaho. Of the thousands of fish that began the journey upstream from the sea, less than 50 fish made it past the dams.

It’s time to give these fish an easier journey up the Columbia and Snake rivers to the thousands of miles of pristine habitat in the upper Snake River basin–for the good of the rivers, for fishermen, tribes and the Puget Sound orcas that depend on Chinook for survival.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots But salmon aren’t the only reason to remove these four dams. These aging, out-dated dams are costing taxpayers millions of dollars in repairs, upgrades and expensive dredging, while their value to the Northwest is in steep decline. Their original purpose of providing barge traffic to Lewiston, Idaho, is no long makes economic sense; barging is down more than 60 percent as shippers shift to more efficient alternatives. The dams provide less than 4 percent of the power to BPA markets, no flood control and only a small amount of irrigation that could continue without the dams.

And the dams are stifling Lewiston-Clarkston’s economy. These small towns sit at the confluence of two of the greatest rivers in the west: the Snake and the Clearwater. What could be an attractive waterfront attached to a vibrant downtown is a tall levee blocking the river from the community.

Sterile rip-rapped banks have replaced the city beaches that residents once flocked to on hot summer days before the dams.

It’s time for all who have a stake in the river—conservationists, fishing businesses, tribes, orca advocates, utilities, local towns and farmers—to come to the table and talk dam removal.

Save Our wild Salmon is committed to working with farmers and others to further support the shift to rail and other transportation that is already occurring. We look forward to working with other stakeholders to bring back the tremendous fish and wildlife habitat, recreational opportunities, freeflowing waterfront and other values now lost under stagnant reservoirs.

The 350 people who came together at Wawawai are part of a groundswell that is occurring in the Northwest, nationally and in eastern Washington, one that our elected leaders can ignore no longer.

Learn how you can get involved at www.wildsalmon.org or www.freethesnake.com or contact Sam Mace at sam@wildsalmon.org. Free the Snake!

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

 Sockeye death toll a predictable disaster October 4, 2015 This guest opinion was first printed in the Idaho Statesman July 31, 2015.

By Greg Stahl The Columbia River Basin is experiencing a predictable disaster this summer.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots Nearly a quarter million sockeye salmon, including Idaho’s endangered sockeye, have been dying as they confront water super-heated by warm weather, low snowpack and a system of dams that cooks the water in its reservoirs to levels that are flat-out lethal for salmon.

It’s not only sockeye that are suffering. Sturgeon that have been plying the Columbia River’s waters for nearly a century have also turned belly up. So, too, did more than 100 spring chinook that died in early July in the Middle Fork of the John Day River.

Salmon are a cold-water species that start to die when water temperatures rise above 72.

Temperatures in parts of the Snake and Columbia rivers approached 80 degrees this summer and have consistently been above 70 degrees — a full 10 degrees warmer than normal.

Unfortunately, this is not just a bad summer, but the result of a long-term failure by federal hydrosystem managers to fix a broken status quo. The conditions that led to this summer’s losses were predictable and inevitable — and will happen again. The only way to deal with this problem effectively is to remove the lower Snake River dams.

Idaho’s salmon were listed under the Endangered Species Act in the 1990s, and since then federal agencies have produced four illegal salmon plans. All four of those studies were overturned by federal judges for failure to consider lower Snake River dam removal.

Between Idaho and the Pacific Ocean there are eight dams and eight reservoirs, and each slack water reservoir is another tank where hot summer weather can super-heat the water. (The dams also slow migration of salmon smolts, increase the chance for predation and cause delayed mortality because of the trauma of being flushed through or over a dam.)

Make no mistake. This year’s low snowpack and hot summer temperatures would have been difficult for salmon in a day and age without dams or human influence at all, but we haven’t done the species any favors by heating the water further and slowing transport times for out-migrating smolts.

Federal fisheries managers estimate that we’ll lose 80 percent to 90 percent of sockeye salmon returning to Idaho this year and about half of the unlisted sockeye headed for tributaries of the Columbia in the Cascades. These are the same managers who, only 11 months ago, held a press conference to pat each other on the back and tout the difference they were making for salmon.

NOAA Fisheries, the Army Corps of Engineers, Bonneville Power Administration and special interest groups gathered at Bonneville Dam last September to celebrate “the collaboration that is bringing more fish home,” according to a Sept. 30, 2014, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers press release.

“These efforts to protect Columbia Basin salmon and steelhead represent one of the largest fish and wildlife programs in the nation,” said Bonneville Power Administration Administrator Elliot Mainzer.

“With our federal, state and tribal partners, we are continually improving conditions for salmon in the streams and tributaries, in hatcheries, in fish passage and on the river.”

The problem is, they’ve done just about everything except fix the problem, and this year’s huge death toll is clear evidence of that. Four dams on the lower Snake River are four dams too many for Idaho’s iconic fish, and four dams too many for water temperatures in the Snake and Columbia river system even under the best of conditions, much less during a hot and dry 2015.

Greg Stahl is communications manager at Idaho Rivers United, a nonprofit conservation group dedicated to protecting and restoring Idaho’s rivers and wild fish.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

 Guest Opinion: Idaho’s wild salmon and steelhead are in peril

By Chris Wood October 9, 2015 Idaho’s wild salmon and steelhead are in trouble. Scientists say that at least 2 percent of the young fish migrating to the sea (smolts) must survive and return as adults for Idaho’s salmon and steelhead stocks to sustain themselves. That has happened only twice in the last 17 years. To actually rebuild the populations, scientists say that 4-6 percent must return. In other words, the status quo ensures decline for these fish that define Idaho and the Northwest.

Eight massive dams in the Columbia and Snake rivers that stand between Idaho’s spawning grounds and the Pacific are the biggest factors in the decline of Snake River salmon and steelhead.

Chris Wood

The slow-moving reservoirs behind the dams are thermal traps that kill fish. In the hot, dry summer of 2015, salmon died when they encountered lethally warm water in the reservoirs behind the four lower Snake River dams. Unlike a free-flowing river where water temperatures cool down at night, reservoirs trap heat and stay hot.

Certainly, dam operators and fish managers should be commended for using the limited tools at their disposal to minimize the loss of Snake River fish, but when we have met the bare minimum smolt-toadult return ratios in only two of the past 17 years, these efforts fall short.

Without new ideas and a better approach, Idaho’s wild salmon and steelhead will go the way of the passenger pigeon.

Overwhelming scientific evidence supports removal of the four lower Snake River dams as the best way to recover Snake River salmon and steelhead. If there are other actions that can fix the deadly lower Snake River migration corridor, we are all ears. Finding a solution to the continued decline of Idaho’s salmon and steelhead will require looking at the needs of fish and local communities, together.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots Two decades of litigation have failed to force the government to take more decisive action to recover Idaho’s oceangoing fish. More than $12 billion has been spent on actions that fail to address the single-most important limiting factor for the fish. Simply put, not enough fish survive passage of the dams.

In 2008, under the leadership of then-Gov. Jim Risch, Idaho brought together sportsmen, counties, environmentalists, industry and others to protect Idaho’s 9 million acres of roadless areas. It wasn’t easy. It required compromise and negotiation. It took time. And it worked.

The government needs to follow Idaho’s lead and bring together farmers, tribes, states, conservation and energy interests, and local communities to save Idaho’s salmon and steelhead.

Only in such a collaborative forum can the stakeholders identify steps that will simultaneously recover the fish and keep communities whole. Sens. Risch and Mike Crapo have both expressed support for such a forum, but it remains elusive.

It isn’t just about the fish. Northwest electricity ratepayers and federal taxpayers provided millions of dollars for habitat restoration. Habitat in rivers such as the Yankee Fork, Lemhi and Pahsimeroi is much improved. Idaho possesses some of the finest salmon habitat on the planet, but if the fish can’t move from the ocean to the mountains and back, that habitat will remain a five-star hotel without guests.

We know how to recover Idaho’s wild salmon and steelhead. And we know how to protect the economic well-being and quality of life of affected local communities. It’s time for the government to step up and do its part.

The status quo of lurching from crisis to crisis offers no potential for recovery. As the deadly summer of 2015 has shown, the need is more urgent than ever.

Chris Wood is the president and CEO of Trout Unlimited, the nation’s oldest and largest coldwater fisheries conservation organization.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

 Chehalis River Flood Damage Control – A Bottomless Money Pit

by Jim Wilcox (WGFCI) Eighty years of taxpayer-funded studies and consultants to identify and implement effective flood damage reduction projects throughout the large, complex Chehalis River basin have proven to be an utter waste of time and money.

Irresponsible logging in local forests and tree farms, short-sighted development in the vast Chehalis River floodway and changing weather patterns will result in increased damage with each major storm.

Now, after millions of dollars and countless hours, we are told that the Chehalis River basin is comprised of multiple habitats that support multiple aquatic species. We’re also told that the headwaters of the Chehalis River are prime habitats for highly-prized salmon and steelhead – NO KIDDING! Of course, these spawning and rearing habitats will be under hundreds of feet of water if the massive Chehalis River dam is constructed south of Pe Ell as proposed.

This proposed dam will not be close to cost effective nor will it be constructed for many years, if at all!

In the meantime, there will be more irresponsible land practices, more and larger storms, more storm damage and more multi-million dollar studies with little to show for them.

Resolutions by Wild Game Fish Conservation International regarding irresponsible land practices throughout the Chehalis River basin continue to be ignored as the preferred alternative appears to be status quo with the addition of the proposed cost-ineffective Chehalis River dam.

Truly shameful and absolutely irresponsible!

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

 Our Views: Dam News Encouraging October 8, 2015

By The Chronicle Editorial Board The effort to determine whether or not a dam would be effective in reducing flooding while not having a drastically negative effect on aquatic species is a long and arduous one.

On Wednesday, officials announced positive news for those who think water retention is part of the answer.

Site surveys conducted earlier this year show the foundation for the proposed dam on the upper reaches of the Chehalis River near Pe Ell is solid. In addition, possible building materials are abundant in the area.

“This is very good rock, and it doesn’t have that many fracture zones,” said Bob Montgomery, principal engineer with Anchor QEA, which is working with the Flood Authority and Governor’s Work Group.

There is still much work to be done as Ecology leads a look into potential effects on aquatic species and a combination of other projects to tackle the issue of flooding.

It’s worth noting, though, that despite opposition to the idea of a dam from the get-go in 2009, there have been no fatal flaws in the plan.

We’ll watch the issue closely as further research is conducted and data is made available.

Editorial Comments (WGFCI): Some of the many “fatal flaws” associated with the proposed Chehalis River dam: 

Not a basinwide solution to flood damage reduction



Opposed by Quinault Indian Nation and others



Not effective location



Funding not available



Not cost effective



Excessive annual maintenance fees



Irreversible harm to at risk fish and wildlife species



Catastrophic loss of life and property when dam fails



Does not address near term flood damage

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

Community Activism, Education and Outreach

 Stopping Farmed Salmon at the Cash Register

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

 Feedlot salmon boycott: Chilliwack Walmart September 27, 2015

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

 Irelad Supports the “Ahousaht Nation” Against Toxic Saalmon Farms

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

 Save the Salmon – No to LNG on Lelu Island

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

 Lexie on Duty for Wild Salmon

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

 Activists protest natural gas projects; march on FERC October 14, 2015 A group of protesters, one dressed as Governor Kate Brown, marched into the Portland regional office of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Wednesday.

The protest was organized by Portland Rising Tide objecting to LNG projects in Oregon and FERC's recent release of the Final Environmental Impact Statement for several natural gas projects, including the Jordan Cove LNG Export Project and the Pacific Connector Gas Pipeline and for the Oregon LNG in Warrenton.

Protester "Kate Brown" issued a "notice of condemnation" to FERC, which read: "By permitting pipeline projects that contribute to climate change and threaten the health and safety of all Oregonians, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has failed to act in the interest of the public.

"Therefore, Governor Kate Brown hereby exercises eminent domain to reclaim FERC for the public good."

The group then called on public officials as well as the real Governor Kate Brown to stop LNG projects, and oppose natural gas exports in Oregon.

After chanting briefly in FERC office and the hallway, security arrived and escorted the protesters out without incident.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

 Rally: Take to the Streets, Get out the Vote (Vancouer, BC) October 15, 2015

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

 Video: No Exploding Oil Trains in Seattle

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

 No Crude Oil Terminal Grays Harbor, Washington October 8, 2015 The Washington Department of Ecology and City of Hoquiam held hearings on Draft Environmental Impact Statements studying the proposed Imperium and Westway terminals for Bakken oil trains. About 400 people turned out, and most of them testified.

Local Grays Harbor residents, Quinault Nation leaders and tribal members, and others who live along the routes of the explosive Bakken oil trains through the Columbia Gorge. If the terminals are approved, about 50 trains a month (each 1.5 miles long) would arrive to unload explosive Bakken crude into huge tankers, alongside critical habitat for salmon, shellfish, and migrating birds.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

Opponents of two proposed crude oil terminals at the Port of Grays Harbor gather for a rally outside the D&R Theatre on Thursday. The rally preceded a public hearing session on the terminals inside the theater.

 Rally riles oil denouncers amid public hearing October 9, 2015

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots A rally attracted upwards of 150 people outside the D&R Theatre on Thursday afternoon as opponents to the two crude oil terminals proposed at the Port of Grays Harbor gathered to voice their concerns and denounce the projects.

The group, nearly all dressed in red, gathered along the block of I Street between Wishkah and Heron streets, which was closed to traffic. The rally, which began at about 5 p.m., preceded the second public comment session of an eight-hour open house held by the Department of Ecology to collect comments on the draft environmental impact studies for each proposed project.

The department released the drafts on Aug. 31. The public comment period will run until Oct. 29, when anyone can provide comment on how the statements were assembled.

Northwest-focused coalition Stand Up To Oil hosted the event in association with local group Citizens for a Clean Harbor. Tammy Domike, field coordinator for Citizens for a Clean Harbor, said she wasn’t surprised by the turnout, nor by the distances people had traveled to attend.

“We got the support because everybody realizes how dirty and dangerous this is to the coastline,” Domike said. “People are here because they want to protect the coastline and the residents of Washington and all of the other states going back to the Bakken oilfields. We don’t want these dangers visited on anyone.”

The rally hosted five speakers from a variety of industries, including Quinault Indian Nation President Fawn Sharp, Washington Dungeness Crab Fishermen’s Association Vice President Larry Thevik, Aberdeen City Councilman Alan Richrod and Bruce Amundson, Washington Chapter President of Physicians for Social Responsibility.

Though the public hearing had attracted many Harborites, residents from as far as Spokane, Portland and the Columbia River Gorge and Puget Sound areas had turned out to express concerns about oil trains travelling through their communities.

As some organizers inflated a miniature oil train car — crafted to look like a bomb — others waved signs along Heron Street. Passing motorists occasionally offered honks of support.

A traditional drumming performance by the Quinault Indian Nation kicked off the event, and Sharp was the first to speak. Her comments speculated on the Harbor’s future if the facilities were permitted.

“We all know we have a sacred duty and responsibility to ensure that those future generations yet to be born will have not only the same precious resources we have today, but will continue to restore them,” Sharp said, prompting cheers from the crowd. “Together, we will stop this.”

Councilman Richrod touted the six-month moratorium on oil facilities the Aberdeen City Council passed in July, adding that it gave the city the time it will need to possibly revise the city’s code and prevent future facilities.

“We can make Grays Harbor, Washington, a place where the world comes to see how sustainable industry happens,” Richrod said, adding that he’s reached out to companies that specialize in green energy with the hopes that they develop in the area.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots “Instead of employing 30 to 50 people watching computer terminals at an oil facility, why can’t we employ hundreds of people to do better things for the planet? That’s the idea.”

Amundson, approaching the issue from a health-care angle, framed the struggle over oil as another classic case of “corporate interests — urban interests — against rural interests.”

“This is just the latest chapter in moving the least desirable parts of our economy into the most vulnerable locations,” he said. “The hubris of the executives of these oil and railroad companies telling us that they can ship oil day after day by the millions of gallons year after year and not harm us is absolutely staggering.”

Larry Thevik took the mic to speak on behalf of his own organization, along with the Westport Charter Boat Association, the Washington Trollers Association and the Coastal Coalition of Fisheries.

“Our members have concluded that the benefits from the crude oil terminals simply do not measure up to the risks,” he said. “The new jobs are not that many, yet the potential threat to existing jobs and our marine resources is huge.”

The rally ended around 5:30 as the second public comment session saw attendees funnel back into the theater to hear and provide comment to officials. The hearing went on to collect comments from nearly 200 people, the vast majority of whom voiced opposition to the projects.

“It’s been very gratifying,” Domike said, “to see how many people care about protecting our coastline.”

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

 Thank You: Peoples Climate Movement October 15, 2015

Sierra Club: Yesterday, thousands of activists at more than 200 events nationwide sent a message: We are the #PeoplesClimate movement and we want climate justice and action!

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

 No Tankers, No Fish Farms, No Joke Anissa Reed

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

OLYMPIA CHAPTER OF TROUT UNLIMITED OCTOBER 28, 2015 7:00PM NORTH OLYMPIA FIRE STATION 5046 BOSTON HARBOR ROAD NE

 FLY FISHING FOR SALMON AND STEELHEAD

Program: The public is invited to the October 28th meeting of the Olympia Chapter of Trout Unlimited for an outstanding presentation by an expert fly fisherman, Kris Wilson, who will share his knowledge and skills on “Fly Fishing for Salmon and Steelhead”. Kris’s presentation is on up-to-date fishing methods for both salmon and steelhead and how they differ. He will share an explanation on reading the water, fly presentation and really fishing the fly. Kris will explain best lines for salmon and steelhead, both spey and single hand tactics. He will discuss fly design and build. He will also include angling strategy in a modern fishing landscape. Lastly he will discuss how to keep things simple. Come prepared to ask questions and bring a pen and a note pad! You will not want to forget any information you will receive.

Refreshments and a fishing equipment raffle will follow his presentation.

Bio: Kris Wilson Kris Wilson is a native to Western Washington and has been fishing for salmon and steelhead here in the Northwest for nearly thirty years. During the last fifteen to twenty years or so fly fishing for salmon and steelhead have become his favorite method and consumes most of his angling time on the water. He makes no value judgments on choice of angling method so long as they are ethical, but the swung fly and its derivatives bring him the greatest personal satisfaction. In his past, Kris has guided, but is not his present calling. He is somewhat secretive about his favorite haunts and prefers to share them with friends for fellowship and solitude. Kris is deeply passionate about sharing his methods, theory, conservation, and philosophy of angling for these fish with a fly. When not fishing he tries to remain on the river as much as possible and pursue his other passion of whitewater kayaking.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

Climate

 SFU faculty opposes Kinder Morgan pipeline October 6, 2015

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots Simon Fraser University’s professors, librarians and instructors are banding together to oppose the Kinder Morgan pipeline. The move is quite rare, given the faculty association generally stays away from politics and controversial issues.

“It is safe to say the faculty association gets political almost never. The association tends to stay away from making political statements,” said executive director Brian Green.

The SFU Faculty Association, which represents more than 1,000 staff, passed a motion opposing the pipeline at the last general meeting in July and in September gave the go-ahead to tell media.

The motion states the association opposes Kinder Morgan’s pipeline expansion and cites health and environmental risks.

Communication professor Bob Hackett, who helped bring the motion forward, commented on the message of the motion.

“It says we’re part of widespread community opposition to this particular proposed project, but as the motion says, the range of concerns is wider than the immediate impact in our city,” he said.

Many researchers and grad students from different disciplines are conducting research on various aspects of climate change, Hackett added.

The association is not registered as an intervenor in the National Energy Board’s hearing for the project.

SFU has been a source for many pipeline opponents. Lynne Quarmby and Stephen Collis, both SFU professors, were key figures in the fall demonstrations against Kinder Morgan’s survey work on Burnaby Mountain.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

 Alaska mulls extra oil drilling to cope with climate change October 12. 2015 Expanding the search for oil is necessary to pay for the damage caused by climate change, the Governor of Alaska has told the BBC. The state is suffering significant climate impacts from rising seas forcing the relocation of remote villages.

Governor Bill Walker says that coping with these changes is hugely expensive.

He wants to "urgently" drill in the protected lands of the Arctic National Wilderness Refuge to fund them.

Alaska has been severely hit by the dramatic drop in the price of oil over the past two years.

We are in a significant fiscal challenge. We have villages that are washing away because of changes in the climate Bill Walker, Governor of Alaska

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots The state is the only one in the US that doesn't have an income or sales tax, getting 90% of its dayto-day expenditure from levies on the production of oil and gas.

But the halving in the price of crude over the past year has seen Alaska's financial health deteriorate.

The recent decision by Shell to pull out of drillingin the Chukchi sea off the state's north coast has compounded the problem.

If Shell had found oil, it would have been a major boost for the the huge Trans Alaskan Pipeline that transports oil from the northern production fields to the tanker terminal in Valdez some 1,300km to the south.

Built to carry 2 million barrels a day, it's running at about 25% of its capacity as existing oil field production declines.

While Alaska's income from the oil continues to fall, expenditure on climate related activities is likely to go up. Coastal erosion is threatening a number of native communities in remote areas such as Kivalina.

This isolated community of 400 sits on a narrow spit of land that is constantly under threat from the sea, despite huge expenditure on defences. Just last week a surging sea removed a 3m stretch of beach near the airport.

Evacuation seems like the long term solution but it will likely cost $100m.

'Absolute urgency' To deal with situations like this, the governor told the BBC, more oil was needed.

"We are in a significant fiscal challenge. We have villages that are washing away because of changes in the climate," Governor Walker said.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots "I don't see anyone putting together contribution funds to help move Kivalina; that is our obligation, we stand by that - we need to figure out how to do that. But those are very expensive - we have about 12 villages in that situation.

I'd like to see us agreeing, Alaskans agreeing, that we need to keep fossil fuels in the groundPrincess Daazhraii Johnson, Gwich'in community I asked him if extra drilling was needed to help pay for these impacts.

"Absolutely, in a responsible way as we have in the past."

The governor argues that a small part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge should be drilled to boost Alaska's revenues.

"This isn't something we can put off for 10-20 years... We have to begin this process now - it's an absolute urgency for Alaska."

Earlier this year President Obama moved to increase protection for the Refuge, but his attempts have stalled in Congress.

Environmentalists are resolutely opposed to the idea of drilling in this part of the state. They say that the Governor's idea about drilling to pay for climate change is a "simplistic solution".

"What's going on in villages is certainly of concern to me as an Alaskan but I think the governor knows there's never going to be enough money to move everybody that needs to be moved as climate change continues to advance," said Lois Epstein from the Wilderness Society, which campaigns to protect publicly owned lands.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots "It's really not going to be something that the state is going to take on its own. The federal government is going to help, but we really need some bigger strategies to deal with climate change both as a state and a nation."

As well as great natural beauty, Alaska has huge resources of oil, gas and coal The battle to exploit oil reserves in the Refuge is likely to intensify over the coming years, much to the dismay of many native people in the area. One big concern are the Porcupine Caribou, whose calving areas are in the region the governor wants to develop.

The Gwich'in people in the region depend on these animals for food, clothing and as an integral part of their culture. They are resolutely opposed to drilling in this place, regardless of what the money is used for.

"In ten years from now I'd like to see us still continuing our native ways and being able to live off the land," said Princess Daazhraii Johnson from the Gwich'in community.

"I'd like to see us agreeing, Alaskans agreeing, that we need to keep fossil fuels in the ground."

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

Habitat

 Puget Sound 'S.O.S.' Act announced by congressmen September 19, 2015 A commercial fisherman most of his life, Louie Ungaro remembers 5,000 coho returning each year.

He has watched that number drop nearly every year since.

This year, the fishery was down to just 300.

"I'm heartbroken. From what it was when I was a little boy to what it is today, it's a crime," he said.

Congressmen Derek Kilmer and Denny Heck decided the Sound needs emergency help. At the 23rd Salmon Homecoming on Saturday morning, they announced their plan to present a new bill to Congress, called PUGET SOS. They will introduce it to the U.S. House next week.

"Which is an acronym for promoting unified government effort to Save our Sound," Rep. Heck said.

The bill would define Puget Sound as a nationally significant body of water under the Clean Water Act. It would create a Puget Sound Recovery Program Office in the EPA.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots It also protects the future of tribal treaty fishing rights.

"Young people here in the crowd are why we're here to protect these treasures - the water, the salmon, the shellfish," Rep. Kilmer said.

Right now, Puget Sound gets far less federal funding than other major waterways across the country. Extra funding would help restore habitat, mitigate stormwater runoff, and help shellfish recovery.

"I'm going to die fighting," Ungaro said. "I have to be optimistic. It's my identity. It's my children's identity

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

Dr. Claudette Bethune: Salmon and trout are very sensitive to certain types of pollution, sea lice from salmon farms and to copper from gold mine runoff and vehicle brake pads.

There is the obvious solution to help wild salmonids, and even the toxicity is quantitated, by removing the contaminants and source of them from the water:

Toxic stormwater has been linked to the significant population decline of coho salmon along the U.S. West Coast.

 Endangered

Coho Salmon Choke On Urban Runoff; Simple Filtration Could

Save Them October 12, 2015 Rain water that beats down on paved highways or parking lots can't penetrate into the soil and ultimately has to find someplace else to go. On its way, this stormwater runoff collects pollutants such as oil, dirt, lawn fertilizers and other chemicals – dangerous toxins that researchers have linked to the decline of adult coho salmon populations in urban streams along the U.S. West Coast. But there may be some good news, according to a new study.

Researchers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recently discovered that an inexpensive runoff filtration system involving a simple column of sand and soil can completely prevent the toxic effects of contaminated stormwater on fish. Their study was recently published in the Journal of Applied Ecology.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots "Untreated urban runoff is very bad for salmon health," Julann Spromberg, a research scientist at NOAA Fisheries' Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Seattle, said in a news release. "Our goal with this research is to find practical and inexpensive ways to improve water quality. The salmon are telling us if they work."

For their study, scientists examined the impacts of urban stormwater on salmon living in and around Puget Sound in Washington. In this area, more than half of the coho salmon returning to stormwaterdominated streams every year die before they can spawn, according to the release. In fact, coho living in California, Oregon and southwestern Washington are listed under the Endangered Species Act. If stormwater continues to kill significant numbers of salmon before they can spawn, they could be pushed closer to extinction, researchers reported in their study.

However, there is good news. The sand and soil filtration columns are similar to "rain gardens."

These "green" stormwater systems could reverse the population declines if they become integrated into future development and redevelopment projects.

"If we can incorporate clean water design strategies into future growth, as some transportation projects are already doing, wild salmon might have a chance," Nat Scholz, manager of the Ecotoxicology Program at the NWSFC in Seattle and a coauthor of the study, said in a statement.

"They can't take the kinds of losses we've documented in urban streams."

To test this, researchers exposed adult coho to different combinations of polluted and clean water, in order to better understand what the fish can withstand. These combinations allowed researchers to simulate runoff from a busy urban highway in Seattle, and all fish exposed to this degree of toxic stormwater died within 24 hours.

However, after researchers filtered the water through a three-foot-high soil column containing layers of gravel, sand, compost and bark, all the exposed coho survived as well as they did in clean water.

This suggests that filtration columns ultimately reduced toxic heavy metals by 58 percent and polyaromatic hydrocarbons, which are byproducts of gasoline combustion, by 94 percent, according to their study.

"What impressed me most was the effectiveness of the treatment," Jen McIntyre, co-author and researcher at the stormwater program at WSU's Puyallup Research and Extension Center, said in a release. "It's remarkable that we could take runoff that killed all of the adult coho in less than 24 hours -- sometimes less than four hours -- and render it non-toxic, even after putting several storms worth of water through the same soil mixture."

While previous studies concluded that household or agricultural pollutants such as pharmaceuticals or pesticides were not to blame for coho salmon population declines, in the recent study researchers discovered the most devastating runoff may include toxins from exhaust, leaking oil and dust from brakes and tires as they wear. However, additional testing and analysis is required to confirm this.

"The recurring coho spawner deaths have been a high-profile mystery for many years, and we're now much closer to the cause," Scholz added in the release. "Although we haven't identified a smoking gun, our study shows that toxic stormwater is killing coho, and that the problem can be addressed."

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

In this June 22, 2015 photo, Melissa Erkel, a fish passage biologist with the Washington Dept. of Fish and Wildlife, looks at culvert along the north fork of Newaukum Creek near Enumclaw, Wash. The culvert is slated to be replaced by a private land owner with a wider bridge designed to let salmon and other fish pass naturally along the creek.

 Judges hear Washington challenge to fish-passage ruling October 16, 2015 SEATTLE In a case that could have implications for dams and development in the Northwest, federal appeals judges heard arguments Friday about whether Washington state should have to spend billions of dollars to replace large pipes that allow streams to pass under roadways — but which also block salmon from migrating upstream to their spawning grounds.

The lawsuit is the latest twist in more than 40 years of litigation between Washington and Native American tribes over fishing rights since a federal court decision guaranteed the tribes the right to half of Northwest salmon harvest. Washington's tribes, backed by the U.S. Justice Department, sued the state in 2001, trying to force the state to replace the culverts with bridges or other structures that better allow fish to pass.

The crux of their argument is that based on mid-19th century treaties, they don't just have a right to fish, but for there to be fish to catch — something that doesn't happen when culverts block the salmon from spawning. In 2007, U.S. District Judge Ricardo S. Martinez agreed, and in an order years later, he demanded that the state replace hundreds of culverts.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots The state agrees that replacing the old culverts is one important part of restoring salmon runs and notes that is has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to fix fish habitat. But Martinez's 2013 order is far too sweeping and expensive, and would force the state to focus on fixing culverts even when salmon-restoration dollars could be spent more effectively elsewhere, state Solicitor General Noah Purcell told the three-judge 9th Circuit Court of Appeals panel Friday.

The tribes do not have a treaty right to habitat restoration, Purcell said. If they did, he suggested, they could conceivably sue the state for virtually anything that impairs salmon, such as state or utility district-owned dams that block salmon passage — a topic the judges asked about repeatedly. The state's court filings pointed to Boeing's and the Port of Seattle's activities on the Duwamish River as other potential targets of litigation.

Those arguments were echoed in a friend-of-the-court brief submitted by the state of Oregon.

"It goes far beyond the treaty language," Purcell said. "This case has been going on for 45 years.

Under the district court's ruling, it's going to be going on for 45 more."

The state Legislature this year approved a 16-year transportation bill that includes $300 million for fish passage — far more than in years past, but a far cry from the estimated $2 billion it would take to comply with Martinez's order. The state has said it would need to fix 30 to 40 culverts each year until 2030, spending $155 million annually, to comply.

Some are beneath Interstate 5 and would require the highway's closure to fix, Purcell said. Many of the culverts overseen by the state Department of Natural Resources or Fish and Wildlife have already been fixed.

But Martinez noted that at its current pace of replacing culverts, it would take more than a century to fix them all, which he considered unacceptable.

The pipes, which were mostly installed decades ago, can block salmon in several ways. Their downstream ends are frequently elevated above the level of the stream, making it impossible for salmon to swim up. They were sometimes placed at a grade that accelerated the rush of the water, making it more difficult for the fish to fight the current.

The tribes acknowledged that they typically work closely with the state to restore salmon, but the sides had unable to reach agreement on how quickly to fix the culverts Jim Peters, a habitat policy analyst with the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission and former chairman of the Squaxin Island Tribe, noted that in south Puget Sound, there are many small creeks that might each only bear a few hundred salmon. Individually, he said, those waters might not be a priority for culvert repair, but collectively their fish are an important resource.

"When we signed these treaties our understanding was that there would actually be fish to harvest," he said. "If you don't have fish, you don't have a treaty right."

The state noted something of a cruel irony in the case: that the culverts at issue had been constructed to federal standards. The state sought in the lower court to require the feds to help pay for the culvert replacement if the state was ordered to fix them; that request was denied. Purcell asked the appeals judges to reconsider that.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

A look skyward shows gaps between alder trees left by Quinault Indian Nation (QIN) tree-fallers to support growth of Sitka spruce. The effort aims to restore river function and protect salmon habitat

 Sitka Spruce Planted to Improve Sockeye Habitat

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots The Quinault Indian Nation is restoring Sitka spruce and native vegetation to the upper Quinault River valley floodplain to help improve productivity of blueback (sockeye) salmon.

The Quinault Division of Natural Resources (QDNR) and its contractor, R2 Resource Consultants, have completed the first of many floodplain forest treatments.

“Most of the original Sitka spruce forest in the river valley was removed by the 1950s to establish homesteads or was clear-cut back when they didn’t replant,” said Kevin Fetherston of R2 Resource Consultants.

The project treated about 70 acres, thinning red alder to allow existing spruce to grow more quickly and to provide gaps in the canopy for new tree growth.

Crews planted 12,000 spruce seedlings at about 170 trees per acre, similar to the densities in naturally developing forests of the Hoh and Queets river bottoms.

Planting Sitka spruce will encourage the return of natural ecological functions of the floodplain, especially in forested side channels.

Sitka spruce can grow to 300 feet tall and live to 700-800 years old. When these giants fall into the river, they provide the skeleton for future floodplains to develop by collecting more trees, rock and silt until islands form, stabilizing river channels and providing habitat that fish need to grow and reproduce.

The project also included clearing non-native Himalayan blackberry from the project area.

“The non-native blackberry formed dense, impenetrable thickets that had outcompeted native trees and shrubs,” said Caroline Martorano, QDNR invasive species specialist.

The blackberry was removed by a five-man crew armed with machetes and power brush cutters who cut down and mulched the non-native plant. The same locations will be examined and retreated if necessary, then planted with native grasses, shrubs and spruce seedlings in spring 2016.

The team also is implementing an experimental treatment to address reed canary grass encroaching side-channel habitats. The project is mostly on state aquatic lands adjacent to Olympic National Park, but also includes some private and QIN-owned land.

“We chose the area for treatment because the red alder stands and developing floodplain provided conditions suitable for thinning operations and spruce seedling planting,” said Bill Armstrong, QDNR habitat management scientist.

Monitoring will include measuring the amount of light in the forest gaps and rate of tree growth to assess the results of the thinning and overall rehabilitation approach.

The project is being used as a demonstration to show what the Nation and its restoration partners want to accomplish on a larger scale not only in the upper Quinault River floodplain, but in managed floodplains of other coastal river systems as well.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

 NEW LAW PROTECTS CA RIVERS FROM GOLD MINING

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots Today California Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law Senate Bill 637 to protect California’s water supplies, wildlife and cultural resources from the damaging effects of destructive hobby gold mining.

The new law requires that all small-scale miners using motorized suction pumps obtain a Clean Water Act Permit from the State Water Resources Control Board before mining in California waterways.

“This is a great victory for all of us concerned about clean water and healthy fisheries,” said Elizabeth Martin of the Sierra Fund.

“We are very pleased that our tribal fisheries and sacred sites will receive additional protections from the ravages of gold-mining clubs who have been damaging our resources for decades,” said Josh Saxon, council member of the Karuk Tribe.

The legislation affects suction dredge mining, high banking and any other form of mining that relies on motorized suction pumps to process materials from the banks or beds of rivers and streams.

Suction dredges are powered by gas or diesel engines that are mounted on floating pontoons in the river; attached to their engines is a powerful vacuum hose, which the dredger uses to suction up the gravel, sand and mud from the bottom of the river. The suctioned material is sifted in search of gold.

Similarly, high banking suctions water to process material excavated from riverbanks, causing erosion and sediment problems as well as affecting cultural sites.

Dredging and high banking alters fish habitat by changing the river bottom and often reintroduces mercury, left over from historic mining operations, to the waterways threatening communities and fisheries. These machines can turn a clear-running mountain stream into a murky watercourse unfit for swimming or fishing.

The measure comes after nearly a decade of litigation among tribes, conservationists and miners. A moratorium on the environmentally destructive practice has been in effect since 2009, but recent court decisions have cast uncertainty on it and prompted clarification from the legislature. Senate Bill 637 was authored by Senator Ben Allen (D-Santa Monica) to provide clear authority to the State Water Resources Control Board to permit or deny small-scale suction dredge mining in order to maintain water-quality standards.

“We commend Senator Allen for standing up for our precious water resources and wildlife during this devastating drought,” said Jonathan Evans, Environmental Health legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity.

The issue has implications for the economy as well as the environment. “For our members, this is about protecting jobs and family owned businesses which rely on healthy salmon fisheries,” said Glen Spain of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, the West Coast’s largest trade association of commercial fishing families.

The Sierra Fund and the Karuk Tribe have been working with the Center for Biological Diversity, Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, Friends of the River, Environmental Law Foundation, Upper American River Foundation, California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, Foothills Anglers Association, North Fork American River Alliance, Klamath Riverkeeper and the Central Sierra Environmental Resource Center for several years to reform small-scale mining laws and regulations.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

Hatcheries

The kokanee salmon population around Kootenay Lake has crashed.

 Race on to save Kootenay Lake’s crashing kokanee population Spawning returns dropped more than 98 per cent this year from average October 8, 2015 Biologists are seeding streams around Kootenay Lake with hundreds of thousands of fish eggs this fall and plan to release at least 500,000 hatchery fish next spring in response to a kokanee salmon population crash.

Kokanee spawning returns began to fall in 2012, but reached a shocking low of just 7,630 fish this year in Kootenay Lake’s main spawning channel at Meadow Creek, a drop of more than 98 per cent from the average return of 670,000, according to the ministry of forests, lands and natural resource operations.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots The provincial government and the Freshwater Fisheries Society have already released 95,000 fry into two tributaries of Kootenay Lake earlier this year in response to the unexpectedly low return. The lake’s kokanee population has never dropped so low, according to Kootenay resource manager John Krebs.

“This is right off our charts,” he said. “We don’t normally raise fry or collect eggs for Kootenay Lake, it has been self-sustaining through natural spawning.”

The kokanee appear to be suffering heavy predation from bull trout and Gerrard trout, which ballooned to record numbers between 2009 and 2012.

A government bulletin issued in May noted low numbers of one- and two-year-old adult kokanee in the lake, which will result in at least two to three years of low spawner returns. If Gerrard numbers cannot be controlled, kokanee returns could remain depressed for up to eight years.

To preserve breeding stock and rebalance the food web, the Kootenay Lake kokanee fishery was closed April 1 and the quota for Gerrard trout doubled from two to four fish per day. The results of those changes won’t be known for almost a year.

In the meantime, a nutrient enhancement program in which nitrogen and/or phosphorus is added to the lake water to stimulate growth of zooplankton, a kokanee food source — will be extended this fall in an effort to improve the kokanees’ survival over the winter.

About 1.4 million eggs have been collected from streams in other parts of B.C. with genetically similar kokanee populations, according to Krebs.

Some of the eggs will be seeded directly into the streams around Kootenay Lake, while the balance will be grown out in hatcheries. Hatchery raised fry have a much higher survival rate than fish allowed to hatch in the stream.

A working group of ministry officials, society members and representatives from the B.C. Wildlife Federation and the Ktunaxa First Nation had set a goal to seed the streams with five millions eggs, a figure they were not able to achieve this year.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

Legislation

 Canada:

The Trans-Pacific Agreement Will Sap Whatever Is Left of Our Sovereignty October 11, 2015

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots If you really think we live in a free and independent society, think again. What sovereignty are we left with, when we have already forfeited our birthright to multinationals?

What freedom are we talking about when a private company can challenge our laws in court, according to the various so-called freetrade agreements, negotiated by our governments in secret: NAFTA, the Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement between Canada and the European Union (CETA) and now the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)?

Editorial Comment: These modern era trade agreements negatively impact all signatory countries, their citizens and their irreplaceable resources.

Transnational corporations and their shareholders are the only benefactors.

Trade is the new euphemism for a Bill of Rights for Corporations.

Pushed by employers and transnational corporations, our governments are increasingly bartering our freedom in favour of a handful of private transnationals, whose powers surpass those of the state.

These agreements grant their member companies, the right to challenge our laws and regulations in areas, such as: the protection of water, the environment, our public services, our health care, our roads and bridges and our sewer systems. Consequently, a transnational can sue our government, in secret, in private courts, without recourse, should they consider our laws an obstacle to their profits.

According to the Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives, Canada has forked out $171 million in compensation to transnational corporations under Chapter 11 of NAFTA, since it was implemented in 1994.

By way of example, in 1997, the US company Ethel Corp. demanded $251 million of the Canadian government, because it was forbidden from using MMT, a neurotoxic, gasoline additive, harmful both to human beings and to the environment. An agreement to the benefit of the company enabled it to continue selling its harmful product. Moreover, the Canadian government was forced to recant publicly and to pay the company the sum of 1.3 million U.S. dollars in compensation.

Similarly, in 2002, the U.S. firm SD Myers, successfully sued the Canadian government for 6 billion dollars, for daring to ban the export of PCBs, a toxic product.

More sinister still, our public health care system is coveted by private companies as a source of profits. A US investor, from Phoenix Arizona, threatened to file a complaint under NAFTA, against our public health care system, because he was frustrated in his plan to build and manage a private hospital in Vancouver.

In 2005, the US giant UPS complained to the NAFTA tribunal, supposedly on account of unfair advantages, granted to a domestic company, Canada Post.

Worse still, the transnational Dow Chemical sued Quebec before the NAFTA tribunal, for banning the use of a harmful pesticide in the province.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots Another example that demonstrates the excesses practised by transnationals is that of U.S. Abitibi Bowater paper mill, which sued the Canadian government under the auspices of NAFTA, simply because the government of Newfoundland dared to remove the free use of hydro-electric power, following the savage closure of the company plants. Subsequently, the company received $130 million in compensation.

In 2010, an American oil company, Lone Pine Resources sued the government of Quebec, claiming $250 million dollars, because of a moratorium on the exploration of oil and gas in the St. Lawrence River.

After the ban by British Columbia of bulk water exports, Sunbelt Corporation of California challenged this prohibition under Chapter 11 of NAFTA, demanding $10 billion in damages.

Under the NAFTA accord, Canada now exports 70% of our oil reserves and 61% of the natural gas we produce to the United States. Although we may experience a shortage of oil ourselves, we are not allowed to reduce our exports to the United States under any circumstances. Thus, we are obliged to import large quantities of oil from abroad, to meet our own needs. Moreover, we do not have the right to reduce our oil production to save our planet from greenhouse gases.

Another example of serious consequence is the fact that our Canadian public Central Bank, the only one of its kind in the world, created in 1935 to help our governments through interest-free, affordable loans, must now bow to the dictates of private European and U.S. Central Banks.

For years, our elites kept hammering that globalization and free trade would be a source of employment and prosperity. Upon verification, it is a lie. Canada lost thousands of well-paid, permanent jobs in the manufacturing sector; wages stagnated, outsourcing is spreading everywhere, resulting in precarious, part-time jobs and inequalities increased. Women are particularly affected by this downward trend, since they are allotted poor, part-time jobs in the services’ industry. To make things worse, many unemployed workers are excluded from coverage of state benefits.

These international ententes have nothing to do with the public interest. Under TPP, the cost of our medication will skyrocket, our public services will be up for grabs, and our environmental laws will be challenged. Had these trade deals existed in the 80s, asbestos, a cancer-causing product, would not have been banned and its producers would not have been forced to compensate victims!

In this context, governments have become puppets in the hands of large corporations and to hell with the sovereignty of the state. We are no longer masters in our own country. Before rallying around Free Trade, we should be clamouring for Fair Trade, as we try to reclaim our sovereignty from the tentacles of large corporations.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

 TPP worse than NAFTA

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

Salmon feedlots

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

 What’s Missing…SCIENCE

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

 Shooting seals around Scotland’s factory farms in the sea I am sure like me you have been shocked at recent news of over a hundred seals having been shot in the name of protecting fish farms in Scotland. I have long said that the true price of cheap salmon is dead seals. I have equally been critical of the main cause – the factory farming of fish at sea.

Fish farms are the forgotten factory farms under the water and one of the fastest growing sectors of intensive animal rearing. Around 100 billion farmed fish are produced globally each year, 30 billion more than all the chickens, cows, pigs and other terrestrial farm animals reared worldwide!

The farming of salmon is in itself unsustainable. Salmon are carnivorous fish, meaning that in essence, they need to be fed other fish. Many farmed fish are fed largely on wild fish. To produce one farmed salmon it takes about three times the weight of wild caught fish.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots This is hugely unsustainable, causing havoc to wild fish stocks, and in some countries such as Peru, huge environmental damage to the sea beds, that become so polluted from the fishmeal industry, they turn into sludge.

In addition, salmon are a migratory animal. In farming them, we curtail this basic behavioural need.

The salmon confined to fish farms often endure intense confinement, filthy conditions, mistreatment and high levels of disease and parasites, such as sea lice. Kept in underwater cages, they never have the chance to swim freely or exercise their natural instincts, such as the powerful urge to migrate upstream each year.

Factory farm for salmon If you buy fish, I would urge you to buy MSC certified wild-caught fish to ensure it is sustainable. If you do buy farmed fish, Soil Association organic ensures higher welfare standards.

Farmed fish isn’t sustainable for the environment, it isn’t providing basic welfare standards to the fish involved with their natural behaviours being stripped from them; and seals are being killed in order for profit to remain high.

In the Scottish salmon farming industry at the moment – seals versus salmon? There are no winners.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

Scottish salmon numbers are running low in Highland rivers.

 Map: Wild salmon dangerously scarce in Highland rivers Wild salmon populations in all rivers in the west Highlands and Inner Hebrides have fallen below “safe” limits to ensure their survival, according to new government analysis.

October 5, 2015

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots Research carried out by Marine Scotland as part of the Scottish Government’s Wild Fisheries Review has graded all salmon grounds in the country.

The above map shows that the extent of west Highland rivers where wild salmon populations are in very poor health (denoted in beige) closely matches the extent of the salmon farming industry (the current active industrial salmon farming sites are marked in red), which has long been held to be a primary factor in the decline of wild salmon numbers in western Scotland. The results put all rivers in the west Highlands and inner Hebrides, including iconic systems such as the Awe and the Lochy, in the lowest category.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots This means wild salmon stocks are not reaching what are known as conservation limits – a measure of the overall health of the population.

The findings confirm numbers are suffering in many places across the country, but reveals the hardest-hit rivers are those in fish-farming zones.

Nearly all the most resilient populations are in the east and north-east.

“The contrast between western Scotland and the rest of the country is clear to see, and the only major or substantive distinction between the east and west coasts is, of course, the presence of salmon farming in the west.” Andrew Graham-Stewart

Conservationists claim the new map represents irrefutable evidence that commercially reared fish are harming their wild counterparts.

Now activists from the charity Salmon and Trout Conservation Scotland (S&TCS) are calling for an immediate ban on further expansion of the aquaculture industry.

The calls fly in the face of government plans to increase farmed salmon by 50 per cent by 2020.

“This new analysis by Marine Scotland should ring alarm bells,” said S&TCS director Andrew Graham-Stewart.

“The fact that no single river within salmon farming’s heartland of the west Highlands and Inner Hebrides has a sufficient stock of wild salmon for any exploitation to be sustainable cannot be a coincidence.

“Regrettably, the Scottish Government has until now habitually down-played studies by third parties, but we believe it cannot ignore its own fisheries scientists’ analysis.

“The contrast between western Scotland and the rest of the country is clear to see, and the only major or substantive distinction between the east and west coasts is, of course, the presence of salmon farming in the west.

“We call on the Scottish Government to halt any further growth in salmon farming until the industry can definitively prove itself to be environmentally sustainable.”

Scotland is currently the largest producer of Atlantic salmon in the EU. Globally, only Norway and Chile produce more. Production in 2012 reached 162,223, estimated to be worth around £537 million. But the government has announced aims to ramp up production over the next five years to exploit demand from China.

Four countries, including Scotland, together support around 90 per cent of the world’s healthy Atlantic salmon populations, but there has been a steady decline in the abundance of salmon in Scottish rivers in recent years. The total catch was about 500,000 in 1975. By 2000 it had plummeted to 100,000 - a drop of 80 per cent in just 25 years.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots Almost all UK salmon farms are located in Scotland. The industry has expanded rapidly since the 1970s, with output increasing from 32,000 tonnes in 1990 to 129,000 tonnes in 2000.

Farmed fish are known to impact on wild populations in a number of ways, but parasites and diseases pose the greatest threat. Intensively reared salmon often harbour sea lice, and the highest levels of infestation in wild fish occur in areas used for aquaculture.

Lice feed by grazing on the surface of the fish, eating mucous and skin. Large infestations lead to the loss of fins, severe scarring, secondary infections and eventually death. The fish are literally eaten alive.

Fisheries experts insist the most harmful fish farming operations should be relocated away from important salmon migration routes as soon as possible, followed by a move to closed containment methods where fish are raised in giant tanks on land.

Roger Brook, chairman of the Argyll District Salmon Fishery Board, said: “On the one hand the Scottish Government is claiming that salmon farming is sustainable, whilst on the other hand it is categorizing all wild fisheries in salmon farming areas as unsustainable.

“In light of this new analysis, the Scottish Government should at the very least place a moratorium on any further development or expansion of open-cage marine salmon farms until such time as the likely migration routes of wild salmon are understood. Furthermore, it should now begin a process of relocating farms away from such routes.”

The report of the independent Wild Fisheries Review has recommended ministers take immediate action to conserve wild salmon by introducing a ban on killing the fish, except under licence.

A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “The Scottish Government is working to preserve wild salmon populations, with measures including spring conservation, introduced earlier this year and the proposed salmon kill licence, which would come into operation for the 2016 season.

“Any application for a new salmon farming development requires a detailed assessment of any potential impacts by the relevant local authority.

“We are working with Scotland’s salmon farming industry and representatives of the wild salmon sector on an ambitious programme of research which will explore any potential risk to wild salmon from sea lice, which will help inform Scottish Government policy in relation to supporting both sustainable growth in aquaculture and conserving important wild salmon stocks.”

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

 Marine Harvest loses 17,000 salmon during sea lice treatment October 9, 2015 Marine Harvest has lost some 17,000 salmon during a sea lice treatment, reports iLaks.no, citing Norwegian newspaper Bergens Tidende.

The country's Food Safety Authorities (FSA) described the incident, which saw around 70 metric tons of salmon killed, as very serious.

The incident happened in the region of Gulesto, in Bremanger. Nearly 9% of a total 190,000 salmon in cages died during the treatment.

"According to our information, the dosage was correct. The problem was too little oxygen in the water, and insufficient throughput," said lead inspector with the FSA, Nina Manning.

Ola Helge Hjetland, communications manager with Marine Harvest, confirmed the fish died under delousing treatment.

"Such things should not happen. As a company we are obviously dependent on fish being as healthy as possible, and our employees work every day to ensure this. We are now working both internally and collaborating with relevant suppliers in order to prevent similar occurrences.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

A Nova Scotia company has succeeded in raising Atlantic salmon in a fish farm on dry land, and environmentalists are urging government to support and promote the fledgling technology in a market currently dominated by larger ocean-based operations. A B.C. fish farm is shown in this file photo.

ď ś Nova Scotia land-raised salmon proof business is viable: environmentalists September 25, 2015 HALIFAX - A Nova Scotia company has succeeded in raising Atlantic salmon in a fish farm on dry land, and environmentalists are urging government to support and promote the fledgling technology in a market currently dominated by larger ocean-based operations.

This week, Sustainable Fish Farming is shipping its first fish under the brand name Sustainable Blue to stores and restaurants across the province.

It's a major breakthrough for the Centre Burlington company, which has been developing a closed containment system using salt water for the past eight years at its facility near the Bay of Fundy.

"They've really cracked it for Atlantic salmon," said Rob Johnson, the sustainable seafood coordinator for the Halifax-based Ecology Action Centre.

Johnson describes Atlantic salmon as the "holy grail" of sustainable seafood because the market is dominated by fish raised in open-net ocean pens or cages.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots He says Sustainable Blue is notable because the company has proprietary technology that's been demonstrated to work, defying an industry that has long questioned the commercial viability of landbased farms.

Johnson said there's a specific opportunity in Nova Scotia, where the company has developed "world-leading technology."

"Government would be well advised to be supportive of leading edge technology ... to really aid in the development, commercialization and distribution of this technology," he said.

Reached in Toronto, where he was exploring a market opportunity with a restaurant group, CEO Kirk Havercroft said his company has received financial help in the form of repayable loans from the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency and the province.

But he said land-based producers overall should get more support.

Havercroft said his company's research indicates there is demand for up to 40,000 tonnes per year of land-produced salmon in North America.

Little supply is available Havercroft said, adding his company is currently able to produce 100 tonnes per year and is working to expand to 165 tonnes by next spring.

"That for me is the story for government," said Havercroft. "Finance the alternative as well, put some money into it and give consumers a choice."

Despite what's seen as a potential technological edge because it produces salt water fish, Sustainable Blue is not the only company providing consumers with land-raised Atlantic salmon.

An economic initiative by the Namgis First Nation in British Columbia has been supplying Canadian and U.S. markets since April 2014 with fish under the brand name Kuterra.

Johnson said the Danish company Atlantic Sapphire is also poised for production this fall and another Nova Scotia company, Canaqua Seafoods, which has successfully farmed Arctic char and halibut, is working with Atlantic salmon as well.

Matthew Abbott, of the Conservation Council of New Brunswick, said it takes effort to get closed containment farms off the ground and there is at least room for support through government regulations.

"I think many of the real costs associated with open-net pen farming are being borne by the environment instead of producers," said Abbott.

"I think there's a real question of appropriate regulation of open-net pens and that would level the playing field."

New regulations for Nova Scotia's aquaculture industry are expected to be released next month.

They will include the process for licensing aquaculture operations said Keith Colwell, Nova Scotia's Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture.

"A closed containment facility is going to be a whole lot easier to attain than, for instance, if you are going to set up an ocean pen-fish operation," said Colwell, although he didn't reveal details.

Colwell also stressed the province remained open to "all types of aquaculture."

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

 Alexandra Morton: Interviewed by Cameron Dennison (Tuff City Radio}

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

UNPRECEDENTED worldwide FIRST EVER removal of a salmon farm WIN!!!

 Ahousaht First Nation

Warriors Win B.C. Salmon Farm Standoff

September 24, 2015 Related video

"I'm shocked it was this easy with just a handful of warriors... imagine what we can do with a Nation. Imagine what we can do with all the people that care for this planet."

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots With these words, Lennie John of the Ahousaht First Nation on the west coast of Vancouver Island, declared victory over one of Japan's largest and most powerful corporations in a fight for his nation's territorial rights and food security, and in defence of wild salmon.

John, who operates a small tourist business, was one of many Ahousaht outraged over the placement of a new salmon farm being constructed by salmon farming giant, Cermaq (a subsidiary of Mitsubishi), in a place they call Yaakswiis Bay. The proposed feedlot site, approved by the B.C. provincial government in July 2015, was adjacent to the Atleo River, an important salmon river that has been fished by his people since time began.

The Atleo once teemed with all six species of Pacific salmon and trout, but like many others in their territory and throughout B.C., it now struggles to maintain even much smaller runs. The combined effects of decades of logging, warming waters, and an existing salmon farm less than a kilometer from its mouth have left its salmon little room for more insult. And John and the others knew all to well that salmon farms carry plenty of potential insults.

Because each farm crams up to one million salmon into its cages, outbreaks of parasitic sea lice are common. Both farmed and wild salmon are equally vulnerable to these parasites, but they are particularly harmful to migrating juvenile wild salmon because of their small size.

Keeping fish at such high densities in these farms also provides ideal conditions for outbreaks of disease that can spread to wild populations.

To add to their concerns, the proposed site was in prime prawning grounds and uncomfortably close to clam beds that have provided sustenance to the Ahousaht people for generations.

The pesticides salmon farmers use to control disease outbreaks are known to be extremely toxic to shellfish, and cannot be strictly contained in open-ocean pens, impacting a sizable perimeter around the farms.

Editorial Comment: Pesticides are used by salmon farmers to control sea lice populations. Sea lice continually evolve to resist pesticides.

As well, toxic algae blooms that suck life-sustaining oxygen from the water and leave little in their wake are known to occur around these farms due to the extreme nutrient loading. Worst, a salmon farm like the one proposed can create about the same amount of raw sewage as a city the size of Kelowna.

"It's common sense," says Lennie John. "We fish in these waters for food, we don't go into Cermaq's kitchen and leave manure all over the floor."

To John, as well as a generation of salmon farm activists, common sense had not stopped the expansion of salmon farms in Ahousaht territory or in B.C. as a whole.

And so, seeing only one option left, the standoff began on Sept. 9 when he caught the farm in the process of anchoring in Yaakswiis Bay. "I came in with my little speed boat, the Sweet Marie... told them they were trespassing," says John.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots Rebuffed by the Cermaq crews, he radioed back to the village of Ahousaht, and was soon joined by several others. A total of six men in three boats then boarded the farm structure and made it clear they had no intentions of leaving.

Cermaq crews loaded their barge and fled.

Word went out quickly of their actions. An outpouring of support from First Nations and the British Columbia public saw more people, food, and supplies arrive. Tents dotted the pen structure as the occupiers prepared for a long battle, vowing to stay as long as it took to defend the ancestral waters and wild salmon considered sacred among their people.

But as it happens, the occupation at the Yaakswiis Ocean Camp, as they came to call it, lasted for only 10 days.

On Sept. 19, after several meetings and exchanges, a letter arrived at the camp from the elected chief and chief's representatives of the Ahousaht Nation offering to meet the demands of the camp.

After coming to agreement on the exact wording of the language of the agreement, Ahousaht chiefs visited the site two days later and took ownership of the site through ceremony.

On behalf of their people, the Ahousaht chiefs then negotiated with Cermaq to have the feedlot removed -- the Yaakswiis site would be permanently protected from any future fish farms or logging.

And with that, John's handful of warriors had won. They had preserved the nearby clam beds to feed future generations, they had given the wild salmon of the Atleo river a fighting chance, and they had struck a blow for the indigenous rights of First Nations across BC. Cermaq operates a total of 16 salmon feedlots in Ahousaht territory, as a result of a protocol agreement that exists between the company and First Nation. Yaakswiis was to be the 17th.

Despite the new agreement, representatives of the BC Salmon Farmer's Association stated in interviews with Global TV that they are looking for a way to meet Ahousaht demands in order to put the farm back. That may prove difficult.

The "Yaakswiis Warriors," as they are now known, have brought the issue of salmon farming back to the forefront for the people of the Ahousaht. The village of 1,000 people, only 15 of whom are employed on the farms, now plan to review the impact of the feedlots on their declining salmon and herring populations.

Despite his shock in accomplishing their goals so "easily," Lennie John says the peaceful way in which this action was resolved comes down to a respectful dialogue between the leadership of the Ahsousaht First Nation and the Ahousaht people occupying the camp.

Therein lies a most important lesson for the governments of B.C. and Canada.

Because, the Ahousaht way of resolving this issue stands in stark contrast to the dealings of our provincial and federal governments after more than 20 years of overwhelming public opposition to open-pen salmon farming in B.C. They have steadfastly ignored public concerns by downplaying the risks to wild salmon, silencing Department of Fisheries and Oceans scientists, and ignoring the recommendations of the $37-million Cohen Commission inquiry.

Lennie John, the warriors of the Yaakswiis camp and the people and chiefs of the Ahousaht have reminded us all that there is a better way.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

 Protesters threaten to renew blockade in B.C. fish farm dispute September 21, 2015

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots Protesters who had been attempting to block a fish farm on Vancouver Island say they will return to their camp unless the Norwegian company behind the site removes its docks and equipment, as protesters had expected.

UPDATE Farm Removed

Protesters who call themselves the Yaakswiis Warriors said representatives from Cermaq, an aquaculture company with operations in Canada, Chile and Norway, recently promised to remove the installation at a site near Ahousaht, B.C., on Monday morning. A small group of opponents had been blockading the site, located north of Tofino, since Sept. 9, citing potential environmental damage that could result from the plant.

But while Cermaq vessels were nearby, nothing was moved, even though protesters who had previously blockaded the site and their supporters waited several hours in the hopes of seeing some activity.

“About 15 of us went out on four boats this morning just before first light, about 6 a.m. and we waited out there for near six hours,” said Sacheen Seitcham, a spokeswoman for the protesters. “They were about 10 minutes away… the barge was there, with the crane on it, and the tugboat was there.”

A Cermaq representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The company has operations on both the east and west side of Vancouver Island, with 27 sea sites and three land-based hatcheries. Cermaq’s Canadian operations are based in Campbell River and employ about 250 people, according to the company’s website.

But few of those jobs – only about 15 in a community of 1,000 people – have gone to Ahousaht residents, Ms. Seitcham said.

Representatives from the Ahousaht First Nation council were not immediately available.

In material on its website, Cermaq says it has an agreement with the Ahousaht First Nation that covers issues such as financial and social benefits and employment. The company says it employs about 50 Ahousaht members and sponsors a college aquaculture training program that currently has 12 Ahousaht members enrolled.

Earlier this year, the B.C. government approved a licence for Cermaq in Millar Channel, east of Flores Island.

When the company started putting equipment on the site in September, protesters blockaded it, claiming the waters around Ahousaht already have enough fish farms and that there has been a decline in wild fish since fish farms began operating there around 1999.

But last week, it appeared an agreement had been reached, with the protesters announcing that Cermaq had agreed to remove the salmon farm early Monday morning.

That did not take place, resulting in chagrin and confusion among the protesters, who had planned a community dinner in Ahousaht on Monday evening. Ms. Seitcham said protesters had heard reports that Cermaq had expressed concerns about employees’ safety if they came to dismantle equipment, but says such concerns were unwarranted.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots “We were off the dock, we were a kilometre away, we were waiting in the boats with our binoculars – we were excited,” Ms. Seitcham said. “There would have been no harassment … on our part, it was completely respectful, it wasn’t out of hand at all.”

Aquaculture critic Alexandra Morton, who has joined the protesters at the site, said the proposed farm merits concern.

“It’s a long, narrow channel and the Atleo River comes right into it,” Ms. Morton said. “When you have a long, narrow channel with fish farms, all the viruses and sea lice, they just concentrate [in the area].”

Alexandra Morton: What this article doesn't mention is that Sacheen Seitcham, Joe James Crow and Lennie John who are the people who began this effort, who stayed on the farm for 9 days and who are leading this are more than "protesters" they are Ahousaht, who live in the village of Ahousaht.

They are doing this because they are protecting their children and grandchildren.

I have supported them in this because I know the impact of these farms on their fish, but this is internal Ahousaht business and they are dealing it in a highly democratic manner, despite what must be enormous pressure from Cermaq which is now operated by Cermaq (Norway), but owned

by Mitsubishi. They are up against a large corporation.

I think they will make Cermaq move this farm, and First Nations from throughout BC who share their concerns are watching as well as people in eastern Canada, Ireland, Scotland and Norway.

If they succeed in protecting their waters from these salmon farmers, it will be a first!

You can find them on Facebook.

Sacheen Seitcham: It's over!

Cermaq is evicted from Yaakswiis WOOOOOOOO we watched it with our own eyes and let our warrior yells out loud and clear over the waters: Yaakswiis is protected forever!!! i laughed and cried as they towed the pens away!!! I'm so grateful to be a small part of a huge world changing event, grateful to Ahousaht and grateful to be Kuus grateful that the message was heard and we can stand down and resume our lives with the knowledge that our grandchildren's future eating wild salmon is secure!

Indigenous Direct Action and Indigenous Food Security won today and we will keep on fighting till we free us all from resource extraction!!!!! Kleco to the Muuschim and elected leadership and Hawiih and for our ancestors and the Creator!!!

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

 Joe James Crow and Alexandra Morton witness historic removal of Cermaq’s weapon of mass destruction (salmon feedlot) from wild salmon habitat September 22, 2015

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

Nils Kvisgaard: Over 1300 Norwegian rivers are spawning grounds for our Salmon and Sea Trout (marked with red).

Since the 1970`s the fish farming industry has evolved to the biggest environmental coastal polluter because they use net pens with free flow of water, sealice, pathogens, delousing medicaments. Area rivers are full with escaped farmed salmon.

There is no control of what is released into the sea, and the environmental effects have been visible for decades.

Since 1984, the catches of wild salmon have declined with over 60%.

Fishermen are reporting heavy declines in shrimp and cod catches in areas where the fish farms have established.

We want the net pens off our coast, and I know that the actions done by the Ahousahtpeople are followed and supported by many Norwegians!!

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

 We wrote to Cermaq regarding the Yaakswiis salmon feedlot removal September 21, 2015 I am writing as a recreational salmon fisherman, conservationist and co-founder of Wild Game Fish Conservation International to express my deepest disappointment with Cermaq’s deliberate deception in agreeing September 20, 2015 to discontinue work on the Yaakswiis salmon feedlot.

According to Cermaq's agreement with Asousaht members, work on this facility would halt immediately and the framework of the feedlot would be removed first thing September 21, 2015.

As of the latest report from those at this site, Cermaq failed to keep your promise.

This is shameful and dishonorable on Cermaq's part.

The world is watching. Cermaq must keep your end of the agreement or face undesirable consequences.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

ď ś Ur-koppevirus kveler norsk oppdrettslaks September 21, 2015 Alexandra Morton: Pox virus just discovered in farmed Atlantic salmon.... millions of Atlantic salmon have been imported into BC for salmon farming and no one knew to screen for this virus. THIS is the one of the greatest dangers associated with salmon farming - importation of new viruses.

Below is online translation to English from Norwegian and link to the original article.

"A special type of gill disease that gives high acute mortality has been known in Norwegian fish farms in 20 years. Now researchers have finally discovered the cause.

For 20 years, salmon farmers have been plagued with the special gill disease. But now researchers at the National Veterinary Institute and the National Institutes of Health in the US found that it is a virus that destroys the gills.

It is an evolutionary "old" viruses in the same family as the smallpox virus (known poxvirus) which has killed hundreds of millions of people.

The results of this work have just been published in the prestigious journal "Journal of Virology" and got adorn the front of the number. The article is open to all.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots The findings suggest that the problem in Norwegian fish farms are more extensive than previously thought.

Also read Now researchers have finally found out what they ulekre, dark spots on the salmon is due Frames small fish In 2014 it was sold well over a million tonnes of salmon and put out over 300 million smolts (juveniles from freshwater phase, usually under one year old) in Norwegian fish farms.

Compared with traditional livestock production, the industry is quite young, and we must expect that new diseases emerging.

We have a good overview of the health status of Norwegian farmed salmon compared to other salmon producing countries. Although salmon is largely fresh, we have challenges. Bacterial infectious diseases mean little in the industry today because we have well-functioning vaccines against these, but a variety of viral infections causing problems.

Several of these diseases are notifiable to the Authority to take appropriate measures to reduce further spread of disease.

Gill Diseases Gill disease is one of the main causes of production losses in farmed salmonids. The causes are often complex. Gill Disease comparable to pneumonia in humans, where it all often starts with a viral infection that destroys the barriers in the lungs, creating a kind of "wounds", which then deteriorates at the wound become infected with bacteria.

The same mechanism applies to fish. A virus may be the true cause and pave the way for other infectious agents by destroying the protective barrier in the gills.

If we're early in the disease we can thus get a pretty complicated situation where it is difficult to say which came first and the last.

Kopp virus Kopper is caused by infection with a so-called poxvirus and is one of human history's most serious infectious diseases. The British physician Edward Jenner founded the vaccinations when he discovered that people who had had cow pox were not sick of smallpox.

A worldwide vaccination program organized by the World Health Organization (WHO) made sure that the disease was eradicated, and this is considered one of the most important medical achievements in human history.

And now thus has a virus in the same family gained new relevance in that it creates major problems in Norwegian aquaculture.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots Dramatic disease course

Hatcheries From hatching to salmon released into the sea after about a year, it lives in fresh water in tanks on land. It is particularly in this stage of production he has been familiar with the disease. The course is acute and dramatic.

Fish becomes lethargic, breathing difficulties and all the fish in one vessel may die within a few hours.

In some facilities, it is reported that almost 70 percent of the fish rubbed.

So far there is no vaccine or treatment, but if farmers in time become aware of what is about to happen, gentle treatment of the vulnerable fish reduce losses greatly.

A newly developed test at the National Veterinary Institute are also very useful to monitor the situation.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots Also read A sea of opportunities Ancient giant virus When we examine the gills of diseased fish in a microscope, we see that the gill cells that ensures that fish can breathe has got an abnormal and very special shape; they are about to die and fall off.

We examined one gill with these abnormal cells in an electron microscope. Electron microscopes can magnify structures several hundred thousand times, so we can see very small particles such as viruses.

And that was precisely what we found in our sample, particles that resembled a poxvirus.

Poxvirus was now "suspect" in the case, but to be sure, we need a genetic profile (a fingerprint) so we could prove that the suspect has been on the scene (in the gills). But there are as many fingerprints from the victim (salmon) in the sample so that we must rid ourselves of. We found what we were looking for; among hundreds of thousands fingerprints, there were two that seemed to originate from salmon and that had certain similarities with poxvirus.

We realized we were onto something and managed finally to map the entire genetic material of the virus. It turned out that the virus was a poxvirus as we suspected, but it was very different from other viruses in this group and that it was probably very old.

Image of sick gill cells.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots Poxvirus is among the far the largest and most complex virus you know, so we got in touch with an American group of researchers who are experts in poxvirus in Maryland (National Institutes of Health). They helped us to put the virus into a kind of pedigree and confirmed our suspicions and showed that this was the actual urkoppeviruset vertebrate.

In further cooperation with this research we also found out that several genes that was thought necessary for the virus would be able to act, seems to be missing. Other genetic characteristics suggests that the virus has developed a unique strategy to escape the immune system of the host and a whole lot of genes we do not know the function.

The devastation in the gills is thus so extensive that the fish can not breathe properly. Some breeders are familiar with the problem because they have had epidemics with poxvirus in their facility several times. They know how they can help the fish in such cases.

They increase the oxygen level in the tanks and protects fish for stress.

It affects not only salmon while it is fresh water so you have believed for many years, but also after it is put in the sea.

We have no reliable figures on how big the problem is, but it is much larger than originally anticipated, and many facilities in all parts of Norway are struggling with this. It affects not only salmon while it is fresh water so you have believed for many years, but also after it is put in the sea.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots The economic losses are probably very high Dangerous to humans?

The disease has been known in the Norwegian aquaculture industry for 20 years, but this has gone beyond public health. Fish are cold blooded animals, ie they have the same body temperature as the surroundings. This virus has specialized in growing in a cold fish and not in a warm-blooded mammal such as human.

The virus is very different from the smallpox virus that can cause fatal disease in humans. Those genes that lacked in fish poxviruses considered absolutely essential for that warm-blooded animal poxviruses to work with his host.

It is therefore highly unlikely that the fish poxviruses can create problems for people.

The virus can be used for anything?

The economic losses of illnesses is probably very high.

In this virus group includes some of the largest and most complex viruses known to man. It has a large genome that has room for even more genes. This means you can insert a gene one wishes for example to create a vaccine.

In human medicine, this has been known and utilized for many years and vaccinia virus (a harmless variant of poxviruses) is used as vaccine for various infectious diseases and forsøkvis in fighting cancer.

Our salmon poxviruses may have some of the same qualities, but we have a long way to go before we can explore and use these possibilities.

Lacking answers In our work we have provided some answers but many important questions unanswered. We do not know where the virus comes from in the first place. Coming virus with eggs from broodstock, that infects it from parents to offspring? And where it hides itself when there is no outbreak of disease?

How can it be inactivated? Is it only virus that makes fish sick or there are other factors in the plant or in the fish come into play?

To take a step further and to make experimental trials, we need to cultivate (amplifying) virus. We are in the process of trying to find some answers."

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

Energy Generation: Oil, Coal, Geothermal, Hydropower, Natural Gas, Solar, Tidal, Wind

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

Petroleum – Drilled, Refined, Tar Sands, Fracked

 Petropolis - Rape and pillage of Canada and Canadians for toxic bitumen Watch video HERE

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

 Bitumen: It isn’t oil, it’s ASPHALT and it sinks when spilled

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

 Vancouver firefighters union opposes oil terminal at port It cites threats to public safety posed by project proposed at Port of Vancouver October 13, 2015 Citing threats to public safety, the head of Vancouver’s firefighters union told Port of Vancouver commissioners Tuesday that the union opposes a proposal to build the nation’s largest rail-to-ship oil-transfer terminal at the Port of Vancouver.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots The city is “not staffed appropriately” and “we don’t have the training, and we don’t have the equipment to effectively respond to an emergency at the oil terminal,” Mark Johnston, president of the Vancouver Firefighters Union IAFF Local 452, told port commissioners during the port’s regular public meeting. The meeting was packed with opponents of the oil terminal (one attendee spoke favorably about the terminal) who blasted the port for hiding information from people and ignoring their safety concerns. Critics also urged the port to cancel its lease with Tesoro Corp., a petroleum refiner, and Savage Cos., a transportation company, in the face of a string of explosive oil train derailments in the U.S. and Canada.

“We’re not risk-averse,” said Johnston, whose union represents about 185 firefighters with the city and Clark County Fire District 5. “But we understand a disaster down here would be catastrophic,” not only for the community, and the port and its neighbors, “but for the first responders as well.”

In a phone interview Tuesday, Vancouver Fire Chief Joe Molina said his formal position on an oil terminal at the port is the same as that of the Vancouver City Council, which opposes the project and has imposed a moratorium on establishing or expanding crude oil-handling facilities in the city.

But regardless of what happens with the oil terminal, oil trains already are running through Vancouver, he noted. “The risk appears to be here to stay, so let’s try to get our arms around how much of a risk it is to our jurisdiction,” he said.

Molina said a consultant is conducting a gap analysis of the fire department to determine whether it has adequate training, equipment, staffing and resources to respond effectively to various oil train derailment scenarios.

“I think there’s a gap, frankly,” Molina said. “I just don’t know how big it is.”

None of the three commissioners responded to what Johnston or others said about the oil terminal during the open forum portion of the public meeting, which grew tense at times. Opponents waved anti-oil terminal signs and applauded after people made remarks to commissioners. At one point, Commissioner Nancy Baker said that continued applause “just means we’re going to be here a lot longer.”

After opponents had their say, and the port had moved on to other items on its agenda, port CEO Todd Coleman said state regulators are expected to release the oil terminal’s draft environmental impact statement for public review and comment on Nov. 24. He said people are “waiting anxiously to see what the document looks like” and to review the potential impacts and recommendations to soften those impacts.

The announcement by the firefighters union and the criticisms renewed by opponents mark the latest public dust-up over the oil terminal. Port commissioners voted unanimously, in 2013, to approve a lease for the project. Tesoro and Savage, operating as Vancouver Energy, want to receive by rail about 360,000 barrels of crude per day at the port. The companies say the crude would then be transferred to marine vessels and sent down the Columbia River en route to West Coast refineries.

The proposed oil terminal is undergoing an environmental impact analysis by the state Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council. The evaluation council will eventually recommend approval or denial of the project to Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, who gets the final say over whether the project gets built.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots ‘Still a disaster’ An estimated 17 people spoke to the commission against the oil terminal, including John Karpinski, an attorney and member of Clark County Natural Resources Council.

Karpinski, citing a recent news report by Oregon Public Broadcasting, said the port can walk away now from the oil terminal lease. In that report, a Tesoro spokeswoman was quoted as saying there’s no penalty if the port or Vancouver Energy decided to get out of the lease before the Aug. 1, 2016, deadline for the companies to secure the necessary permits to build the oil terminal.

And the port should rescind the lease, Karpinski said, given the risks to public safety and the potentially massive liability costs to taxpayers if an oil train disaster occurs. Meanwhile, he said, the risks are potentially greater in light of new lease details the port divulged as part of a recent legal settlement. The lease disclosures include that the companies have the ability to expand or build a second oil-by-rail facility if they exceed handling an average of 400,000 barrels of crude per day with the first terminal.

The crude oil market is crashing, Karpinski added, and “we’re tying ourselves to a dying industry.”

Linda Garcia, who’s lived nearly 20 years in the Fruit Valley neighborhood, which borders the port, said the port commissioners made a bad decision when they first approved the oil terminal lease on July 23, 2013. Then they “made the mistake again” when they held a second public meeting in October of that year — out of concerns that the port had violated the state’s open public meetings law with the first vote — and re-approved the contract. By that time, she said, commissioners knew the risks. “You chose profit and greed above livability and, most importantly, above humanity,” Garcia said.

Ryan Rittenhouse, conservation organizer for Friends of the Columbia Gorge, said that even if it operated free of oil train explosions and oil spills for 50 years, the oil terminal facility “is still a disaster.” That’s because the “continued reliance on fossil fuels is a disaster in and of itself,” he said.

Royce Pollard, former mayor of Vancouver, said information about the oil terminal that commissioners should have shared with the public has come to light only in reports by The Columbian and by the efforts of various civic groups. He added that “most of us (have the) impression that you know what’s best for us, and you don’t really give a crap about our concerns.

Whether you like it or not, you have failed your citizens, and we will never forgive.”

In a news release issued by the Vancouver Firefighters Union Local 452, the union, citing a report by National Geographic magazine, said that in 2014 “there were 143 oil train incidents resulting in 57,600 gallons of spilled oil and at least 47 deaths.”

During his testimony Tuesday, Johnston, the firefighters union president, said that if an oil train disaster occurred, firefighters “wouldn’t be able to actively put a fire out.” Instead, they’d have to cordon off the area, evacuate people “and make sure that disaster didn’t move forward and consume” areas near it.

Johnston also said: “The risk is not worth the benefit.”

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

 Hundreds testify on oil terminals proposed for Grays Harbor October 9, 2015 ABERDEEN, WASH. A few hundred people turned out to testify at a hearing on two oil terminals proposed at the Port of Grays Harbor in Hoquiam.

KXRO-AM says protesters rallied against before Thursday's public hearing in Aberdeen.

They came from around Grays Harbor as well as others who bused in from Olympia, Vancouver and Portland, Oregon.

Westway Terminal Co. and Renewable Energy Group, which acquired Imperium, want to expand existing facilities to bring crude oil by train from the Bakken region of North Dakota and Montana. The oil would then be transported by tankers or barges to refineries in Puget Sound and northern California.

Quinault Indian Nation President Fawn Sharp says the environment needs to be protected.

Editorial Comment: The peaceful rally associated with this public hearing involved diverse individuals and organizations united to protect this region’s communities, our health and the robust ecosystem from the known and unknown risks associated with the transportation of fracked crude oil from the Bakken Shale fields and the diluted bitumen crude oil from Alberta’s tarsands. 

Crude oil from both of these sources is extremely explosive.



No amount of insurance money can mitigate the damages from these spills.

Hoquiam City Administrator Brian Shay says it's clear people have concerns about train traffic, risk of oil spills and air quality.

Hoquiam and the state Department of Ecology are getting comments on the draft environmental studies until Oct. 29.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

Crude oil opponents look on as members of the Quinault Indian Nation give a traditional drum performance during a rally outside the D&R Theatre on Thursday. The rally preceded a public hearing on two crude oil facilities proposed for the Port of Grays Harbor.

 Officials hear overwhelming opposition to crude terminals October 9, 2015 Locals and people from across the state voiced their fears and concerns about the possibility of the shipment and storage of crude oil on Grays Harbor Thursday during the second and final public comment period for the proposed crude oil storage facilities at the Port of Grays Harbor.

Opponents of oil far outnumbered supporters of the projects proposed

by Westway Terminals and Renewable Energy Group, which acquired Imperium, the biofuel producer that originally launched the proposal.

Representatives from both companies spoke.

Roughly 250 people signed up to speak at the public hearings at Aberdeen’s D & R Theatre, with the first session from 1 to 4 p.m. and the second picking up at 6 p.m. and going until 9. An anti-oil rally preceded the second comment session, helping to bolster turnout.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots During both sessions, members of the public and elected officials made their way up to the podium to speak in front of Paula Ehlers, the Department of Ecology’s shorelands and environmental assistance manager for the southwest region, and Hoquiam City Administrator Brian Shay, who were among the five people on stage facilitating the event. Those who spoke were given two minutes to voice their opinions and were promptly stopped by facilitators once time was up.

Comments made at the hearing, or those that are mailed in or submitted online, will be taken into consideration by the Department of Ecology before it drafts a final version. Some concerns raised by commenters may prompt further research.

Those against the proposed facilities spoke of the possible risk associated with the transport and storage of crude oil, including everything from derailments to the project’s possible impacts on wildlife and climate change. The cost of a potential oil spill or derailment was brought up a number of times during the hearings, and Aberdeen Ward 5 City Councilman Alan Richrod said in the case of a disaster, taxpayers would foot the bill.

“According to the leading industrial insurance actuaries, the amount of coverage in the available insurance market is completely insufficient to cover a worst case oil train derailment scenario, such as Lac-Mégantic,” Richrod said, citing the infamous 2013 rail disaster in Quebec that killed 47 people. “So, if there’s no insurance coverage, who does cover it? In all cases, taxpayers.”

Local architect Bob Ford talked about the possibility of a natural disaster making things worse in the event that oil trains made their way through Aberdeen. He talked about landslides caused by last January’s floods, specifically referring to the possibility of a slide along Highway 12 above the railroad tracks. “(A landslide last year) had come down and hit Highway 12, knocked out the guardrail, went past the railroad and touched the water. What if that would’ve been the Bakken crude oil train?” he asked the panel.

Scott Hedderich, Renewable Energy Group’s director of corporate affairs, kicked off the hearing with his owns comments, beginning by stressing that the company is reviewing “how this potential development impacts our business.”

“Today, we’re here to listen and to learn,” he said. “We’ll be sure to factor in economic impacts, regulatory compliance concerns and community opinions in our decision-making template.”

Westway Terminals Grays Harbor Terminal Manager Steve Williams also had a chance to comment before a break in the first round of comments.

“The expansion of our terminal represents a long-term commitment to the community,” Williams said.

“Westway is committed to hiring locally and using locally sourced products whenever possible. As a native, I know how eager folks are to get back to work.”

The crowd of those hoping to have their voices heard wasn’t just from Grays Harbor County. Those in disagreement with the proposed plan came from Hood River, Ore., Portland, Olympia, Seattle, Spokane and Cowlitz County, among other areas.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots Ellen Leatham came from Portland and let representatives from Ecology know she was worried about the Grays Harbor projects affecting those in Oregon.

“Anything that happens at the mouth of the Columbia affects not just the Pacific Ocean, but everything all the way up the Columbia,” she said. “We’re already tracking coal dust in the river way up there.”

Rein Attemann came to the comment period to speak on behalf of Spokane City Council President Ben Stuckart. Attemann used to live in Spokane and made the trip from Seattle. He said he and Stuckart don’t know what the Eastern Washington city would do if oil trains came through.

“It is the gateway to Washington trains, so they’re witnessing a huge increase in oil trains coming through their community,” he said. “That railroad is elevated through most of downtown and over an interstate and a major river. If there was a derailment, the catastrophic consequences would be dramatic.”

“The railroad tracks go along schools, hospitals and business,” Attemann added. “It really is putting those community members at risk every time an oil train goes through.”

Hood River, Ore., City Councilman Peter Cornelison said the project would bring two additional trains each day through the Gorge area, doubling the number of trains that run the route on daily basis now.

“It’s like an additional roll of the dice in a way,” he said, adding that a spill in the region would ruin the fish ladders, which would then likely take up to a year to replace in an area whose economy depends on the fishing industry. “To any of us, it’s a nightmare.”

The Gorge area also sent the hearing’s youngest commenter. Daeuthen Dahlquist, 11, from White Salmon, made the trip with his mother, Brynn Dahlquist, to read his statement.

“The DEIS needs to address the necessity of this area for species other than humans,” Daeuthen Dahlquist told officials.

The hearing wasn’t without its drama, with Hoquiam resident Robin Moore capitalizing on the theater atmosphere to adapt lines from Hamlet as part of her comment.

“To permit or not to permit, that is the question,” Moore said. “Whether ‘tis nobler in the minds to suffer the slings and arrows of a possible lawsuit, or to take up arms against the sea of disastrous environmental impacts, and, by opposing, end them.

Moore’s comments came to a head when she removed an artificial skull from her jacket pocket, and, in an attempt to recreate the play’s classic “gravedigger scene,” compared Shay to Yorick, the court jester whose skull is exhumed.

“Alas, poor Brian,” Moore said, launching into the closing portion of her monologue. “I knew you, Horatio. Where be your gibes now? Your gambols? Do not gamble with our future; deny the permits.”

Another performance during the second comment session came close to derailing the entire hearing, as four members of the Portland Raging Grannies, a social activist group, attempted to splice together two consecutively numbered public comment passes to sing in the melody of “She’ll Be Comin’ ‘Round the Mountain.”

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots “We present an urgent message here today / Don’t develop Westway down in Grays Harbor,” they sang, making no attempt to rhyme. “All the dangers, fumes and fires are well known though some conspire to erect a terminal to have their way.”

As the group’s first two minutes wrapped up, they tried explaining they had collected two comment passes, intended to be used consecutively. The hearing’s facilitator saw things differently, and asked the group to sit. A short dispute led to a five-minute recess of the hearing, but no further consequences.

Some, like Portland resident Harlan Shober, took a much more admonishing and straight-faced approach to their time at the podium.

“If you turn this Harbor into a glistening, stinking slew of oil, no one will forgive you. You will have no place to run and no place to hide,” he told the panel. “If you let this go forward, my children will have no place to run and no place to hide.”

Ocean Shores Councilwoman Jackie Farra also didn’t mince words.

“I don’t have a lot to say because I’m so ashamed of what’s been going on here,” she said. “I wish I was not here tonight to have to tell you that you should all go away right after you say, ‘No.’ Brian (Shay), I’m especially upset with you. I guess because of your position where you were able to deny this a long time ago along with Port commissioners.”

As the only supporter of the projects not directly affiliated with the companies asking for permits, Westport resident Ray Brown downplayed the hazards many had cited, adding that neither project would “go from zero to 60 instantly.”

“Trains go through towns as they always have, carrying hazardous material as they always have,” Brown said. “As issues crop up, there will be plenty of time to deal with them and figure things out.

The hysteria surrounding this issue is just that — hysteria.”

Ehlers heard many of the comments directly from her seat on the stage. She said the process worked well and that she was pleased with the issues many had brought.

Ehlers added that the list of areas where the department would conduct further research is already being drafted, but that she couldn’t be more specific.

Thursday’s hearing was the final event the Department of Ecology will host during the public comment period for the draft environmental impact statements, though the period runs through Oct. 29. Comments may still be submitted online and through the mail.

Information on submitting comments can be found on Ecology’s website at http://www.ecy.wa.gov/geographic/graysharbor/terminals.html.

The final EIS is anticipated for release sometime in 2016.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

The Transocean Polar Pioneer, a semi-submersible drilling unit leased by Shell, was used to explore Arctic deposits.

 Shell abandons Alaska Arctic drilling Oil giant’s US president says hugely controversial drilling operations off Alaska will stop for ‘foreseeable future’ as drilling finds little oil and gas September 28, 2015 Shell has abandoned its controversial drilling operations in the Alaskan Arctic in the face of mounting opposition in what jubilant environmentalists described as “an unmitigated defeat” for big oil.

The Anglo-Dutch company had repeatedly stressed the enormous hydrocarbon potential of the far north region in public, but in private began to admit it had been surprised by the popular opposition it faced.

Shell said today it had made a marginal discovery of oil and gas with its summer exploration in the Chukchi Sea but not enough to continue to the search for the “foreseeable” future.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots Shell has spent over $7bn (£4.6bn) on its failed hunt for oil which critics said could only endanger one of the world’s last pristine environments and produce expensive hydrocarbons that were no longer needed.

Analysis Shell has frozen its Arctic oil drilling – but it's still hungry for fossil fuels Environmentalists claim victory as Shell abandons Arctic oil drilling, but the energy company is still pursuing oil and gas elsewhere in the short-term Read more Shell said it would have to take a hit of around $4.1bn on future earnings as a result of the decision but it is unclear what the final bill will be.

The company has already come under increasing pressure from shareholders worried about plunging oil prices, a planned merger with rival BG as well as the costs of what has so far been a futile search in the Chukchi Sea. It appears that van Beurden was also worried that the row over the Arctic was undermining his attempts to influence the debate around how to tackle climate change.

His attempts to argue that a Shell strategy of building up gas as a “transitional” fuel to pave the way to a lower carbon future has met with skepticism, partly because of the Chukchi operations.

In a statement today, Marvin Odum, director of Shell Upstream Americas, said: “Shell continues to see important exploration potential in the basin, and the area is likely to ultimately be of strategic importance to Alaska and the US. However, this is a clearly disappointing exploration outcome for this part of the basin.”

“Shell will now cease further exploration activity in offshore Alaska for the foreseeable future. This decision reflects both the Burger J well result, the high costs associated with the project, and the challenging and unpredictable federal regulatory environment in offshore Alaska.”

The new cold war: drilling for oil and gas in the Arctic Read more Reacting to the news, Greenpeace UK executive director John Sauven said: “Big oil has sustained an unmitigated defeat. They had a budget of billions, we had a movement of millions. For three years we faced them down, and the people won.

“The Save the Arctic movement has exacted a huge reputational price from Shell for its Arctic drilling programme. And as the company went another year without striking oil, that price finally became too high. They’re pulling out.

“Now President Obama should use his remaining months in office to say that no other oil company will be licenced to drill in the American Arctic.”

Barry Gardiner, Labour’s new shadow minister for energy and climate change, said Shell had been engaged in a fool’s errand.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots “(Potentially) desecrating one of the world’s last wildernesses shows a complete failure of moral leadership at the head of the company. If his investors are not calling for Ben van Beurden’s head, now that the company has suffered a $4.1bn loss then his board certainly should be.”

There has been an increasing number of energy industrialists and other experts who have questioned the wisdom of Arctic drilling, including former BP chief executive John Browne and Fatih Birol, incoming executive director at the International Energy Agency.

A variety of consultants have also argued that Arctic oil is too expensive to find and develop in either a low oil price environment or in a future world with a higher price on carbon emissions.

Anthony Hobley, chief executive of Carbon Tracker, an organisation which repeatedly argued Chukchi exploration was unaffordable, said Shell’s decision to halt in the Arctic is a win for common sense.

“But why did it take $7bn of shareholders’ money to come to this view?” he asked. “Analysis by Carbon Tracker and others clearly showed that Arctic oil needs much higher prices to give investors a decent return. Yet the decision appears a reluctant pause as Shell suggests it would have continued to drill if it had found more oil and gas and it has only halted exploration ‘for the foreseeable future’.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

 Obama cancels Arctic drilling lease sales October 16, 2015

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots The Obama administration took a number of actions Friday to restrict future offshore drilling in the Arctic Ocean.

The Interior Department is canceling two lease sales it had planned over the next year and a half for Arctic drilling rights and denying two oil companies’ requests to extend the time on leases that they currently hold.

The decision comes weeks after Royal Dutch Shell pulled out of the Arctic for the foreseeable future, saying the little oil it found in this summer’s drilling is not worth the cost.

The administration said its decisions are based on the current oil markets and low interest in Arctic drilling.

But it’s also a significant action to crack down on one of the most controversial types of offshore oil and gas drilling that has environmentalists fired up in opposition.

“In light of Shell’s announcement, the amount of acreage already under lease and current market conditions, it does not make sense to prepare for lease sales in the Arctic in the next year and a half,” Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said in a statement, complimenting her staff’s work overseeing the safety and environmental standards of Shell’s drilling in the Chukchi Sea, about 70 miles northwest of Alaska’s coast.

Shell’s Chukchi lease is due to expire in 2020. Norway’s Statoil had also requested an extension of a lease expiring in 2017 in the nearby Beaufort Sea, which was also rejected.

In letters to each company, the department said they failed to show sufficient plans to take advantage of the leases if their terms were extended.

The decisions were praised by environmentalists who have long called for Obama to block drilling in the Arctic due to its potential environmental and climate impacts.

“Today’s announcement moves us away from old arguments about companies’ unwise investments and toward better choices for the Arctic Ocean,” Susan Murray, vice president of the Pacific for Oceana, said in a statement.

“As Shell found out, the Arctic Ocean is unique and unforgiving,” she said. “Especially in light of economic, technological, and environmental realities, there is no reason to extend leases or hold new sales.”

The announcements are certain to bother the oil industry and Republicans, who have blamed Obama for a strict and unpredictable regulatory environment in the Arctic that makes exploration difficult in one of the most promising untapped regions for oil and gas.

Hilcorp, Eni, BP, Repsol, ConocoPhillips Co. and Iona Energy Co. also currently own drilling rights in the United States’ portion of the Arctic.

The Interior Department has proposed one Beaufort sale in 2020 and a Chukchi sale in 2022 as part of its 2017–2022 leasing program, but it has yet to make the plan final.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

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Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

 Fracking is not safe – Let’s prove it

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

 National

Energy Board seeking more information on Trans Mountain expansion project before making its decision September 25, 2015

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots The National Energy Board (NEB) has announced that it is extending its review period for Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project.

In a statement on Thursday, the NEB said that it had implemented an “excluded period” for the review of the expansion project, which began on Sept. 17 and will end Jan. 8, 2016. The period will enable the regulator to acquire additional information related to the project.

The NEB pointed out that it has a legislated time limit of 15 months from the date it determines an application is complete until issuing a decision or recommendation to Governor in Council. The term excluded period refers to the provision in the NEB Act that allows the NEB to exclude a period of time from its legislated 15-month time limit.

Related: Kinder Morgan president says draft Trans Mountain pipeline conditions achievable The announcement follows a decision by the project hearing panel on Aug. 21 to strike evidence from the hearing record. A filing from the Board showed that Governor in Council appointed Steven Kelly as a full-time member of the NEB, effective Oct. 13. In Dec. 2013, Trans Mountain filed direct written evidence from Kelly of IHS Global Canada Limited in support of its project application, addressing the issue of oil market supply and demand, among other things. However, other evidence reached conclusions that are different than Kelly’s.

“Therefore, if evidence prepared by or under the direction of Mr. Kelly remains on the record, this Panel of the Board may be in the position of having to assess this evidence against that filed by Living Oceans Society after Mr. Kelly’s appointment to the Board becomes effective,” the NEB wrote in the filing.

“There can be no question that public confidence in the impartiality of tribunal decision-makers is integral to the administration of justice,” the Board wrote.

“The dual role of Mr. Kelly, as a person who prepared evidence in this proceeding and as a future Board member, may raise concerns about the integrity of this hearing process. With this in mind, the Panel has decided on its own volition to strike from the hearing record all evidence prepared by or under the direction of Mr. Kelly.”

Related: North Vancouver First Nation says pipeline expansion could increase oil spills Trans Mountain must file replacement evidence by Friday (Sept. 25).

The NEB said in the statement that it will now release its recommendation report by May 20, 2016.

Prior to the excluded period, the report was scheduled to be released on Jan. 26, 2016.

This is the second excluded period for the Trans Mountain expansion project. The first excluded period was from July 11, 2014 to Feb. 3, 2015 to allow Trans Mountain to file additional studies related to a new preferred corridor through Burnaby Mountain.

The Trans Mountain expansion project is a proposal to expand the existing Trans Mountain pipeline system between Edmonton, Alta. and Burnaby, B.C. It would include approximately 987 kilometres of new pipeline, new and modified facilities, such as pump stations and tanks, and the reactivation of 193 kilometres of existing pipeline.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

A Canadian National Railway official stands on the tracks after seven Canadian Pacific Railway train cars derailed on the CN Rail tracks spilling coal from three of the cars in Burnaby on January 11, 2014.

 B.C. leaders join rail-safety alliance under threat of train derailments September 25, 2015 VANCOUVER — Under the spectre of the Lac-Megantic, Que., rail disaster, local politicians in British Columbia are joining with other West Coast politicians to pressure the federal government to overhaul Canada's antiquated railway laws.

The U.S.-led Safe Energy Leadership Alliance invited B.C.'s leaders to combine with its members to lobby for new protections from train accidents in Canada and the United States.

Vancouver Coun. Andrea Reimer says Canadian railway rules have hardly changed since they were written a century ago, when trains chugged through sparse areas that only later would become populated cities.

She says those in communities across the West Coast worry they won't be able to handle emergencies such as derailments involving hazardous coal and oil.

Reimer said Transport Canada has indicated that shipments of oil by rail over the next 10 years is expected to leap by 44 per cent.

Dow Constantine, who chairs the alliance from Washington State, says municipalities on both sides of the border share the same problem with national governments having almost all authority over rail lines.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

Coal

 Save the Chuitna

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

 The Proposed Chuitna Coal Strip Mine James (Wilcox), We wanted to let you know that the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) released a mixed decision on the Chuitna Citizens Coalitions' three applications to keep water in streams for salmon yesterday.

The good news: We made history! This is the first time the state has awarded everyday Alaskans an Instream Flow Reservation. While we always knew Alaskans had the right to keep water in our streams for fish, now DNR agrees too.

The bad news: DNR rejected the two instream flow applications which lie within the boundaries of PacRim Coal’s controversial proposal to strip mine through nearly 14 miles of wild salmon stream.

Governor Walker’s Transition Team recommended a “fish first” policy so we don’t repeat the mistakes made in the Lower 48. Today’s decision, unfortunately, puts fish second, to a coal strip mine.

Over the next couple of days, we will analyze this decision and plan our next steps.

In the meantime, Thank You! Your voice and your support helped us shape history today. Now we just need to keep the pressure on so we never trade wild salmon for dirty coal.

Sincerely, Ron and Bobbie Burnett Chuitna Citizens Coalition

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

Hydropower / Water Retention

 Water power Industry is not creating green electricity it creates Mordor!

Hydroelectric plants and dams destroy nature, the natural environment and also destroys nature’s ability to create diversity, species richness and variety in lakes, rivers and oceans around the world.

Today, 172 of 292 rivers are regulated by humans. Globally, there are approximately 39,000 large dams in the world.

The main reason for hydropower kills species that hydropower settles essential vitamins and diatoms to reach the sea. Hydroelectric plants and dams first destroys nature and the natural environment. The dams also destroy the ability to protect life in lakes, rivers, seas and oceans around the world. The main reason why hydropower kills species is that hydropower dams stops silicon, essential vitamins and diatom to fertilize and enrich the water on its way to the sea. It is also so important that silicon, essential vitamins and diatoms out in to the seas and oceans.

Read Entire Save the Baltic Article Here

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

 Free the Snake

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

 Large

flotilla of outdoor enthusiasts takes “Free the Snake” message to the water October 7, 2012

A flotilla of about 150 boats left the Wawawai Landing near Colton on Saturday to demonstrate for removal of four dams on the lower Snake River.

The coalition of environmentalists, tribal members and outdoor enthusiasts want the Lower Granite, Little Goose, Lower Monumental and Ice Harbor dams breached to improve habitat for salmon and steelhead in the lower Snake River in southeast Washington and throughout the Columbia River system. They unfurled a banner about 120 feet wide that read “Free The Snake” near Lower Granite Dam. “Today is the day when the tide gets turned,” Brett Haverstick, a rally organizer representing Friends of the Clearwater, said to the hundreds of people who participated in the flotilla. “It’s your country. It’s your water.”

This summer, endangered salmon and steelhead trout died by the thousands because of high water temperatures in the reservoirs created by these dams. The waters become warmer in summer anyway, but the decreased movement of the water adds to the increase in temperatures that make it inhospitable to the fish, according to various wildlife experts who attended the rally.

Orca whales depend on chinook salmon and these fish are the mainstay of their diets. Salmon travel through the lower Snake River on their way to Puget Sound, where orcas can be found, said Deborah Giles, science advisor for the Southern Resident Killer Whale Chinook Salmon Initiative.

“Removing the lower four dams would open up pristine spawning habitat for these chinook,” Giles said.

Young fish have problems negotiating the reservoirs and can get lost and die. The spawning journeys are taking longer and the fish become exhausted and depleted. Removing the dams would benefit the entire Columbia River system, Giles said.

“I’ve been asked how can you advocate more salmon for whales when people need food?” she said.

“Better conditions in the Snake River would provide more salmon for the orcas and people − all would have more.”

The initiative has asked President Barack Obama and federal legislators from Washington and Idaho for support in taking down the dams.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots Central Idaho communities that depend economically on tourism by outdoor recreationers would benefit if the dams were removed, as seasons for fishing have been shorter, less bountiful and not as frequent as they used to be, said Joseph Bogaard, executive director of Save Our Wild Salmon.

“Things have to change in this climate change era,” he said.

Others who want to see the dams removed also say the dams are no longer needed for commerce. Area agriculture transport has substantially decreased in the river because the goods are being moved by rail.

However, about $200 million worth of hydroelectric power comes from these dams and provides power to about 675,000 residences, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Passage systems for juvenile fish traveling the Lower Snake River dams provide conditions that now allow for a 95 to 100 percent survival rate, said LTC Timothy Vail, district commander of the corps’ Walla Walla District.

Adult fish passages were accommodated when the dams were first built decades ago, but getting young fish through the system has required additional efforts over the years.

The corps operates the dams, the Wawawai landing and other dam-related recreational facilities, along with overseeing marine navigation in the river area. It also conducts projects intended to improve the habitat for endangered species.

The various programs and improvement projects only require spending $62 million of the $200 million generated from energy production at the dams. These facilities provide power without the need to operate coal-fired power plants, and they also help sustain the region’s economy through the recreational tourism and cargo movement, Vail said.

“It’s an excellent value for citizens and it’s hard to say these are ‘deadbeat dams,’” he said about the term often used by the dam opponents.

A few of the people in the flotilla were let through to tour the dam area after the rest started the trip back to Wawawai.

“I’m not going to be the commander who allows irreparable harm to an ecosystem,” Vail added. “If it was very clear we needed to remove those dams, we would recommend it.”

The trip was documented by various media. A crew from Patagonia, an outdoor clothing and gear seller, filmed it in its entirety. Movement of the boats was even captured from above using drone cameras.

Safety was an important factor because of the large group traveling in mostly small boats and kayaks. People with boating and medical training accompanied the flotilla because strong winds were predicted.

There was an evening get together at the Belltower in Pullman for the flotilla participants that included speakers and music.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

 Orca advocates call for end to Snake River dams October 9, 2015 "If we go along at this pace, we'll watch this population dwindle to zero," Ken Balcomb said.

Ken Balcomb has studied the southern residents for 40 years as senior scientist at the Center for Whale Research. For many years, he and others wondered exactly what drove them toward extinction.

The recent baby boom, they believe, lends new insight.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots "In a year where there was a good flush of salmon, suddenly there were a bunch of pregnancies, a bunch of births and those babies are surviving," Carl Safina said.

Safina recently published "Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel." He traveled to Seattle to join Balcomb and other orca supporters in a week of rallying for the end of the Snake River dams.

Southern Resident orca diets are almost entirely comprised of Chinook salmon, but salmon have lost spawning grounds statewide to dams.

Dams on the Snake River recently drew flotilla protests to free the water. The 5,000-plus miles of river bed, they believe, could restore more than a half million chinook "We made a mistake. Undo the mistake," Safina said. "We are connecting every dot now and we know exactly what needs to happen."

Unlike other orcas, southern residents typically don't eat mammals. They just eat fish, and Chinook numbers are hovering at a bare minimum.

When whales don't have enough to eat, they metabolize their blubber, which can kill them.

"If you're a 10,000-pound whale you're talking about 400 pounds of fish," Balcomb said. "Those fats are highly toxic. That's where they store all the contaminants."

Chinook salmon also determine orca reproduction. When there is not enough food, the whales have more male calves. Of the five calves born in the last year, four were male.

That's not enough females to continue reproducing in the future.

"We have a legal imperative to keep them alive and we have new information about exactly what they need and where we could get it," Safina said. "These are beings that experience life, that want to stay alive."

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

 Don't be fooled by Hydropower Industry talking points Congressman Denny Heck, I am writing as your constituent on behalf of Wild Game Fish Conservation International to urge you to oppose H.R. 8, the so-called North American Energy Security and Infrastructure Act. If enacted, this bill would upend the carefully crafted balance between competing interests on public waterways that has been in place since President Wilson signed the Federal Power Act in 1920.

If it becomes law, it would open new loopholes that would allow dam owners to avoid complying with the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, and other protections for fish, wildlife, public lands, Native American treaty rights, fire safety, and outdoor recreation.

Hydropower licenses are issued for up to 50 years.

Hydropower dams that are coming up for re-licensing now were first constructed before the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, and virtually all other environmental laws.

During re-licensing proceedings, the public gets the opportunity to ensure that dam owners make the necessary changes to get their facilities up to modern standards.

If we don’t get the balance between environmental protection and power generation right in one of these licenses, we are forced to live with that mistake for up to half a century.

Further, this bill is an unprecedented federalization of state authority over water.

It strips the states and many tribes of their historic right to manage and control water resources and to protect water quality, giving it to the unelected and virtually unaccountable Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) headquartered in Washington, DC. By allowing power companies to avoid complying with environmental laws, this bill would shift the responsibility for dealing with environmental damage onto farmers, ranchers, industrial facilities, municipal water and sewer providers, and small businesses.

Congress should join with the more than 170 conservation and recreation agencies, state fish and wildlife agencies, and federal natural resource agencies and reject H.R. 8 and the narrow interests of the large energy corporations that seek to maximize their profits and minimize their responsibilities to the public.

Sincerely,

James E. Wilcox

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

 Aging And Underfunded: America's Dam Safety Problem, In 4 Charts October 11, 2015 There are more than 87,000 dams in America and, like most infrastructure, they go largely unnoticed — until something goes wrong.

That was the case in and around South Carolina's capital this week, when at least 20 dams collapsed during catastrophic floods.

The number of dam breaches was rare. But to experts who monitor dam safety in America, it wasn't entirely surprising. In its most recent Report Card for America's Infrastructure, the American Society of Civil Engineers gave the state of America's dams a "D," in part because about 4,000 dams in the country are in need of repairs — and about half of those deficient dams could cost lives if they were to fail.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots That's in large part because of their age. Several of the dams that breached this week in South Carolina were more than 100 years old — and they are far from exceptional. Nearly 3,000 dams across the U.S. predate the 20th century:

And when it comes to dam integrity, age matters. Inside of many of America's dams, metal pipes and other structural components are degrading. The process is accelerated by chemical runoff in the waterways, particularly in areas that have become more populated in recent decades.

Outdated technology is another issue. "[Older dams] were built with the best construction and engineering standards available at that time, but we've learned a lot since then about things like earthquakes and floods," says John France, with the international engineering consulting firm AECOM. "South Carolina is an example of what can happen," he says, "and, unfortunately, we're seeing those kinds of floods every few years now."

Government officials are well aware of the problem — even more so in recent years, as dam inspections have increased.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

But dams are expensive to fix. According to the Association of State Dam Safety Officials, it would cost about $54 billion to rehabilitate all of the dams in the country in need of repairs. The money would need to come from myriad local, state and federal coffers — as well as thousands of private owners.

Federal dams are both inspected and financed by the agencies that own them, many of which only have enough money in any given year to tackle the most potentially dangerous defects. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, for example, estimates that at current funding levels, it would take them about 50 years to work through their backlog, according to the ASCE report.

Meanwhile, many more dams — locally owned, state-owned or privately owned — are monitored by state authorities, which presents its own set of problems.

First, the amount each state spends on dam oversight varies widely. The South Carolina Dams and Reservoirs Safety Program, for example, regulates 2,499 dams and spends $260,000 a year doing so. That comes to about 380 dams per dam safety employee.

While that's significantly less funding than the national average, it is much more than some states spend. Alabama doesn't even have a dam safety program.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

Second, while states might pay or contribute to the repairs of those dams that are publicly-owned, most dams in the country are privately owned, which puts the onus on private parties and associations.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots When private owners' dams require repairs and the owner is slow to make them, state enforcement mechanisms can be weak and slow, often bogged down in litigation or paperwork, says Mark Ogden of the Association of State Dam Safety Officials.

In most states, governments do have the ability to step in if lives or property are in imminent danger.

But, he said, "It is not good policy to have to wait until emergency situations to have to deal with a lot of these issues."

Still, in many cases, that's exactly what happens. The only source of federal funding for dam repair — for dams that aren't owned and regulated by the feds — comes through FEMA, and that money only becomes available after a dam fails.

Which might create a rare opportunity in South Carolina to use public money to build stronger, more modern dams.

At least 20 of them.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

Natural Gas

 Coos Bay LNG Pipeline

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

 15.8 Million Tonnes of CO2

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

Solar

 Solutions Not Pollution – Skilled, Trained, Ready

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

Mining – Precious Metals Secretary of State John Kerry U.S. Department of State 2201 C Street NW Washington, D.C. 20520

 RE: Transboundary Mining Threats to Southeast Alaska Dear Secretary Kerry, The economy and culture of Southeast Alaska are directly tied to the health of our rivers and our salmon runs. We are concerned that massive mining development upstream in British Columbia, in the headwaters of major transboundary salmon rivers such as the Taku, Stikine and Unuk, threatens our water quality and fisheries, and thus our jobs, culture and overall way of life. The Taku is often Southeast Alaska’s largest overall salmon producing river, with the region’s most prolific runs of coho and king salmon. The Stikine is usually a close second in salmon production. The Unuk is one of Southeast Alaska’s top five king salmon producers, and flows into and through Misty Fjords National Monument. Beyond their bounty of salmon, these waters are home to other game fish species, including steelhead, bull trout, Dolly Varden char, rainbow trout, lake trout, arctic grayling, whitefish and Southeast Alaska's largest population of cutthroat trout. World-class wilderness hunting opportunities in these watersheds exist for moose, mountain goat, black bear, brown bear, wolf, and waterfowl.

This large-scale mining district with several open-pit mine projects in known acid-generating ore bodies, along with associated waste rock storage facilities and tailings dams, roads and other infrastructure will threaten the productivity and health of watersheds and fish and wildlife habitat through cumulative impacts and contamination or possible catastrophic failures.

We along with sporting conservation groups, businesses and trade associations urge the U.S. Department of State to engage with the Canadian government and also take action to safeguard Southeast Alaska’s $2 billion-a-year fishing, hunting, and tourism industries and rich cultural and traditional heritage from mine pollution.

Alaska and Canada need to work together to establish enforceable regulations that will protect fish and water quality in this world-class salmon region that we share. We urge the U.S. Department of State to address Alaska’s mounting concerns, and engage directly with the Canadian government through the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909. The issue should be referred to the International Joint Commission to thoroughly review the potential impacts to water quality and habitat, and associated potential salmon impacts in particular, that may be caused by the numerous major mining projects proposed and permitted and in watersheds of several transboundary rivers shared by British Columbia and Southeast Alaska. Finally, the State Department should request from the Commission a set of recommendations to safeguard the water quality and habitat of these watersheds to ensure compliance with the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909.

Sincerely,

James E. Wilcox Wild Game Fish Conservation International

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

 New

B.C. $5.4 Billion Gold and Copper Mine Will Improve Water Quality in River, Says Company October 9, 2015

Water quality in a tributary of one of Southeast Alaska’s prime salmon rivers will improve once a new mine opens on the B.C. side of the border according to spokesmen for Seabridge Gold Inc, the Toronto-based company planning to open the Kerr-Sulpherets-Mitchell (KSM) mine.

The copper, gold and molybdenum mine, 65 kilometres northwest of Stewart and 30 kilometres from the Alaska border, received federal and provincial environmental assessment approvals last year and the company is now seeking a joint venture partner for the $5.4-billion project.

But the prospect of a massive mine close to a tributary that runs into the Unuk River has alarmed Alaskan fishing, First Nations and environmental groups who say the risk is unacceptable and are pushing for transboundary mining issues to be referred to the International Joint Commission.

“The long term risks of KSM far outweigh any short-term improvements to water quality the mine may create,” Chris Zimmer, Rivers Without Borders Alaska campaign director, said.

The KSM tailings pond, with a massive 239-metre tailings dam, will be built in the Bell Irving/Nass watershed in B.C., but the mine operation will be close to Sulpherets Creek which runs into the Unuk River.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots “The open pits and waste rock piles are located in (the Unuk) watershed,” Heather Hardcastle of Salmon Beyond Borders said.

“They’re essentially using the Unuk, all the way up to the border as a mixing zone.”

However, Brent Murphy, Seabridge Gold vice president environmental affairs, in an interview with DeSmog Canada, said water quality in the creek is already bad because of natural erosion of copper, iron and zinc deposits.

“The acidity will basically eat your boots off,” he said.

Federal and provincial regulators agree there will not be any impact in Alaska from the mine, Murphy said.

“The operation of the KSM water management system will, in fact, improve the overall water quality,” he said, pointing to company photos of discoloured creek water.

“We will treat the water that comes into contact with the mine site and improve the water running into Sulphurets Creek and ultimately the Unuk River,” Murphy said.

But Alaskan groups say the photos are misleading and point to a 2014 report by Skeena Wild Conservation Trust that concluded KSM would release metals into the Unuk watershed that would exceed levels known to have serious impacts on salmon.

“I am especially concerned when people make statements to the effect that they can improve natural systems. Seems the height of hubris,” said Guy Archibald, Southeast Alaska Conservation Council, Inside Passage waterkeeper coordinator.

“There is more complexity in a mud puddle than science will ever understand and a massive intervention such as the KSMmine will no doubt have massive unforeseen negative consequences.”

Following the 2014 collapse of the Mount Polley tailings pond dam there has been increased concern about earthen tailings dams and the expert panel looking into the disaster recommended that mining companies should adopt best available technologies and consider dry stacking tailings when possible.

However, Peter Williams, Seabridge vice-president of technical services said location is the paramount concern when choosing how to dispose of tailings and, after considering dry stacking, it was decided the KSM site was ideal for wet tailings, with a lined tailings pond to ensure no discharge into the environment.

“We have put it into a valley and most of the walls are valley walls, so they are very strong,” he said.

“It makes this location very safe.”

The u-shaped valley will have gently-sloping dams at either end, constructed of sand from the tailings, Murphy said.

That is very different from the Mount Polley dam which consisted of a steeply-sloping ring dyke constructed of locally-sourced till material, he said.

“Most importantly, after treatment, water from the proposed KSM facility will be discharged on an annual basis, preventing the build-up of any water within the facility as occurred at Mount Polley where there was no treatment of water for discharge,” he said.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots Zimmer, who emphasized that Alaskan groups are concerned about the effect of the mine on any rivers, whether Canadian or Alaskan, said one of the major worries is what happens over time.

“What happens after 250 years? What if the water treatment fails or doesn’t work as proposed — Seabridge has no contingency plans for this,” he said.

Williams said there should be no concerns after closure as, after the tailings are topped and revegetated, there will be minimal water flow.

During the six-and-a-half-year review process, Seabridge held numerous meetings with Alaskan groups and regulators, including a public meeting in Ketchikan, Murphy said.

There was also a detailed assessment by independent federal regulators so there was no need for a panel review — as requested by Alaskans — because it would duplicate work already done, Murphy said.

Neither would a referral to the International Joint Commission be the correct process, Murphy believes.

“In our opinion [the IJC] is a political dispute resolution process and we are continuing to support efforts of the B.C. and Alaska governments who are working on increasing cooperation between the two governments on transboundary projects and we encourage them to work towards a memorandum of understanding,” he said.

But Zimmer said most of the meetings were open only to agency and company officials and many questions remain — such as lack of funds to deal with major accidents or proof that Seabridge can treat water for selenium.

“The arrogance demonstrated by Seabridge’s blind faith in their engineering in the face of the forces of Mother Nature and time, is the same arrogance that resulted in the Titanic, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Mount Polley,” he said.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

 A video reminder of the worst mining disaster in Canadian history.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

 BRISTOL BAY MINE Report funded by Pebble questions EPA motives Commercial Fishermen for Bristol Bay calls document a smear tactic October 6, 2015

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots A lengthy report regarding a proposed large-scale mine near the headwaters of Bristol Bay in Southwest Alaska questions the Environmental Protection Agency's motives in initiating action to restrict discharges from the mine into area waters.

The 364-page report, online at http://files.cohengroup.net/Final/Final-Report-With Appendicescompressed.pdf, was commissioned from a Washington D.C. global business consulting firm, The Cohen Group, by Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. It was released on Oct. 6 by Northern Dynasty and the Pebble Limited Partnership.

In an executive summary, company chairman and chief executive officer William S. Cohen wrote that that there are "serious concerns as to whether EPA orchestrated the process to reach a predetermined outcome; had inappropriately close relationships with anti-mine advocates; and was candid about its decision-making process."

Cohen, a Republican, was a U.S. Senator from Maine from 1979 to 1997 before his appointment as Defense Secretary in January 1997. He held that post until January 2001.

According to Mike Heatwole, a spokesman for the Pebble Partnership, suggested uses of the report include calling for congressional oversight committee hearings.

The Pebble Partnership is owned by Northern Dynasty, of Vancouver, British Columbia, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hunter Dickinson Inc., a diversified global mining group also headquartered in Vancouver, B.C. The report drew a quick response from Commercial Fishermen for Bristol Bay, which issued a statement calling the report "nothing more than a smear tactic attempting to distract and mislead the public and decision makers from the threats posed by the Pebble mine and fact that the majority of Bristol Bay residents, stakeholders and Alaskans are overwhelmingly opposed to the project."

Commercial Fishermen for Bristol Bay also noted that the EPA has legal authority under the Clean Water Act to proactively restrict permits to mine in Bristol Bay. Nelli Williams, director of Trout Unlimited's Alaska Program, also criticized the report.

"The Cohen Group's report is far from independent," Williams said. "It is Pebble Limited Partnership propaganda disguised as a credible document. Credibility is earned over time, and Pebble has proven for more than a decade that it cannot be trusted."

United Tribes of Bristol Bay called the report "Pebble propaganda."

"Not surprisingly, while the report is spun as an 'independent' review, it reads like an extended PLP press release—nothing is new except Cohen has been paid to put his name on it," the tribal group in Dillingham said in its statement. "When Pebble came to Bristol Bay over a decade ago, it promised to be a good neighbor. It also promised that the company would not stay if it was unwelcome. Now, years later, Pebble has broken every promise made to the local residents and other concerned Alaskans."

The Pebble Partnership has spent about $750 million to date on exploration and public relations efforts to get the mine in position to begin construction, but has yet to apply for permits it will need for that phase.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots Heatwole said that the Pebble Limited Partnership still needs to secure a partner to help advance the project before initiating permitting. "Any future partner will want to test our engineering and environmental assumptions," Heatwole said. "Our stated goals for 2015 are to push back on the EPA and to secure a long term partner to advance the project."

According to Cohen, he undertook the report on conditions of complete independence, with the Pebble Partnership given no rights to edit or censor his views.

Cohen said his firm interviewed more than 60 people, including three former EPA administrators, but that EPA declined his request to make current personnel available for interviews. Cohen said his firm also reviewed thousands of documents from EPA, other federal agencies, the state of Alaska, congressional committees, the Pebble Partnership and other sources, and visited the site of the proposed mine.

Cohen also said that in conducting the Bristol Bay watershed assessment in the absence of any permit application, EPA made assumptions about potential mine operations in the Pebble deposit area, which is within the Bristol Bay watershed, "and created hypothetical mine scenarios based largely on a preliminary economic analysis prepared for the Pebble Partnership."

According to Cohen, among the most significant gaps was that the watershed assessment employed hypothetical assumptions as to mine operation and mitigation rather than considering the techniques a developer would propose in an actual permit application.

EPA nevertheless expressed confidence that its analyses were conservative and that compensatory mitigation techniques were unlikely to offset impacts of the nature described in the watershed assessment.

Cohen also said that he found that "the fairest and most appropriate process to evaluate possible development in the Pebble deposit area would use the established regulatory permit/National Environmental Policy Act process, "to assess a mine permit application, rather than using an assessment based upon the hypothetical mining scenarios described in the Bristol Bay watershed assessment as the basis for imposing potentially prohibitive restrictions on future mines."

Cohen also urged government oversight to ensure that agencies do not engage in preordained decision-making.

Commercial Fishermen of Bristol Bay noted in its statement that the EPA has listened to all sides from the beginning and based its action on a publicly engaged and transparent, science-based analysis of the risks posed by the mine to the Bristol Bay watershed, home of the world's largest wild sockeye salmon fishery. Some 14,000 harvesting jobs alone depend on the health of the Bristol Bay sockeye salmon, as well as processors, and others engaged in this fishery, valued at over $500 million annually. The fishery also provides for the lucrative sport fishing industry, as well as subsistence fish harvesters and hunters, and an abundance of area wildlife migrating through and living in the region.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

Fishing Pictures

 Another

derby-winning ling cod on Charterboat Slammer – Westport, Washington

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

 Kevin’s sidekick, “Strike Indicator”

Kevin Mayer: He is obsessed with swimming after the fish once hooked.

He knows what a bent rod means

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

 South Fork Snake River Trout Fishing

Bruce Treichler (WGFCI co-founder): Above: 24” Brown Trout, South Fork of the Snake River.

Probably weighed between six and eight pounds.

Would like to tell you that I caught it, but my biggest one was a 19” Yellowstone Cutt.

Below: Here is what you get when you fish the South Fork of the Snake; lunch with a table cloth and real dishes.

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

 Doug with an ocean-bright coho

Legacy – November 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots

 Rhett Weber’s Charterboat Slammer Leaving Westport Boat Basin