Legacy: June 2012

Issue 8

June 2012

L e g ac y The Journal of Wild Game Fish Conservation by

Wild Game Fish Conservation International Follow us on Facebook Š 2012 Wild Game Fish Conservation International

Wild fish know no borders

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 – The Journal of Wild Game Fish Conservation: Complimentary, no-nonsense, 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 contributions to society and the varied and complex issues impacting them and those who rely on their sustainability.

LEGACY features wild game fish conservation projects, fishing adventures, 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. Your “Letters to the Editor” are welcome.

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

Co-editor “Legacy”

Jim Wilcox

Publisher and co-editor “Legacy”

Legacy The Journal of Wild Game Fish Conservation

By Wild Game Fish Conservation International Celebrating Eight Consecutive Months of Wild Game Fish News Contents Special Feature: Expanded Global Reliance on American Coal...............................................................................6  Coal companies are targeting the Pacific Northwest as the gateway for export terminals that would send staggering quantities of U.S. coal to China. ................................................................................................................ 6  Coal Trains and Washington State ............................................................................................................................... 9  Whatcom doctors say they are worried about coal trains' effects ............................................................................ 9  Will Washington State Cave in to Dirty Coal? ............................................................................................................. 9  Port of Longview (Columbia River)............................................................................................................................. 10  RFK Jr. calls coal “corrupting” at Portland rally ....................................................................................................... 11  Should county weigh in on coal? ............................................................................................................................... 13  Coal: Let’s let this “opportunity” pass ....................................................................................................................... 15  Electricity Production in China: Prospects and Global Environmental Effects .................................................... 16  Commentary: Wild Game Fish Conservation International Perspective ................................................................ 20  Booming Asia demands more energy and Montana has it by the trainload .......................................................... 21  Council calls attention to coal train risks .................................................................................................................. 22  EPA wants full review of coal-export plan ................................................................................................................. 23  Burning coal train stops on wooden bridge .............................................................................................................. 25  Coal Train Derails Over Anacostia River ................................................................................................................... 26

Planet Earth ...............................................................................................................................................................27          

Hatched and Wild Salmon: A Bad Mix? ..................................................................................................................... 28 Some question whether sustainable seafood delivers on its promise ................................................................... 30 Researchers find reducing fishmeal hinders growth of farmed fish ...................................................................... 32 Enbridge wants to pipe tarsands oil to Montreal ...................................................................................................... 35 Video: Facts on Salmon Farms: Dr. Alexandra Morton ............................................................................................ 36 Eat With Your Dollars: Sourcing your salmon .......................................................................................................... 37 Wild salmon is best for you, for the environment ..................................................................................................... 38 Celebrating restaurants that feature wild Pacific salmon: ....................................................................................... 39 Oil sands - From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia .................................................................................................. 40 Wild game fish, like these marlin and sailfish, require abundant presence of smaller fish within their balanced and fragile ecosystems ................................................................................................................................................ 41

“Pants on Fire” Recognition: Mary Ellen Walling ...................................................................................................42

Canada .......................................................................................................................................................................43  Responsible Protection and Conservation of Canada’s Fisheries ......................................................................... 43  Ottawa could push pipelines through B.C.: legal experts ....................................................................................... 45  Tar sands oil, $5 billion and the Strait of Juan de Fuca ........................................................................................... 47 British Columbia ................................................................................................................................................................. 48  Proposed Fisheries Act changes upend Cohen Commission salmon inquiry ...................................................... 48  Proposed amendments to Fisheries Act includes wording which would, according to critics, "gut" key provisions to protect fisheries habitat. ...................................................................................................................... 48  Omnibus bill threatens fish: Cummins ...................................................................................................................... 50  Gov't Moving to Keep Farm Disease Outbreaks Secret ........................................................................................... 51  One woman's struggle to save B.C.'s wild salmon ................................................................................................... 54  European salmon viruses in Pacific salmon denied by government and industry ............................................... 56  Fish farm won't wait for CFIA, will go ahead and cull 500,000 fish ......................................................................... 58  Cohen Inquiry disallows hearings on virus related to salmon heart failure .......................................................... 59  Commercial fishing vessel licensing: DFO – Keith Ashfield ................................................................................... 60  Unprecedented Kokish River power project operating within salmonid habitat ................................................... 61  Vancouver park board votes to formally oppose Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion .......................................... 62  Earth Day 2012 in British Columbia, Canada ............................................................................................................. 63  Application made to reopen Cohen Commission into the decline of Fraser River salmon ................................. 64  Wild salmon need our help for survival ..................................................................................................................... 67  For the Record: Dr. Alexandra Morton ....................................................................................................................... 68  CAAR opposes planned open net cage salmon production increases .................................................................. 71  Supermarket salmon test positive for virus found in Europe .................................................................................. 72  Salmon Industry Hits Back at Claims of New Virus .................................................................................................. 74  More straight shooting from Anissa Reed ................................................................................................................. 75  Effects of salvage logging, beetle-killed pine trees spur warning that many communities should brace ‘for the worst’ ............................................................................................................................................................................. 76 New Brunswick .................................................................................................................................................................... 78  Atlantic salmon catches in Fundy watershed worry anglers ................................................................................... 78  Sounds Fishy? It's True: Salmon is on the Rise Again! ........................................................................................... 79 Nova Scotia .......................................................................................................................................................................... 80  CFIA Says Cooke Aquaculture Could Process and Market ISA Salmon from Shelburne April 17, 2012 ............ 80  N.S. salmon farm told to destroy all fish .................................................................................................................... 82  Feds to compensate fish farm for ISA losses ........................................................................................................... 83  Wild salmon numbers in decline along Atlantic coast ............................................................................................. 84  Salmon farming: an industry that needs to be caged............................................................................................... 85

Ireland ........................................................................................................................................................................87  Minister Seeks Views On Salmon Conservation ....................................................................................................... 87

Norway .......................................................................................................................................................................88  Eco Queen and the Green Warriors of Norway taking the fight to the Norwegian salmon farming industry! ... 88

Scotland .....................................................................................................................................................................89  Salmon health alert ...................................................................................................................................................... 89  US boosts Scottish salmon exports ........................................................................................................................... 91

USA.............................................................................................................................................................................92 Alaska ......................................................................................................................................................................................... 92  EPA's Bristol Bay mining study upsets Alaska officials .......................................................................................... 92 Oregon ........................................................................................................................................................................................ 94  Oregon asks to kill salmon-eating birds .................................................................................................................... 94 Washington State ...................................................................................................................................................................... 96  Judge Redden on Saving Salmon: Tear Down Those Dams ................................................................................... 96  U.S.: Salmon revival in sight as Elwha River dams fall .......................................................................................... 100  Proposed site for Chehalis River dam near Pe Ell .................................................................................................. 101  In response to: Reaction to Critical Fish Study Mixed ........................................................................................... 102  Wild Olympics — not much middle ground ............................................................................................................. 103

Featured Fishing Photo: Jill Davis (Kodiak, Alaska) ............................................................................................. 107 Featured artist: Richard Mayer (British Columbia)................................................................................................ 108 Youth Conservation News ...................................................................................................................................... 109  Elma challenged to help stream project .................................................................................................................. 109

Fishing Tips and Tricks: Summertime King Salmon............................................................................................. 110 Conservation Video Library – “Why we fight” ....................................................................................................... 111 Attention Conservation-minded Business Owners ............................................................................................... 112 WGFCI endorsed conservation organizations....................................................................................................... 112

L eg a c y Forward

We at Wild Game Fish Conservation International understand full well that it is our responsibility to share current and planned actions that directly impact the future of wild game fish and their ecosystems around planet earth with our on-line audience.

The June 2012 issue of Legacy introduces a special section that spotlights controversial proposals to ship Montana and Wyoming coal from seaports in Oregon and Washington State to expanding markets in China.

Of course, we continue to provide updates regarding open pen salmon feedlots, tarsands pipelines, hydropower generation via dams, irresponsible logging practices and overharvest of wild game fish and the forage fish they rely on.

Our expectation is that those who read Legacy month in and month out will come to understand that what is good for sustainable wild game fish is also good for humans. Similarly, what is bad for wild game fish is also really bad for humans!

We understand the passion that recreational anglers and conservationists such as ourselves have for wild game fish and their continued availability for this and future generations to enjoy and appreciate.

We continue to urge our global audience to speak out passionately and to demonstrate peacefully for wild game fish and their ecosystems; ecosystems that we are but one small component of.

As recreational fishermen, conservation of wild game fish for future generations 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.

Bruce Treichler

James E. Wilcox Wild Game Fish Conservation International

Special Feature: Expanded Global Reliance on American Coal Wild Game Fish Conservation International is following and reporting several issues that impact efforts to protect and restore wild game fish and their ecosystems. You read selected articles along with our editorial comments in each issue of Legacy. To date, we’ve spent considerable time covering several diverse and irresponsible practices including open pen salmon feedlots, oil pipelines, artificial harvest levels, illegal harvests, steep slope clear cut logging, mineral extraction, hydropower dam construction and floodplain development.

The June 2012 issue of Legacy continues to delve into these contentious issues.

This issue will also present background material associated with proposals to expand exploitation of American coal from fields in Montana and Wyoming. These proposals call for transporting this coal in mile-long trains of open coal cars from the strip mines to Washington State seaports where it will be loaded onto freighters bound for expanding Asian markets.

The following articles have been specifically selected by Bruce Treichler (Co-editor, Legacy) to provide our readers with a flavor for the proposals currently on the table for coal terminals at Cherry Point and Longview, They are followed by our official position statement regarding the proposals to transport American coal to Asian markets via Washington’s ports.

Background: Northwest Coal Exports

 Coal companies are targeting the Pacific Northwest as the gateway for export terminals that would send staggering quantities of U.S. coal to China.

Coal and the Powder River Basin

The Powder River Basin stretches for more than 14 million acres from the peaks of Wyoming's Bighorn Mountains to the Yellowstone River in eastern Montana.

Faced with stagnant demand for coal in the U.S., some of the world's largest coal companies want to ship millions of tons of dirty coal per year from Washington State to China and other Asian nations looking to feed their rapidly growing energy appetite.

Coal would be strip mined from the Powder River Basin in Montana and Wyoming -- America's largest source of coal. It would then be moved in open train cars to ports in Western Washington and stored next to the Columbia River and Puget Sound before being shipped overseas to be burned in Chinese coal plants. Arch Coal and Peabody Energy plan to ship as much as 130 million tons of coal per year through Washington State. That’s enough coal to fill more than 9,000 coal trains a year, each more than a mile long.

This increased coal traffic will run along the Columbia River and through sensitive ecological areas from the Powder River Basin to two proposed terminals on the coast of Washington. Increased train and ship traffic, diesel emissions, coal dust, disturbance of wildlife habitat, air and water pollution, and carbon pollution that fuels climate change, combine to make this proposal one of the most environmentally threatening projects in the Northwest.

Wildlife Impacts: 1. Proposed Cherry Point/City of Bellingham Terminal:

Would destroy approximately 1,200 acres of undeveloped forest and pasture and approximately 530 acres of wetlands.

Would damage herring stocks, a primary food source for Chinook salmon. Salmon are the main food source for imperiled Puget Sound orcas.

Eleven federally-protected and seven state-protected species will be affected including orca, salmon, rockfish, bull trout, marbled murrelet and forage fish.

2. Proposed Port of Longview Terminal: The Columbia River includes key wetlands and is designated critical habitat for 13 species of threatened salmon and steelhead.

For

more

information

go

to

http://www.nwf.org/Global-Warming/Policy-Solutions/Drilling-and-

Mining/Getting-Off-Coal/Coal-Export.aspx

Cherry Point (Bellingham, Northern Puget Sound)

 Coal Trains and Washington State There are currently plans to develop the largest coal export facility in North America at Cherry Point, in northwest Washington state. The Gateway Pacific Terminal, a project of Pacific International Terminals, would be owned by SSA Marine, which is owned by Carrix, partnered with Goldman Sachs. Coal mined from the Powder River Basin by Peabody Energy would be hauled by trains along BNSF rail lines. ` extends from mines in Montana and Wyoming through Sandpoint, Idaho to Spokane, down through the Columbia River Gorge, then up along the Puget Sound coast, passing through Longview, Tacoma, Seattle, Edmonds, Everett, Mt. Vernon, Bellingham, Ferndale and all points in between.

Costs to local economies, public health, and rail corridor communities are concerning to many. There is evidence to support that local jobs and businesses, property values, human health and quality of life would be adversely impacted by the coal trains. Increased marine traffic and the coal terminal would affect fisheries, marine ecosystems, and air quality. Further, substantial taxpayer investment may be required to support infrastructure required by the project and to mitigate some of the potential negative effects. There are questions as to whether damages to local businesses, regional identity, communities and fisheries could ever be adequately mitigated. The global impacts of coal export and coal combustion are significant, particularly when the future is considered.

For more information regarding the proposed Cherry Point Terminal in Bellingham, go to http://www.coaltrainfacts.org/key-facts

 Whatcom doctors say they are worried about coal trains' effects A group of physicians predict a potentially harmful increase in pollutants if a coal port is constructed near Bellingham. A shipping company suggests that the doctors are missing out on larger air issues as well as changing federal requirements. For more information go to http://crosscut.com/2011/08/09/coal-ports/21191/Whatcom-doctors-say-they-are-worried-about-coaltrains--effects/

 Will Washington State Cave in to Dirty Coal?

Faced with stagnant demand for coal in the U.S., major coal companies want to ship millions of tons of dirty coal per year to China and other Asian nations looking to feed their rapidly growing appetite for energy. Coal would be stripped mined in Montana and Wyoming, moved in open train cars to ports in Western Washington, and stored next to the Columbia River and Puget Sound before being shipped overseas to be burned in Chinese coal plants.

Under current proposals, Arch Coal and Peabody Energy would ship as much as 130 million tons of coal per year through Washington State. That’s enough dirty coal to fill more than 9000 coal trains, each more than a mile long. Put another way, lining up those coal trains end to end would span the distance between New York and Seattle more than three times over. For more information go to http://climatesolutions.org/nw-states/washington/no-coal/coal-export-backgrounder

ď ś Port of Longview (Columbia River) Millennium Bulk Logistics Longview Terminal is an existing alumina export terminal which is proposed to be modified to incorporate a new coal export facility and equipment for cement products imports and distribution. The terminal is located near Longview in Washington state. The company proposing the new facilities, Millennium Bulk Terminals (MBT), is a subsidiary of Ambre Energy, an Australian resources company.[1] For more information go to http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Millennium_Bulk_Logistics_Longview_Terminal As demand for coal stagnates in the United States, coal companies have begun to look to markets in Asia. Australian based Ambre Energy, and their partners Millennium Bulk Logistics and Arch Coal, want to ship coal from the Powder River Basin in Montana and Wyoming along railroads through the Columbia River Gorge Scenic Area, and Clark County, and out of Longview to Asia.

Additionally, coal trains traveling to the Cherry Point terminal north of Bellingham would most likely follow this same route -- through Spokane, the Columbia Gorge, Clark County, and Cowlitz County, meaning these communities could see twice the health, safety, and economic impacts.

Millennium Bulk Logistics recently bought a 416 acre site along the Columbia River for a coal export terminal. After requesting a permit to ship 5.7 million tons of coal a year, Millennium was forced to withdraw its application when documents showed it deliberately deceived Longview residents and public officials -- the company actually planned to expand the facility to move between 25 and 80 million tons of coal per year.

 RFK Jr. calls coal “corrupting” at Portland rally May 8, 2012

Environmental lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. makes remarks during a rally Monday in Portland, Ore., to fight a half-dozen proposals to ship coal from Montana and Wyoming to Asia through Northwest ports.

A crowd looks on as environmental lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. makes re! marks du ring a rally Monday in Portland, Ore. Columbia Riverkeeper, the Sierra Club, Climate Solutions and Greenpeace sponsored the rally to fight a half-dozen proposals to ship coal from Montana and Wyoming to Asia through Northwest ports.

PORTLAND, Ore. — Environmental lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Monday that a proposal to bring coal to Oregon and Washington state will lead to political corruption and environmental damage, while the actual number of jobs it will create is minimal.

Speaking at an anti-coal rally, Kennedy said coal’s influence would seep into the Statehouse, buying legislators who would otherwise vote against the proposal with campaign money and the promise of jobs.

“It’s going to end up leaving Portland with a legacy of pollution, poison and corruption,” Kennedy said.

About a half-dozen proposals would bring coal mined in Western states to ports in Oregon and Washington state. It would then be exported to China.

Environmentalists argue that the dust emitted from trains hauling coal would settle and pollute the proposed routes — including parts of Portland — while opening the door to further environmental damage from its use in Asia.

Kennedy said the U.S. believes it can export the environmental problems from coal, but it will find that mercury from its use in Asia washes up on the Pacific shore while acidifying the ocean.

“Anybody who touches coal gets poisoned by it,” said Kennedy, president of the environmental advocacy group Waterkeeper Alliance. “You don’t just get sick. It poisons democracy, it poisons communities, it poisons values.

“Coal is crime. Do not le! t it com e through this community.”

Proponents argue that the coal shipments would create much-needed jobs at the ports in a state where unemployment has hovered near the double digits since the Great Recession began.

Millennium Bulk Terminals, a Columbia River port in Longview, Wash., has applied for permits to make it one of the largest coal exporters in North America.

“I’m not sure a rally in Portland for a few hours will overshadow … the commitment we’ve made to creating jobs here in Longview,” said Millennium Bulk Terminals-Longview president Ken Miller.

“Millennium is making a significant investment in our community and we are proud of our plan to create hundreds of jobs in Cowlitz County.”

Kennedy said in interviews before the rally that the job gains would be minimal, especially compared with the amount of damage created by producing and shipping coal.

“We’ve got lots of better sources for jobs,” Kennedy said. “If you were really interested in jobs, let’s build wind farms, let’s build solar plants. Let’s use the marketplace to incentivize good behavior.”

 Should county weigh in on coal?

April 27, 2012 An opposition group of crabbers, fishermen, bird enthusiasts and environmental advocates have come together to oppose a potential coal export facility in Hoquiam.

The new anti-coal group called Citizens for a Clean Harbor has already done presentations in front of teachers, the Chehalis Basin Watershed Partnership and county health advocates with a full-fledged town hall meeting slated for 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 30, at Elma High School. Future town hall meetings are also planned in Hoquiam and Aberdeen, but details must still be worked out.

On Thursday, the Grays Harbor County commissioners talked about the group and a request for the commissioners to consider getting involved by having the county’s Board of Health look into the potential health impacts of a coal facility on the Harbor.

Rail America is evaluating the possibility of constructing a $100 million coal storage and export facility at the Port of Grays Harbor Terminal 3 at Hoquiam. Port Commissioner Stan Pinnick said Thursday that no agreements had been signed and everything remains in a preliminary stage. Pinnick said he felt the project was many, many months away from a decision.

But Arnie Martin, who serves as president of the Grays Harbor Audubon Society, says he hopes to generate enough public opposition that the coal export idea will simply be dropped. Martin says the Grays Harbor Audubon Society has already voted to condemn any kind of coal facility at Terminal 3 and he is personally spearheading the Citizens for a Clean Harbor group.

“I know it’s going to take some convincing,” Martin said, noting the county’s 14.2 percent unemployment rate, which is the second highest in the state.

“The upside is 40 to 50 jobs and the downside is all of the rail congestion and the possibility of environmental damage,” Martin said. “The downside from the proposal is the building of a facility which has the potential to pollute the area with noise, unsightly equipment and piles of coal, and, if not scrupulously maintained and operated, with large quantities of coal dust, which contains known carcinogens. Does this seem like the highest and best use of an area next to the Grays Harbor National Wildlife Refuge, a location that has been designated an area of Western hemispheric world importance to bird migration?”

Environmental Health Director Jeff Nelson said that the Citizens for a Clean Harbor has formally requested the county’s Board of Health conduct or participate in a comprehensive health assessment before the Port of Grays Harbor allows a coal export facility to go in.

“I think this is a topic we have to be very careful with because it is so volatile and it has the look and feel of having a lot of detrimental portions to it,” County Commissioner Terry Willis said Thursday.

“We need to be careful as a county and as agencies of the county to make sure any information we

provide is absolutely based on fact and we are not adding to the angst of the misinformation that might be out there.”

“It seems to me we have plenty of real-time information about other communities that have this, so you go look and see how much coal dust is on the track,” Commissioner Mike Wilson said. “It’s not as if this is something new.”

Commissioner Herb Welch said he was skeptical to receive just information from coal opponents rather than also “getting information from the people who transport coal. There’s an unbelievable difference in information. … I don’t want information that is based on emotion, but facts.”

“We want to make decisions based on the facts,” added Commissioner Willis. “Not make up a decision and adjust the facts to suit us.”

Nelson noted that the Environmental Protection Agency is doing an assessment of coal exports in the Northwest. The Associated Press reports that the EPA wants the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to do a thorough review of the impacts of exporting U.S. coal through Northwest ports, including facilities proposed at Bellingham, Longview, Grays Harbor and three in Oregon.

Dr. John Bausher, who is the county’s health officer, told the county commissioners that his family has been involved in the coal industry for generations. His father was a coal miner at Scranton, Penn., and developed “Black Lung Disease.” And he has uncles who were coal miners, who have since died from cancer.

Bausher said he has a conflicted mind, seeing the economic development behind coal, but also the potential detrimental health impacts behind it.

“I do have a concern about the dust and the particulate matter,” Bausher said. “I grew up with coal.

I’ve been in a coal mine. … In the 1950s and 1960s, nothing lived in the local river, but now the rivers are clean because the communities have learned to co-exist.”

Bausher said that the county shouldn’t be spearheading any kind of health report, but leave it in the capable hands of the EPA. “There’s data to be gained from other communities that have coal and can make a judgment on what the effects will be here,” Bausher said. “There are so many factors here that you can’t say this is a horrible thing, let’s not do it, or say it’s wonderful, put it in.”

A recent report card comparing Grays Harbor’s health to the rest of the state ranked the county dead last. But the one ray of light had to do with the physical environment, with its lack of smog and pollution, which ranked the Harbor the eighth best in the state. Bausher said that should be considered when the final decisions are made about the export facility.

“We have clean air and we need to make sure we don’t blow it,” he said.

 Coal: Let’s let this “opportunity” pass May 8, 5015

It’s not often I have such a visceral reaction to an article in the newspaper, but when I saw the headline in The Daily World, “Should county weigh in on coal?” my instant reaction was “NOOO! Why in the WORLD would we want to do that?”

I’ve learned to trust those visceral reactions because, once I examine the basis for them, I discover something important.

In this case, it’s the big picture that’s missing: the legacy we leave to our children and to future generations. We have plenty of information about what happens when we breathe coal dust or get it in our water here in the United States. Why do we think it won’t do the same in China or Australia or anywhere else? Are we naïve enough to think the air in China or the rain in Australia is somehow unrelated to us? Don’t we know the problems created there will come back to haunt us and our children and future generations? Do we think, “It’s not our problem, we’ll leave it to the Chinese and our own kids to sort out once we’re gone?”

I urge the federal, state, county, city and Port of Grays Harbor governments, to let this “opportunity” pass on by, leaving a legacy of clean air and water for future generations. Yes, including generations in other parts of the world.

Merry Jo Zimmer Aberdeen

 Electricity Production in China: Prospects and Global Environmental Effects April 16, 2007 Contents Introduction Future Prospects Global Environmental Effects A Transition Toward Clean Coal Technologies?

Endnotes

Introduction The Chinese economy is booming. It has achieved an average annual growth rate of 10% since 1990 and, according to the World Bank, is now the fourth largest economy in the world. Indisputably, China is an industrial power to be reckoned with.(1) Economic growth – the primary objective of the country’s central government – depends almost entirely on coal. An abundant, affordable, but also an especially polluting source of energy, coal currently represents 69% of primary energy consumption in China, compared with 11% in Canada.(2) China uses its vast coal resources chiefly to produce cheap electricity, and this production more than tripled between 1990 and 2004; 78% of electricity generated in China in 2004 came from coal-fired power plants, compared with 17% in Canada.(3) Future Prospects A recent study published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) shows that annual per capita electricity consumption in China, at around 1,700 kilowatt-hours (kWh), remains relatively low: the rate of consumption in rich industrialized nations is on average five times greater.(4) It is therefore reasonable to expect that electricity consumption will increase in China as the country grows wealthier and its middle class expands.

According to the reference scenario of the International Energy Agency (IEA), China’s electricity production will more than double in the next 10 years and coal-fired power plants will continue to dominate the market (Figure 1).(5) Figure 1 – Electricity Production in China, 1990-2030

Source: Data obtained from the International Energy Agency, World Energy Outlook 2006. Figure prepared by Frédéric Beauregard-Tellier, Parliamentary Information and Research Service, Library of Parliament.

Coal-fired power plants represent 70% of total generating capacity in China, which was around 508 gigawatts electrical (GWe) in 2005.(6) According to the MIT study, China is building the equivalent of two new coal-fired 500-MWe power plants every week.(7) The IEA reports that China may have added between 50,000 and 70,000 MWe of capacity to its electricity network in 2005, mainly through the construction of coal-fired plants. The IEA reference scenario postulates that China will add 700 gigawatts electrical (GWe) of coal-fired capacity to its electricity network by 2030 and will be responsible for more than half of the increase in the world’s coal-fired electricity generation.(8) All experts agree that coal-fired plants will continue to dominate the Chinese electricity sector for several decades to come.(9) The predominant use of coal in China is easy to explain. First, the abundance of coal supplies guarantees a reliable source of energy: China has the third largest coal reserves in the world, after the United States and Russia, with an estimated 114 billion metric tonnes.(10) By far the planet’s biggest producer and consumer of coal, China was responsible for more than one third of global coal production and consumption in 2005.(11) Chinese coal consumption increased by 62% between 2000 and 2005.(12) According to the IEA reference scenario, China and India will account for 57% of the world’s coal consumption by 2030.(13) Second, coal is much cheaper per unit of energy produced than natural gas or petroleum. Moreover, the dominant pulverized coal combustion technology has been in existence for about a century, making the typical coal-fired plant easy to build and operate.

Global Environmental Effects The prodigious abundance of coal and its low price make it the fuel of choice for electricity generation in China. However, its use could have important global environmental consequences if new technologies are not deployed to minimize emissions.

Coal is by far the most polluting fossil fuel. Burning it releases large quantities of sulphur oxides, nitrogen oxides, particulate matter, carbon dioxide (CO 2) and other pollutants. The electricity sector is the source of 80% of nitrogen oxide emissions and 44% of sulphur dioxide emissions in China,(14) and China and its neighbours suffer the direct consequences. China is grappling with serious environmental problems, including poor air quality and increasingly acid rain; China is home to seven of the world’s ten most polluted cities.(15) Pollution arising in China also affects Canada. A scientific study released in March 2007 showed that storms over the Pacific Ocean – the water mass that influences the climate on the West Coast – are becoming more violent because of sulphur dioxide and particulate emissions from the large industrial polluters in the region, notably China and India.(16) In addition, up to 50% of the mercury found in the Arctic may be windborne from Asia.(17) Mercury enters the food chain, posing a threat to human health and to the wildlife of the Far North.

Lastly, it is important to note that China, largely because of its dependence on electricity generated by coal-fired power plants, will become the biggest emitter of CO2 in the world by 2010, surpassing the United States.(18) CO2 emissions attributable to coal-fired plants in China are increasing at an alarming rate and have now reached over 2,200 megatonnes (Mt) per year (Figure 2).

Figure 2 – CO2 Emissions From Coal-generated Electrical and Thermal Energy in China, 1971-2004

Source: Data obtained from the International Energy Agency. Figure prepared by Frédéric Beauregard-Tellier, Parliamentary Information and Research Service, Library of Parliament.

According to the IEA reference scenario, China will account for 39% of increased global CO 2 emissions between 2004 and 2030 as emissions from its coal-fired plants rise from 2,269 Mt in 2004 to 5,450 Mt in 2030. For purposes of comparison, Canadian greenhouse gas emissions in 2004 totalled 758 Mt.(19) Some analysts maintain that if China and other emerging industrial economies do not succeed in controlling their greenhouse gas emissions, catastrophic climate change will become inevitable.(20)

A Transition Toward Clean Coal Technologies?

For all these reasons, it is urgent that China at the very least begin a shift toward technologies that make it possible to reduce the environmental impact of burning coal in electrical power plants.

Although clean coal technologies (such as gasification and supercritical boilers, which increase the efficiency of coal-based electrical production and decrease emissions) are promising from an environmental standpoint, various experts consider it highly unlikely that they will be deployed on a large scale in China in the immediate future. They are expensive and, in the case of gasification combined with CO2 capture and storage, not commercially viable in the absence of clear guidelines that put limits, and hence a price tag, on greenhouse gas emissions.

The Chinese government already has a great deal to do in order to improve the performance of existing power plants and enforce compliance with environmental standards, which are all too often ignored. Some commentators have concluded that China will not be able to deploy clean coal technologies on any general scale much before 2020.(21) In addition, China, which gives priority to economic growth, does not seem prepared to set an absolute ceiling on its emissions. The government’s most recent five-year plan instead aims for a 20% reduction in the economy’s energy intensity. It should be noted that China, as a developing country, has no greenhouse gas reduction targets under the Kyoto Protocol.

It is therefore vital that the international community work closely with China – and with other emerging industrial economies – so that clean coal technologies can be deployed as rapidly as possible and on a scale that will allow the maximum possible reduction in the environmental effects of coal combustion.

ď ś Commentary: Wild Game Fish Conservation International Perspective Oppose Expanded Coal Transportation in Washington State

We at Wild Game Fish Conservation International (WGFCI) are all too aware that we, personally, have benefited from the unsustainable exploitation of natural resources from Washington State, the United States, and around the world. It must also be pointed out that most of us in the Pacific Northwest have a standard of living that is envied by many in Africa, Asia, and South America. We have that standard of living precisely because we developed the means to effectively exploit natural resources.

We acknowledge that it is more than a little hypocritical to deny the opportunity for others to exploit their natural resources so that they too can raise their standard of living. At the same time, we acknowledge that salaries and benefits for jobs associated with the exploitation of natural resource are far greater than salaries for other local jobs.

Frankly, allowing large coal companies to market coal extracted from Montana and Wyoming to expanding Asian markets would, no doubt create family wage jobs at the mines, along ground and marine transportation routes and at shipping terminals.

Our conclusions as conservationists concerned about impacts to wild game fish and their fragile ecosystems are that, we have no obligation to those in other countries to expand the exploitation and transportation of natural resources here, which would cause harm to our environment and economy as well as create health risks to our citizens. Second, the use of American coal to generate electricity, mostly in China, results in increased air pollution and in water pollution there as well as on the North American continent and around our planet. Third, while jobs associated with global marketing of American coal would be created, there is the real possibility that the benefits of those jobs would be far outweighed by economic, health, environmental and cultural costs, which would be borne by this generation and by generations not yet born.

WGFCI and our associates around planet earth insist that the review and permitting agencies at local, state, and federal levels make wise decisions regarding exploitation of our natural resources; decisions that are based on the best science available.

In conclusion, WGFCI formally opposes expansion of coal transportation through Washington State.

 Booming Asia demands more energy and Montana has it by the trainload April 14, 2012

A coal train several cars long sits in the rail yard in Missoula recently, where last year coal cars accounted for about one-third of the 15 trains a day through the yard. Increased demand in Asia for Wyoming coal have some estimating an increase to as many as 60 trains a day back and forth to West Coast ports.

As global coal giants prepare to meet escalating energy demand in Asia, one straight shot to market from the heart of coal country cuts right through Missoula.

Since roughly 2000, coal has been a steady commodity aboard trains running from the Powder River Basin to West Coast destinations, including ports in Canada and power plants in Oregon and Washington. Last year, Montana Rail Link ran five coal trains a day on average, half full, half empty, with the longest trains at 125 cars each.

Rail Link estimates those loads could grow in the next 10 years to 10 coal trains a day in all – five full, five empty. But it isn’t projecting that high an increase.

However, the largest coal companies in the world plan to move a much larger load.

Asia’s demand for energy is skyrocketing, and the Powder River Basin is chock full of coal that’s easy to mine. Coal companies want to export the Montana and Wyoming commodity, and the most direct route to ports on the West Coast is along the southern rail line through Missoula.

Every shovel of coal dug in Montana puts money in government coffers; in just one year, taxes generated from coal amounted to $118.4 million, according to the Montana Coal Council. But every train carrying it pushes diesel fumes into railyard neighborhoods, and every pound of coal burned releases greenhouse gas into the atmosphere.

So both detractors and boosters are keying in on the possibilities.

READ ENTIRE MISSOULIAN ARTICLE HERE

 Council calls attention to coal train risks April 24, 2012

SANDPOINT — City officials see a lot to lose and very little to gain when it comes to increased coal train traffic through the town.

At a Wednesday City Council meeting, members passed a resolution recognizing the risks of increased coal traffic through the area and requesting that the Army Corps of Engineers add Bonner County to an environmental impact statement. They also called for participation in an Army Corps of Engineers scoping hearing that would explore alternatives and encourage public comment.

The council identified several key areas of concern regarding Peabody Energy and Arch Coal’s proposed increase to the number of open top coal trains that travel through Sandpoint.

Environmental worries were the most-discussed area of impact. Since the rail line runs both nearby and over Lake Pend Oreille, the dust blown from the uncovered cars combined with diesel byproducts from the locomotive itself could have a negative effect on local water quality, according to Lake Pend Oreille Waterkeeper executive director Shannon Williamson.

Because coal dust contains heavy metals like lead, arsenic, mercury, cadmium, selenium, nickel, copper and vanadium, Williamson said that a major increase in train traffic in the community posed a serious risk to water quality.

Other worries centered on economic, traffic management and safety issues. More trains passing through Sandpoint means more time cars spend waiting at crossings. That could result in traffic circulation issues and a lot of annoyed drivers. More serious are the delays it poses to emergency vehicles traveling toward a house fire, medical crisis or crime scene. Furthermore, increased train traffic logically brings an increased chance of train derailment. Finally, a substantial bump in coal trains could have a negative impact on local property values.

According to the resolution council members passed on Wednesday, the city is committed to partnering with the Army Corps of Engineers in determining the extent of negative impacts increased coal train traffic could bring. In addition, it calls for the development and adoption of an emergency clean-up plan in the event that a coal train should derail alongside Lake Pend Oreille.

 EPA wants full review of coal-export plan April 17, 2012 Ore. project could have major affect on health, the environment, agency says

SEATTLE -- The Environmental Protection Agency has weighed in on the first of several coal-export projects in the Northwest, telling the Army Corps of Engineers that it should thoroughly review the potential impacts of exporting large amounts of coal from Wyoming and Montana to Asia.

A project at Port of Morrow in Oregon has “the potential to significantly impact human health and the environment,” the EPA said, so the Corps should address overall impacts, including increases in greenhouse gas emissions, rail traffic and mining activity on public lands.

A subsidiary of Ambre Energy North America needs approval from the Corps to build an off-loading facility at Port of Morrow, along the Columbia River near Boardman, Ore. Trains would carry up to 8 million tons of coal a year from the Powder River Basin of Montana and Wyoming to barges at the Port of Morrow, where the coal will be transferred onto vessels at the Port of St. Helens and shipped to Japan, South Korea or Taiwan.

Six Northwest proposals It’s one of at least six projects proposed in Oregon and Washington to ship coal to power-hungry markets in Asia. Projects are planned near Bellingham, Longview and the Port of Grays Harbor in Washington state, as well as at the Port of St. Helens and Port of Coos Bay in Oregon.

Taken together, they could mean at least about 100 million tons of coal shipped per year to Asia, and environmental groups such as Climate Solutions, Sierra Club, Columbia Riverkeeper and others want regulators to weigh the bigger picture of moving so much coal through communities in the West.

“Collectively, these many individual decisions will have a very dramatic impact on the region,” said Jan Hasselman, an attorney for Earthjustice representing the environmental groups. “If you look at the impact only in the context of each individual decision, there’s a consequence that the people most affected won’t be heard.”

The EPA’s letter to the Army Corps this month said it was concerned about potential problems from diesel pollution, which can cause lung damage, and coal dust, which can cause both human health and environmental concerns.

The agency recommended that the corps do a “thorough and broadly scoped cumulative impacts analysis” that could be used in the environmental analyses of other proposed coal projects of similar scope.

“We are recommending that because of the environmental implications of this project, that a comprehensive environmental analysis goes forward, and that would include the cumulative impacts,” said Kate Kelly, who directs the EPA’s office of ecosystems, tribal and public affairs for the Northwest region.

“Ultimately they’re the lead, they’ll make the decision on whether to do an (Environmental Impact Statement) and how broad that EIS should be,” she added.

The Army Corps will consider the EPA’s concerns as it moves forward, spokeswoman Michelle Helms said in an email.

“We are in the initial phase of the permit review process and will determine the scope of our review as we learn more about the potential impacts,” she said.

Brian Gard, spokesman for the Morrow Pacific Project, said the EPA called for a cumulative look at things but did not dictate or say it would dictate reviews of the other coal proposals.

“It’s ultimately up to the Corps of Engineers how broad the analyses will be,” he said, adding “what we’ve tried to do is anticipate as many of the concerns as possible and design something that responds to those concerns.”

Supporters say the coal-export projects would create jobs and generate revenue for local governments. Opponents have fought them over concerns about coal dust, pollution, train traffic, quality of life and other issues.

In the Bellingham area, SSA Marine is proposing a coal port that can handle 48 million tons of coal.

“This is a mega-project on a scale that the region has not seen,” said Shannon Wright, executive director of Communitywise Bellingham, a nonprofit group that citizens formed last year in response to the project. The group has not taken a position on the project.

ď ś Burning coal train stops on wooden bridge June 6, 2005 It was a normal day in Sharon Springs, Kansas when a Union Pacific crew boarded a loaded coal train for the long trek back to Salina.

Just a few kilometers into the trip, a wheel bearing became overheated and melted off letting the truck support drop down and grind on top of the rail creating white hot molten metal droppings that spewed down onto the rails.

The GOOD NEWS to this is that a very alert crew noticed a small amount of smoke halfway back in the train and immediately stopped the train in compliance with the rules.

The BAD NEWS to this is that the train just happened to stop with its hot wheels on top of a wooden trestle bridge built with creosoted ties, bents and trusses.

And the photos below show the results:

ď ś Coal Train Derails Over Anacostia River November 9, 2007

The Associated Press is reporting that seven cars of a freight train have derailed over the Anacostia River.

No injuries have been reported. Six of the seven cars are in the river, and another is hanging off the trestle. Coal and some hydraulic fluid and oil ended up in the river, but the fire department says it's been contained.

Planet Earth

ď ś Hatched and Wild Salmon: A Bad Mix? May 16, 2012

Wild sockeye salmon in British Columbia.

The pink and flaky salmon sitting on your dinner plate can be of three varieties: wild, farmed or hatched. As the name implies, wild salmon live and die by nature’s hand alone. Farmed salmon are bred, born and raised agriculturally. Hatched salmon, though, lie somewhere in between: they are hatched by humans and then freed as youngsters to spend the rest of their lives in the wild.

Scientists have found evidence in the past of genetic problems with hatched salmon, including lowered genetic diversity and a diminished ability to thrive in the wild. But a collection of 23 studies published this week in a special issue of the journal Environmental Biology of Fishes presents significant evidence of ecological problems posed by the hatched variety.

Every year, about five billion salmon are released from hatcheries, said Pete Rand, the senior conservation biologist at the Wild Salmon Center in Portland, Ore., and a guest editor for the special issue. Upon gaining their freedom, the hatched salmon generally live as wild ones do: some travel far into the ocean to feast before returning to their home river to spawn, and some spend their entire lives near the place they were born. Either way, hatched salmon are likely to interact with wild salmon at one point or another.

These interactions appear to be detrimental to wild salmon in three main ways, Dr. Rand said. First, the hatched salmon are “competing for food and space” with wild salmon once they’re freed, he said.

Second, hatched salmon are often larger than wild salmon when they are released, and they have been known to prey on wild salmon. Lastly, diseases spread easily through the dense populations at the hatcheries and can be passed on to salmon in the wild.

Yet hatcheries are nonetheless an important piece of salmon sustainability.

“In certain cases, hatcheries are a lifeline,” Dr. Rand said. When fisheries harvest salmon, the abundance of hatched fish reduces the pressure on wild populations. Most hatcheries are intended to ensure that the demand for salmon is met without decimating dwindling wild populations, but Dr. Rand says there are also hatcheries whose sole purpose is augmenting endangered populations, serving as captive breeding programs.

Still, it’s important that hatched populations do not override or stamp out wild salmon, he added. Wild salmon are the keepers of the genetic diversity necessary for the survival of all salmon. “By having a diverse population,” Dr. Rand said, “salmon can withstand environmental change.”

Dr. Rand said that some ideas are floating around on how the hatcheries can operate without threatening wild populations. Marking hatched salmon so that they’re easily identifiable – clipping their fins, for example – will help scientists and fishermen discern between wild and hatched salmon and better understand the ecology of both, he said. And keeping hatcheries away from rivers with strong wild populations makes it less likely that hatched and wild salmon will interact.

Fish hatcheries are relatively new to southeastern Alaska (started up 35 years ago, as opposed to 100 to 150 years ago in some places). William Heard, a research biologist at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center and the author of one of the papers in the special issue, said that Alaska took some protective measures when the region began hatching fish.

“Our program is one of the few programs anywhere in the world where there’s still a very strong and healthy wild stock,” Mr. Heard said. Alaskans took care to build their hatcheries in rivers without major wild stocks, for example. Aside from limiting the chances that hatched and wild salmon will meet up, this makes it more likely that the hatched salmon, not wild ones, will be harvested in the hatcheries’ home rivers when the fish return.

Still, there’s always the chance that hatched and wild fish will mingle during their migrations in the open ocean. Russia, Japan, Canada and the United States, where the home rivers are, need to come to an international agreement over how to regulate hatcheries, Dr. Rand suggested. He favors curbing the number of hatched salmon allowed in the Pacific.

Mr. Heard agreed that an international cap on hatched salmon could be a good way of ensuring that they don’t throw the ocean’s ecology off balance. “The ocean is big,” he said, “and there are a lot of other things in there besides salmon.”

ď ś Some question whether sustainable seafood delivers on its promise (Scott Eells/ Bloomberg ) - A worker cuts a steak from a piece of tuna at a fish market. Seafood counters used to be simpler places, where a fish was labeled with its name and price. Nowadays, it carries more information than a used-car listing. Where did it swim? Was it farm-raised? Was it ever frozen? How much harm was done to the ocean by fishing it?

Seafood counters used to be simpler places, where a fish was labeled with its name and price.

Nowadays, it carries more information than a used-car listing. Where did it swim? Was it farm-raised?

Was it ever frozen? How much harm was done to the ocean by fishing it?

Many retailers tout the environmental credentials of their seafood, but a growing number of scientists have begun to question whether these certification systems deliver on their promises. The labels give customers a false impression that purchasing certain products helps the ocean more than it really does, some researchers say.

A new study by German scientists found that of seafood stocks for which data was available, almost a third labeled "sustainable" by the Marine Stewardship Council are actually overfished.

Backers respond that they are helping transform many of the globe’s wild-caught fisheries, giving them a financial incentive to include environmental safeguards, while giving consumers a sense of what they can eat with a clear conscience.

To add to the confusion, there are a variety of certification labels and guides, prompting retailers to adopt a hybrid approach, relying on multiple seafood rating systems or establishing their own criteria and screening products that way.

As of Sunday, for example, Whole Foods stopped selling seafood listed as “red” by the Monterey Bay Aquarium and Blue Ocean Institute — including octopus, gray sole and Atlantic halibut — because these species are overfished or caught in a way that harms ocean habitat or other species. The move has sparked criticism from New England fishermen, who are now barred from selling to the upscale chain. Whole Foods also sells only pole- or line-caught canned tuna, which harms fewer species than conventional tuna-fishing methods.

Target no longer sells farmed salmon — which has come under fire for consuming a disproportionate amount of forage fish and creating several other problems — and has pledged that by 2015 it will sell only fresh and frozen fish that are “sustainable and traceable.” Wegmans said it will not obtain seafood from the Ross Sea in the Antarctic, which many environmentalists say should be off-limits to fishing, and this fall it will start selling oysters from plots it has leased in the Chesapeake Bay as part of a fishery restoration project. Beginning in June, Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest seafood retailer, will require all of its fresh and frozen wild-caught and farmed seafood to be certified by a third party as sustainable or have a plan in place for suppliers to be certified. At this point, 76 percent of its suppliers are certified.

Blue Ocean Institute President Carl Safina, a scientist who published the first sustainability rankings for commonly eaten fish in 1998, said that a decade ago, eating a piece of fish was akin to eating a piece of bread.

“You just picked it up and ate it. It wasn’t subject to any discussion or inquiry,” he said. “Now it’s a broad discussion about where it came from, about whether it’s sustainable. This is enormous progress compared to the change we’ve made to any other form of food production in the same amount of time.”

The most stringent and commonly used certification is that of the Marine Stewardship Council, which has certified 148 wild-caught fisheries, or between 6 and 7 percent of the global supply. It uses independent reviewers to determine whether a fishery earns an MSC-certified label and can be classified as sustainable — meaning that the fish is relatively abundant, the fishery is well managed, and catching it does not harm other species or ocean habitats.

 Researchers find reducing fishmeal hinders growth of farmed fish May 3, 2012

Gael Duchene:

“The wrong food is making farmed salmon even more unhealthy which makes them even more susceptible to diseases. Good to have a scientific study to quote when needed, but isn't it crazy how this is also just COMMON SENSE!” When it comes to the food used to raise fish in aquaculture "farms," it seems that you may get what you pay for. In a new study,* researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources (SCDNR) looked at the health effects of raising farmed fish on a diet incorporating less than the usual amount of fishmeal—a key but expensive component of current commercial fish food products. They learned that reduced fishmeal diets may be cheaper, but the fish were less healthy.

Commercial aquaculture is one of the fastest growing areas of food production, produces about $100 billion of revenue annually and accounts for nearly half of the world's food fish supply. Aquafarmers currently rely heavily on fishmeal as a protein source but it's expensive to produce and the resource from which it's derived—fish captured in the wild—is being rapidly depleted. One proposed remedy is to substitute cheaper and more environmentally friendly foods that replace some fishmeal content with other sources of protein.

SCDNR designed a study to evaluate the efficacy of diets with reduced and full amounts of fishmeal fed to cobia**, a popular marine aquaculture fish, during the period when juveniles mature to adults.

One diet contained 50 percent and another 75 percent less fishmeal than that found in commercial food products. A third diet contained 100 percent of the conventional fishmeal content. A fourth group of cobia ate off-the-shelf fish food as a control.

To determine whether or not the three experimental diets provided adequate nutrition for fish growth, the SCDNR teamed with NIST's nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy experts at the Hollings Marine Laboratory (HML) in Charleston, S.C. NMR spectroscopy, a technique similar to magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) used by doctors, allows researchers to isolate and identify specific nutrients after the fish have metabolized them—a quantifiable measure of how well or how poorly the different fishmeal diets were utilized.

This is cobia (Rachycentron canadum) harvested from a fish farm.

(Photo Credit: NOAA) The results showed that cobia fed the reduced fishmeal diets were metabolically different from those fed either the full fishmeal diet or the control diet. Fish fed the reduced fishmeal diets had higher levels of two metabolites linked to physical stress, tyrosine and betaine, and lower levels of a primary energy source, glucose. This suggests that these cobia were not receiving the necessary nutrition to support healthy growth.

Overall, the researchers were surprised to find that cobia on the experimental 100 percent fishmeal diet showed the most growth by the end of the 100-day study period. Along with more normal tyrosine, betaine and glucose levels, NMR spectroscopy also revealed significantly higher levels of lactate in cobia fed 100 percent fishmeal compared to fish on the other diets. This finding may be explained by the fact that the 100 percent fishmeal experimental diet has the highest percentage of the carbohydrate cornstarch, and lactate is produced by gut bacteria metabolizing carbohydrates. In turn, since efficient breakdown of carbohydrates is essential to energy production, the researchers surmise that a diet enhancing gut microflora activity might be one of the conditions needed for optimal cobia health.

Although the reduced fishmeal diets in this study did not fare well, the NIST and SCDNR researchers say that the data from the NMR-based metabolomic analysis still provide insight into what might be needed for more successful formulations. They expect that future studies will eventually lead to alternative dietary products that are more cost effective, better for the environment and lead to high yields of healthy fish.

Source: National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)

 Enbridge wants to pipe tarsands oil to Montreal May 18, 2012 Environmental groups demanding assessment of the project by the National Energy Board

“The pipeline which would carry the tarsands oil all the way from Alberta to Quebec would go through some of the most densely populated areas of the country, such as the Greater Montreal area,” Equiterre’s Steven Guilbeault said, adding polls have shown Quebecers are against tarsands oil.

MONTREAL - Now that Enbridge Inc. has announced its intention to pipe oil from Alberta’s oilsands projects not just through Ontario, as previously announced, but all the way to Montreal, Quebec environmental groups are demanding an National Energy board assessment of the overall project.

Public hearings into the company’s project to reverse the flow of crude oil between Sarnia, Ont. and North Westover Station near Cambridge, Ont. are to begin in London, Ont. next week But this week, the company announced it will be also be asking the National Energy Board to approve a project to reverse the flow in existing pipelines to get oilsands oil from Ontario to Montreal.

Quebec environment groups had sounded the alarm last August that Enbridge was reviving piece by piece its controversial Trailbreaker project, abandoned in 2009 due to a poor economic climate. That project proposed to reverse the flow direction in existing pipelines that have traditionally brought foreign oil from Portland, Maine, up to Montreal and west to Ontario refineries. The idea with Trailbreaker was to allow the same pipelines to bring Alberta oil east to Montreal, and then south.

READ ENTIRE MONTREAL GAZETTE ARTICLE HERE

 Video: Facts on Salmon Farms: Dr. Alexandra Morton

“If we want wild salmon it is up to us”, Dr. Alexandra Mor ton hhttttpp::////w ww ww w..ggooffuunnddm mee..ccoom m//S Saallm moonnD DiisseeaasseeT TeessttiinnggF Fuunndd

ď ś Eat With Your Dollars: Sourcing your salmon April 18, 2012 When you go out for sushi and look at the menu, do Philly Roll, Rainbow Roll, and Bagel Roll ring a bell?

Well, if you have ever ordered one of these rolls or even thought about it, listen up. These rolls likely have one thing in common and I'll give you hint, the key ingredient comes from a farm... a big aquafarm loaded with antibiotics, dyes, toxic pesticides and other harmful chemicals. This is where most of the salmon in this country comes from and where most sushi restaurants get the fish for their famous rolls.

Farming salmon has become the most popular method of bringing this fatty fish to your table - but not without health and environmental risks. If you haven't already started to think about what kind of salmon you are consuming and spending your hard earned money on, it's time to eat with your dollars. Here are three reasons why:

READ ENTIRE CLICIT ARTICLE HERE

 Wild salmon is best for you, for the environment

Try to eat wild salmon whenever you can. It’s better for your health and the environment.

Salmon consumption has been linked to improved cardiovascular health and brain function. But not all fish are created equal. In the U.S., two-thirds of salmon are farm-raised. Compared to their wild counterparts, these fish are often less nutritious and have a larger environmental impact.

If you spot Atlantic salmon at the market or on a menu, chances are it’s farm-raised. Less than 1 percent of Atlantic salmon is wild-caught. A more ocean-friendly choice is wild Pacific salmon, especially fish caught in Alaska.

Most farm-raised salmon is reared in open nets near the shoreline. Animals are fed salmon meal, an oil-rich blend of feeder fish and byproducts that makes them vulnerable to accumulating fat-soluble pollutants such as PCBs and dioxins. On average, it takes four pounds of feeder fish to make one pound of salmon.

Crowded conditions promote disease. And antibiotics and waste products impact nearby marine life.

The parasites and viruses that plague fish farms have been found to reduce the survival of nearby wild fish. And when farmed fish escape, they breed with native salmon, compromising the genetic diversity of native stock.

In the wild, salmon accumulate omega 3s when they eat microalgae, directly or by feeding on forage fish, such as herring. Much like you or I, farm-raised salmon get their omega 3s from supplements.

More than half the world’s fish oil output is consumed by salmon farms.

The feeder fish in salmon oil and feed often hail from the southern hemisphere, diverting food from poorer nations, depleting fisheries and exposing farm-raised salmon to a wider array of contaminants.

Compared to wild-caught fish, farm-raised salmon is fattier and lower in protein.

There has been a move to farm fish in a way that is less damaging, through lower density pens, feeding regimes that require fewer feeder fish, and closed aquaculture systems on land.

In the meantime, keep eating fish, but go wild as often as you can.

Lori Quillen is director of communications for the Cary Institute in Millbrook. “Earth Wise” is heard on WAMC Northeast Public Radio and is supported by the Cary Institute. Visit earthwise radio.org

 Celebrating restaurants that feature wild Pacific salmon:

 Oil sands - From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Athabasca oil sands in Alberta, Canada, are a very large source of bitumen, which can be upgraded to synthetic crude oil.

Oil sands, tar sands or, more technically, bituminous sands, are a type of unconventional petroleum deposit. The oil sands are loose sand or partially consolidated sandstone containing naturally occurring mixtures of sand, clay, and water, saturated with a dense and extremely viscous form of petroleum technically referred to as bitumen (or colloquially tar due to its similar appearance, odour and colour). Natural bitumen deposits are reported in many countries, but in particular are found in extremely large quantities in Canada.[1][2] Other large reserves are located in Kazakhstan and Russia. Total natural bitumen reserves are estimated at 249.67 billion barrels (39.694×10^9 m3) globally, of which 176.8 billion barrels (28.11×10^9 m3), or 70.8%, are in Canada.[1] Oil sands reserves have only recently been considered to be part of the world's oil reserves, as higher oil prices and new technology enable them to be profitably extracted and upgraded to usable products. They are often referred to as unconventional oil or crude bitumen, in order to distinguish the bitumen extracted from oil sands from the free-flowing hydrocarbon mixtures known as crude oil traditionally produced from oil wells.

The crude bitumen contained in the Canadian oil sands is described by Canadian authorities as "petroleum that exists in the semi-solid or solid phase in natural deposits. Bitumen is a thick, sticky form of crude oil, so heavy and viscous (thick) that it will not flow unless heated or diluted with lighter hydrocarbons. At room temperature, it is much like cold molasses".[3] The World Energy Council (WEC) defines natural bitumen as "oil having a viscosity greater than 10,000 centipoises under reservoir conditions and an API gravity of less than 10° API".[1] The Orinoco Belt in Venezuela is sometimes described as oil sands, but these deposits are non-bituminous, falling instead into the category of heavy or extra-heavy oil due to their lower viscosity.[4] Natural bitumen and extra-heavy oil differ in the degree by which they have been degraded from the original crude oil by bacteria and erosion. According to the WEC extra-heavy oil has "a gravity of less than 10° API and a reservoir viscosity of no more than 10,000 centipoises".[1] Making liquid fuels from oil sands requires energy for steam injection and refining. This process generates two to four times the amount of greenhouse gases per barrel of final product as the "production" of conventional oil.[5] If combustion of the final products is included, the so-called "Well to Wheels" approach, oil sands extraction, upgrade and use emits 10 to 45% more greenhouse gases than conventional crude.[6]

ď ś Wild

game fish, like these marlin and sailfish, require abundant presence of smaller fish within their balanced and fragile ecosystems (photo courtesy of Sport Fishing Costa Rica)

“Pants on Fire” Recognition: Mary Ellen Walling

Many fellow wild game fish conservationists around planet earth believe that some things we hear and read from natural resources agencies and elected officials might not reflect reality. In fact some have associated these “leaders” with those who wear burning pants.

The June 2012 recipient of the “Burning Pants” honor is:

““M Ma arry yE Elllle en nW Wa alllliin ng g,, B B..C C.. S Sa allm mo on nF Fa arrm me errs sA As ss so oc ciia attiio on n e ex xe ec cu uttiiv ve e d diirre ec ctto orr ffo orr d de elliib be erra atte elly y lly yiin ng g a ab bo ou utt IIn nffe ec cttiio ou us sS Sa allm mo on nA An ne em miia a iin nB Brriittiis sh hC Co ollu um mb biia a””

Canada

 Responsible Protection and Conservation of Canada’s Fisheries April, 2012

Honorable Keith Ashfield Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, Canada On April 24, 2012, the Honourable Keith Ashfield, Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, announced new changes to the laws protecting fish and fish habitat. The existing rules treat all bodies of water in the same way, regardless of size, environment or contribution to the fishery. The new changes will protect the productivity of Canada’s fisheries and provide much-needed clarity to Canadians.

These new changes will focus the rules by: Focusing protection efforts on recreational, commercial and Aboriginal fisheries.

Drawing a distinction between vital waterways that support Canada’s fisheries and unproductive bodies of water like man-made reservoirs, drainage ditches and irrigation channels.

Identifying and managing real threats to the fisheries, including direct impacts to fish, habitat destruction, and aquatic invasive species.

The Minister will also have tools to: Establish new, clear and accessible guidelines for Canadians to follow for projects in or near water.

Regulatory standards for routine, low-risk projects such as building a boat launch or a dock at the cottage do not exist at this time.

Identify ecologically sensitive areas that require enhanced protection. Currently, all areas are treated indiscriminately under the law.

The changes will also:

  

Allow the government to enforce the conditions associated with Fisheries Act authorizations.

At present, Fisheries and Oceans Canada cannot enforce the conditions on authorizations.

Align infractions under the Fisheries Act with the Environmental Enforcement Act, which provides higher maximum penalties.

Existing rules will continue to protect waterways from pollution, as they have in the past, and a legislative proposal would provide additional clarity on the application of the law.

For anglers, the proposed changes will recognize the importance of the recreational fishery and would provide protection to these fisheries to support their ongoing productivity.

For conservation groups, the proposed changes would enable the identification and protection of ecologically significant areas. Under the new rules, the Minister will also be able to enter into agreements with these and other groups, to enable them to undertake measures to enhance fisheries protection. This could include innovative approaches to protect habitat, support for aquatic invasive species outreach, and developing standards for fish protection or other matters.

These proposed changes will also include enhanced compliance and enforcement tools such as enforceable conditions, duty for proponents to notify in the event of serious harm to fisheries, and penalties aligned with the Environmental Enforcement Act. For landowners and municipalities, the proposed new measures would provide regulatory certainty as to whether and how the fisheries protection provisions apply to them. It moves Fisheries and Oceans Canada away from reviewing every activity that landowners may undertake to focusing on activities that may have a significant impact on the sustainability and productivity of recreational, commercial, or Aboriginal fisheries.

For industry, the proposal provides greater clarity on the types of activities that will be reviewed by Fisheries and Oceans Canada. These changes complement those announced as part of the Responsible Resource Development announcement, which included regulations clarifying information requirements and timelines for permitting.

For provinces and territories, the new measures would enable further opportunities for partnerships and working together, including equivalency, delegation and broad agreement-making authorities to ensure the two levels of government can work together effectively.

Over the coming weeks and months, the Minister and Fisheries and Oceans will be consulting with provinces, Aboriginal groups and stakeholders, such as conservation groups, anglers, landowners and municipalities, to develop the regulatory and policy framework to support the new and focused direction that is set out by these proposed changes.

 Ottawa could push pipelines through B.C.: legal experts May 2, 2012

Former NHL hockey player Scott Niedermayer speaks at the World Wildlife Fund's Campaign Canadians for the Great Bear in Vancouver, British Columbia May 1, 2012. The campaign opposes the Northern Gateway pipeline that would carry oil across Northern British Columbia.

VANCOUVER — Legal experts say the federal government probably has the power to push the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline and the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion to completion despite opposition in B.C. which grew Tuesday to include B.C. hockey hero Scott Niedermayer.

Niedermayer said Tuesday the Northern Gateway pipeline and its associated tankers are too great a risk to run through B.C.’s so-called “Great Bear region.”

“It’s tremendously important to me to be a Canadian for the Great Bear. The amazing places we have in our country are part of what it means to be Canadian,” said Niedermayer, who grew up in Cranbrook, B.C. Legal experts also say aboriginal groups and even the provincial government — should the NDP assume office —could mount legal challenges that would delay plans for years and add to the projects’ legal and financial risk.

“I think we could see some constitutional battles reaching the courts. But I can’t predict the outcome at this point,” University of B.C. constitutional law professor Elizabeth Edinger said Tuesday. “But there will certainly be a serious attempt to delay.”

The Tories announced in the March budget that the federal cabinet will have the ability to overrule the National Energy Board on major projects considered to be in the “national interest.”

Edinger said new legislation giving federal cabinet the trump card over energy projects of “national interest” gives the Harper government the “final say” politically.

But cabinet’s new powers may not give the Tories enough of a “leg up” legally. Edinger said the courts probably would not consider themselves constrained by the “national interest” claim when considering legal issues arising from the two pipeline projects.

The provincial NDP, which could form government next year, came out Monday against Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline under which bitumen from the Alberta oilsands would be sent by pipeline to Kitimat on the northern B.C. coast. There, it would be loaded aboard tankers for refineries in Asia.

Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson and Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan have spoken strongly against the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion.

Kinder Morgan already operates a pipeline between Alberta and Burnaby, B.C., that currently ships enough crude to fill five to 10 tankers a month. It wants to increase capacity to ship enough crude oil from Alberta to fill 25 to 30 tankers a month.

But the most substantial roadblocks to the progress of the two pipelines probably will come from aboriginal groups who argue oil spills could irreparably harm their communities University of British Columbia professor George Hoberg said some legal cases could stem from the Crown’s duty to “consult and accommodate” First Nations over major resource projects on disputed lands. “The big legal challenge is what accommodation means when so many First Nations are adamantly opposed and the concerns they raise can’t be mitigated by assurances of the companies that they will do the best they can.”

The courts could be asked to rule on whether the ongoing environmental assessment of the Enbridge project, which is scheduled to be concluded in 2013, goes far enough to address the duty to consult with First Nations and try to accommodate their interests.

New Democrat MP Kennedy Stewart said aboriginal groups don’t have the legal rights to reject the projects, “but they do have the legal tools to slow them down quite a bit.”

Stewart, a critic of the Kinder Morgan expansion, said that proposed pipeline is set go through 15 reserves. “It was pretty daring for Kinder Morgan to promise in their investment brochure that the pipeline will be up and running by 2017. We might not even be through the first round of court appeals by then.”

When it comes to a potential conflict between the pro-pipeline Harper Conservatives and a possible anti-pipeline NDP government in B.C., backed by Robertson and other mayors, Ottawa would probably win.

UBC’s Edinger said Canadian law gives the federal government the right to “constitutionally barge on in and do whatever it damn well pleases” when it comes to pipelines.

But Ottawa’s willingness to wield all of its powers could be tempered by politics if both the next B.C. government and major municipalities are in opposition, she added.

In the end, the uncertainty of legal challenges could provide significant headaches for Enbridge and Kinder Morgan executives despite the strong support they can expect from Ottawa.

“There is no such thing as a clearcut constitutional issue in Canada,” said Edinger. “They are all fuzzy around the edges.”

 Tar sands oil, $5 billion and the Strait of Juan de Fuca May 6, 2012 In an ideal, green-hued world, stopping the Keystone XL pipeline would accomplish what many of the project’s opponents believe it will accomplish.

In an ideal, green-hued world, stopping the Keystone XL pipeline would accomplish what many of the project’s opponents believe it will accomplish .

The sludgy crude oil from Alberta’s tar sands would stay in the ground because there would be no way to get it to refineries and beyond. Ecosystems would be spared. Much less carbon would be burned, and there would be that much less global warming.

The problem is, that’s among the least likely alternatives to the Keystone project. Among the most likely is that Pacific Northwest waters will be put at a much higher risk of oil spills – a scenario that now has $5 billion behind it.

Barack Obama’s Republican opponents have been doing their utmost to politically embarrass him over this issue. In January, they used a legislative deadline to maneuver him into a corner, forcing his hand and crowding him into overriding the endorsement the State Department had given the Keystone project.

Obama himself is hardly above playing politics. Many expect him to let the pipeline move forward – after he wins re-election. The issue won’t conveniently go away. TransCanada, the company behind the Keystone XL, has come up with a new plan that would route the line around the Sandhills region and Ogallala aquifer reservoir in Alaska; opponents had focused much of their rhetoric on the threat of spills in those areas.

(Editorial Comment: Ogallala aquifer is in America’s heartland) Get beyond the politics, though, and the issue is much more complex than saving the environment by stopping the pipeline.

When the Canadian government and Alberta’s oil industry saw their energy export plans being batted around in ! a game of election-year ping-pong, they immediately looked west to pipeline routes protected from American politics.

One such route would carry Alberta’s crude to a small port nearly 400 miles north of Vancouver, B.C. Another would carry the oil to Vancouver itself. These are not remote hypotheticals: Three weeks ago, Kinder Morgan Energy announced plans to balloon the capacity of the pipeline it already operates between Alberta and Vancouver.

The route now carries 300,000 barrels a day; Kinder Morgan proposes to expand that to 850,000 barrels a day by 2017 at a cost of $5 billion. The Alberta oil would be loaded on tankers and shipped through the Strait of Juan de Fuca across the Pacific, much of it to China.

Although critics have dramatized the risks of spills from the Keystone project, pipelines are a much more benign way to transport crude than tankers. They can leak, but they also have automatic cutoff valves and other technologies that prevent and shut down leaks.

There’s little controversy over the petroleum already flowing through more than 50,000 miles of pipelines in the United States. But when a big tanker goes down – as the Exxon Valdez did in 1989 – the results can be cataclysmic.

The Canadian government is dead serious about getting the Alberta oil to market. The real choice is likely to come down to crude oil on ships skirting Washington waters vs. crude oil that stays in thick-walled, corrosionprotected, high-tech pipes.

The latter option should be giving pause to Keystone XL opponents in the Pacific Northwest.

British Columbia

 Proposed Fisheries Act changes upend Cohen Commission salmon inquiry May 1, 2012

 Proposed

amendments to Fisheries Act includes wording which would, according to critics, "gut" key provisions to protect fisheries habitat.

OTTAWA — The federal government's bid to make sweeping changes to the Fisheries Act has prompted an 11th-hour scramble at the $26.4-million Cohen Commission, which was created by Prime Minister Stephen Harper in 2009 to study dramatic declines in the West Coast sockeye fishery.

Senior commission counsel Brian Wallace sent a letter to all hearing participants — including governments, industry, First Nations, and environmentalists — late last week asking them to submit by May 14 their views on how the budget bill affects their previous positions on the state of B.C.'s top fishery.

The letter was in response to the Conservative government's tabling of a 431-page omnibus budgetimplementation bill that includes Fisheries Act amendments which would, according to critics, "gut" key provisions to protect fisheries habitat.

Justice Bruce Cohen's commission published a technical report in February 2011 that described the federal legislation's habitat-protection provisions, first established in 1976, as "Canada's primary legislative tool" and an "effective backbone" to protect sockeye habitat.

The government's new bill "contains proposed changes to a number of pieces of legislation relevant to the work of this commission," senior commission lawyer Brian Wallace wrote in a letter provided Tuesday to the Postmedia News.

Wallace, noting that Bill C-38 was tabled as the commission "is nearing completion of its work," said there are no plans to reopen evidentiary hearings on the impact of the bill. But he offered participants the opportunity to provide "supplementary submissions" no later than May 14.

Craig Orr, chairman of the Pacific Marine Conservation Caucus — made up of conservation and environmental groups such as the David Suzuki Foundation — said Bill C-38 is a "game-changer" that will necessarily affect the commission's work.

"I think this act does change how Cohen must view the ability of the federal government to effectively protect fish habitat in B.C. and across Canada and thus strikes at the heart of what this federal inquiry is trying to sort out," he said.

The current law prohibits Canadians from engaging in any activity "that results in the harmful alteration, disruption or destruction of fish habitat." The proposed new wording is far more narrow and focuses on economic fisheries, banning "serious harm to fish that are part of a commercial, recreational or aboriginal fishery, or to fish that support such a fishery."

The government defines "serious harm" as "the death of fish or any permanent alteration to, or destruction of, fish habitat."

Commission spokeswoman Carla Shore said it's "too soon to tell" if the government's legislative plan will have a major impact in Cohen's findings.

The commission, which concluded hearings in December, recently obtained a three-month extension from the federal cabinet and is now scheduled to report by Sept. 30.

The commission was appointed in 2009 after three consecutive years of sockeye-fishing-season closures due to weak returns of spawning salmon to the Fraser River.

The inquiry has looked at a wide variety of possible causes, including the impact of salmon farms, diseases and parasites, dumping of contaminants, climate change and the "status" of Fisheries and Oceans Canada's "science and management."

The 2011 technical report on habitat issues stressed the importance of Fisheries Act habitat protection provisions introduced in 1976.

"Canada's primary legislative tool for fish habitat conservation and protection, including sockeye salmon habitats, is the Canada Fisheries Act. The Act provides an effective backbone for a habitat protection strategy," the scientific report said.

Before that year, habitat destruction wasn't prohibited and as a result "considerable habitats" in the Fraser River estuary were "irreversibly lost."

READ ENTIRE VANCOUVER SUN ARTICLE HERE

 Omnibus bill threatens fish: Cummins May 14, 2012 Former fisherman concerned about the weakening of fisheries habitat provisions

OTTAWA — A new front in the battle against the federal government’s omnibus budget bill opened up Monday when B.C. Conservative Party leader John Cummins sent a letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper warning of major threats to fishing communities and the environment if major Fisheries Act amendments are passed.

Cummins expressed concerns about the weakening of fisheries habitat provisions and warned that commercial and sports fishing communities across Canada could be squeezed out by first nations fisheries due to new wording in Bill C-38.

Cummins, a former federal Tory MP and commercial fisherman, also suggested that British Columbians view the amendments as a way to help remove regulatory burdens on projects like Calgary-based Enbridge Inc.’s $5.5 billion Northern Gateway oilsands pipeline.

“Public perception is that this amendment is being proposed to ease the passage of certain megaprojects through the environmental review process,” Cummins, a supporter of the Enbridge project, wrote in a letter provided to The Vancouver Sun. He said there is a “consensus” in B.C. fishing communities that a conviction under the Fisheries Act, considered by some organizations to be Canada’s most powerful environmental legislative tool, would be “difficult if not impossible” if Harper’s amendments are passed.

READ ENTIRE VANCOUVER SUN ARTICLE HERE

 Gov't Moving to Keep Farm Disease Outbreaks Secret Changes to Animal Health Act, said to protect public, slammed by NDP, privacy commissioner.

Making information about diseases on British Columbia farms secret will better protect the public, said Agriculture Minister Don McRae. The NDP's critic on the file, Lana Popham, said that approach is unfair to consumers and to other farmers.

"We want the producers to make sure they are submitting samples voluntarily," McRae said in a May 10 interview. "We'd hate to have a scenario where farmers are fearful that the data they give government would be used in a way that's out of their control." The measures are included in the Animal Health Act, which got second reading in the Legislature on May 2 and is expected to pass by the end of the month.

Farmers may choose to hide disease outbreaks if they believe the information will become public, McRae said. "The reality is we don't want a scenario where farmers are going to take a potentially ill animal, deal with it themselves, and not make sure we have that information for the safety of the general public and the safety of animals in British Columbia."

I'd want to know: Popham

The Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act already includes sections that allow the government to keep information secret if its release could harm a businesses interests, said the NDP's Popham.

"Really, [with] disclosure of diseases I think the public has a right to know," she said. "As a consumer I would want to know, and certainly as a farmer I would want to know about other things going on in agriculture. I don't understand why the value of that being a secret."

As for the minister's argument that farmers may be tempted to hide disease outbreaks, she said, "That sounds to me like the minister doesn't think he can trust farmers."

The bill would keep the information out of the hands of independent scientists who might have a view or an interpretation that differs from the government's, she said. "It seems like it's a tightening up of information," she said. "It's not open or accountable or transparent which is the way we're supposed to be going."

Popham said the bill also appears to restrict people, including reporters, from identifying farms or farmers in relation to an animal disease. "From what we can see it certainly leads to the conclusion that you guys could be fined or put in jail for talking to a farmer around a disease outbreak," she said.

"You're not allowed to communicate about a disease outbreak anymore."

Blanket override unjustified: commissioner Information and Privacy Commissioner Elizabeth Denham criticized the Animal Health Act for being overly broad and for changing the balance between the need for confidentiality and the public's right to information that's set out in the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. "Though it may be in the interest of your ministry and of farmers to protect test data in the ministry's possession from disclosure, it is not clear how the public policy interests carefully balanced in FIPPA are served by a blanket override of this nature," Denham wrote in a letter to McRae. She said the measures seem to stem from a case where her office in 2010 ordered the government to release the results of random audits looking for diseases or sea lice on fish farms.

David Lane, the executive director of the T. Buck Suzuki Environmental Foundation, which made the fish farm request some 10 years ago, said the province still hasn't released the information his organization sought.

"Every road block has been put in our way to get information on disease and sea lice on specific farms," he said. "It's our contention all along that information the government has on diseases that can be transferred to the wild, to fish in particular, is information that must be accessible to the public, the media and scientists who want to look in more detail at the implications for wild species."

The changes included in the Animal Health Act should not, however, affect information about fish farms since responsibility for them transferred to the federal government in 2010, he said. "It is very unclear at this point how the federal government is going to handle the issues of disease on salmon farms and reporting and public transparency."

The Animal Health Act is one of three B.C. bills The Tyee reported Denham had criticized in recent weeks for overriding how the FIPPA balances privacy and transparency. She has since also raised similar concerns about the Coastal Ferry Amendment Act.

Anissa Reed and Alexandra Morton with Premier Clark’s “pink slip”

http://www.gofundme.com/SalmonDiseaseTestingFund

ď ś One woman's struggle to save B.C.'s wild salmon April 20, 2012 22 comments Alexandra Morton sits at her kitchen table and tries to ignore the e-mails pouring in to the laptop open in front of her. She is looking out the picture window at Rough Bay, which is tranquil this morning, reflecting a vivid blue sky and the snow-capped mountains of northern Vancouver Island.

Photos Alexandra Morton's battle to save B.C.'s wild salmon http://www.gofundme.com/SalmonDiseaseTestingFund

Photos Tour the Salmon Shop on Granville Island “That's where I want to be,” she says wistfully, as if the sea, which washes ashore 10 metres from her tiny cabin on Malcolm Island, is somehow unreachable because of the life she has chosen.

Her idea of a perfect day is to rise at dawn and head out in her boat, Blackfish Sound, wandering until she finds a tide line where a rich seam in the ocean currents is marked by a ribbon of flotsam.

Then she turns off the engine and drifts with a hydrophone hung over the side of the boat.

“You can hear herring. They sound like lemons being squished. You can hear the whisk, whisk, whisk of otter feet,” she says. “You can hear whales, and you can even hear the rocks rolling on the pebble beaches.”

But the days when she can escape to that idyllic world are few, says Ms. Morton, who is tied to her computer, afraid that if she rests, she may fail at her self-appointed task of removing open-net salmon pens from coastal waters.

In waging her fierce campaign against both a powerful industry and its government allies, the 55year-old biologist has emerged as a leading champion of the anti-fish farm movement. But she has also become a polarizing figure in the ongoing debate over the future of aquaculture.

Ms. Morton's campaign to rid the coast of fish farms began in the late 1980s, when salmon operations began to expand from the Sunshine Coast, near Vancouver, moving north into pristine waters. Recently widowed, she was living in a float house at Echo Bay with her young son, Jarret, when the first farms showed up in the Broughton Archipelago. The small community of about 100 turned to her for help.

“I was the only one with a word processor,” she says. And she used it, writing thousands of pages of letters to government officials over the following years.

READ ENTIRE GLOBE AND MAIL ARTICLE HERE

ď ś European

salmon viruses in Pacific salmon denied by government and

industry May 5, 2012 Download Salmon farm viruses spilling into Pacific Ocean.pdf (7447.7K) Summary BC farm salmon are testing positive for critically harmful European viruses that are appearing globally wherever Atlantic salmon are farmed.

Wild BC salmon populations exposed to salmon farms are mysteriously collapsing and testing positive for the European viruses. Adjacent populations seem unaffected.

Distribution of virally infected farm salmon through the markets and consumers has the potential to flush these viruses into watersheds throughout Canada and wherever sold, in particular the piscine reovirus which is detected in the fillets.

Government refuses to accept/acknowledge ISAv positive test results from the University of Bergen, the North/South American OIE reference lab for ISA virus (PEI) and the DFO genomic lab in Nanaimo.

The international response protocol to ISA virus in farm salmon is to cull, DFO’s failure to respond to ISAv positive results in farm salmon is a risk to the N. Pacific.

Provincial Agriculture Minister, Don McRae, reports Asian and US markets threatened closure if ISA virus is in BC (Hansard, March 27, 2012).

Allowing these European viruses unfettered access to Pacific salmon is negligent.

Either the farm salmon have to be removed, or government needs to tell us that wild salmon are considered a secondary priority after the needs of the salmon farming industry are met. Government needs to stop telling the public they can have both, because the sheer sloppiness that has allowed these viruses in - is not going to work for anyone.

The Issue: No government mechanism existed in Canada that was capable of protecting wild salmon in the face of trade pressure demanding Canada maintain an open border to millions of Atlantic salmon eggs on demand by the Norwegian salmon farming corporations operating in BC. BC salmon farms are located throughout the major wild salmon migration routes of southern and central BC, ensuring transfer of the viruses identified in this brief to wild salmon.

Asian and US legislators consider closing their borders to BC farm salmon in response to ISA virus reports in fall 2011. The evidence suggest Canada is compromising its reputation as a trade partner denying what is obvious - ISA virus is in BC. Viruses cannot be contained with drugs like sea lice. Salmon farms have to be removed away from wild salmon or we stand to lose the rest of BC wild salmon runs.

Background - trade: • In 1991, DFO Director General Pat Chamut warned Aaron Sarna – Director of DFO’s Pacific Rim and Trade Policy Division that continued large-scale Atlantic salmon egg imports would introduce biologically and economically devastating exotic diseases, despite this 23 million Atlantic salmon eggs came into BC after 1991. It would appear Chamut was ignored, but correct.

• In 2003, DFO Director-General Laura Richards agreed to demands by the three Norwegian salmon farm companies operating in BC for Atlantic eggs from an Icelandic Hatchery that did not meet the Canadian Fish Health Protection Regulations, she cited threat of trade sanctions if the request was denied.

• DFO and international labs are finding exotic viruses in BC farm and wild salmon, but government stubbornly refuses to acknowledge them, even of the results of their own scientists.

• The Canadian Food Inspection Agency testified to the Cohen Commission on the Decline of the Fraser Sockeye in Dec. 2011 that, if ISA virus is in BC trade for farm salmon could cease.

• This creates enormous international pressure to ignore the science and refuse for to acknowledge ISAv BC, • Today two three viruses (2 exotic and one endemic) in farm salmon are threatening wild salmon and farm salmon trade.

Background – the viruses: Salmon Flu – Infectious Salmon Anemia virus (ISAv) • ISAv, an internationally reportable virus, first noted in 1984 in Norway is spreading globally wherever Atlantic salmon are farmed.

• The 4 levels of detection from lowest to highest confidence: histology, PRC test, sequencing and culture. Canada only recognizes culture, citing PCRs as too sensitive and the potential for false positives too damaging to the industry.

• BC provincial vet, Dr. Gary Marty reported over 1,000 reports of “classic” ISA virus lesions (histology) in his farm salmon health audits 2006-2010 (Cohen Commission Exhibit).

• Gary Marty – BC provincial vet, Clare Backman – Marine Harvest and Peter MacKenzie – Mainstream (Cermaq) – Dr. MacWilliams – DFO - all testified under oath that the ISA virus is not in BC • Then ISA virus was reported in Rivers Inlet (Nov 2011) - Justice Cohen reopened his Inquiry and we learned that DFO has been hiding ISAv positive tests in 100% of the most critical Fraser sockeye stock tested (Cultus).

• The salmon farming industry denies ISAv is in their fish and refuse access to their fish for testing • 2010 salmon farmers stop importing eggs, terminates BC’s farm salmon health audits, sign MOU to share virus information.

• Spring 2012 we began buying farm Atlantics in markets and find the highly virulent HPR5 and HPR7b ISAv mutations

READ DR. MORTON’S ENTIRE BLOG ENTRY HERE

ď ś Fish farm won't wait for CFIA, will go ahead and cull 500,000 fish May 18, 2012

For the first time in nine years Atlantic salmon farmed in British Columbian waters have tested positive for a virus that can be rapidly fatal to nonnative species, but is endemic in wild Pacific salmon and largely a low risk.

A B.C. fish farm where a virus deadly to Atlantic salmon was detected won't wait for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to confirm tests and will go ahead and cull its more than 500,000 fish.

"We have decided to start the depopulation right away," said Laurie Jensen, a spokeswoman for Mainstream Canada (a subsidiary of Norwegian-owned Cermaq), in an email to The Vancouver Sun. Mainstream earlier this week announced that fish at its Dixon Bay farm north of Tofino tested positive for infectious hematopoietic necrosis, or IHN. It's the first time in nine years that Atlantic salmon farmed in B.C. have tested positive for IHN. The company was on standby Thursday to cull more than 500,000 one-kilogram fish, but CFIA said confirmation of test results could take up to two weeks.

"The CFIA has placed a quarantine on the facility and samples are being taken for further testing," the agency said in a statement. "Confirmatory testing on the samples is being conducted at the National Aquatic Animal Health Laboratory and results are expected within weeks."

IHN is endemic to wild Pacific fish, and not considered deadly to them. It's harmless to humans, but attacks the kidneys and spleen of the Atlantic farmed salmon and can lead to rotting flesh and organ failure.

Mainstream operates 27 farms in B.C., including 14 in the Tofino area. Those 14 farms began conducting IHN tests of their fish as soon as it was detected.

Jensen said Thursday that they still did not have results of those tests and were waiting to hear if any of the other farms were infected.

If IHN is discovered, a company must call in the CFIA as well as Fisheries and Oceans Canada to investigate.

 Cohen Inquiry disallows hearings on virus related to salmon heart failure May 18, 2012 Today May 17, 2012, Justice Cohen ruled (download at bottom of page) that he will not reopen his Inquiry to review our findings that most BC farm salmon in the markets are infected with a highly contagious heart virus. Cohen cites the amount of work the commission team is faced with to meet the twice-delayed September 30, 2012 delivery date. The Commission notes that they have heard evidence on disease.

The application to reopen the Inquiry was made by the Aquaculture Coalition (Alexandra Morton/Greg McDade) after discovery that nearly 100% of BC farm salmon are testing positive for the Norwegian piscine reovirus. Research published as recently as April 12, 2012 confirms association between this virus and a disease called Heart and Skeletal Muscle Inflammation (HSMI). The application to hear evidence on this disease was supported by the First Nations Coalition, the Cheam Indian Band and Conservation Coalition.

HSMI weakens heart muscle causing heart failure in salmon. It has spread quickly through Norway.

Norwegian scientist Dr. Are Nylund reports the BC farm salmon tissue he has examined is infected with the Norwegian piscine reovirus. The only plausible explanation for presence of this Norwegian virus in BC farm salmon is that it arrived in the 30 million Atlantic salmon eggs imported into BC since 1986 by the salmon farming industry.

Nearly 100% of Atlantic salmon bought this spring from Fairway Market in Victoria, T & T markets in Vancouver and Superstores tested positive for this heart virus. While Mary Ellen Walling of the BC Salmon Farmers Association is quoted saying they never see the affects of this virus, Dr. Gary Marty, the BC Provincial fish farm, vet says it is common, that he found it in 75% of the farm salmon he tested in 2010.

Despite the Province of BC finding this virus in farm salmon and the virus's reputation for being highly contagious, Dr. Michael Kent of Oregon State University, ex-director of the DFO Pacific Biological Station never even mentioned it in his Technical Report Number One which he was hired to write for the Commission titled “Infectious Disease and Potential Impacts on Survival of Fraser River Sockeye Salmon” Which is it? Common or never seen. This has become a ridiculously thin coverup. I don’t believe Dr. Marty’s test results referred to in the media were ever submitted to the Cohen Inquiry. Certainly, exDFO scientist Michael Kent never even mentioned this disease, even though up to 90% of Fraser sockeye are going missing after they pass Mission. Imagine trying to swim against Hells Gate with a virus that causes heart failure? How is that going to work out for you? In my view, this is exactly the same issue as DFO never mentioning to Justice Cohen that they found European ISA virus in 100% of the Cultus Lake sockeye. The most lethal salmon virus found in 100% of the most endangered sockeye stock and DFO never told the $26 million commission we paid for into the loss of sockeye? ” It was Dr. Gary Marty’s employer, the Province of BC that opposed the application to reopen the Inquiry.

There are European viruses in BC farm salmon and they are spreading to wild salmon. The longer BC and Canada refuse to acknowledge this, the greater the risk these viruses will ignite an epidemic that will finish off BC’s wild salmon. I understand Justice Cohen being exhausted, but that is no excuse. Commercial fishing vessel licensing: DFO – Keith Ashfield

READ DR. MORTON’S ENTIRE BLOG ENTRY HERE

ď ś Commercial fishing vessel licensing: DFO – Keith Ashfield

 Unprecedented Kokish River power project operating within salmonid habitat April 30, 2012

Kokish River steelhead up close as published in the Fall-Winter 2010 issue of Fly Lines

The habitat for the steelhead rainbow trout, is under threat due to plans by a private power project to divert the Kokish River into a pipe.

Photograph by: McClatchy Newspapers , Vancouver Sun An unprecedented run of river hydro project that would operate within salmonid habitat on the Kokish River must effectively shut down each summer, a federal document suggests.

A screening report from Fisheries and Oceans and Transport Canada says project proponents Kwagis Power Ltd. Partnership plan to divert substantial water from more than one-third of the 26kilometre stream on northeast Vancouver Island.

Kwagis proposes a 45 megawatt facility. It's the first time a modern-era independent power project in British Columbia has been allowed to remove water from an area of documented salmonid spawning and rearing habitat.

The section subject to diversion is “productive river habitat currently used by winter and summer steelhead trout, coho salmon, chinook salmon, chum salmon, sockeye salmon, and anadromous Dolly Varden char.”

The screening report sets minimum stream flow requirements throughout the year, to as low as 3.4 square meters of water per second, and states that “the project is not likely to cause significant adverse environmental effects” if the operators remain in compliance with federal stream flow requirements.

The minimum flow threshold is highest, 12 metres per second, from June 16 to October 16 – although this is typically the dry season in southwest B.C. so it's possible that the natural volume of water in the stream during this period will be less than the stated threshold.

Construction of the project will result in the loss of 2,300 square metres of aquatic habitat in favour of a weir, powerhouse and streambed alteration.

READ MORE ON BC RUN OF RIVER PROJECTS IN FLY LINES

 Vancouver

park board votes to formally oppose Kinder Morgan pipeline

expansion May 1, 2012

Kinder Morgan Canada will be adding 550,000 barrel per day capacity to its Trans Mountain crude oil pipeline running to the west coast of British Columbia from central Alberta.

The Vancouver Park Board approved a motion yesterday opposing expansion of Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain Pipeline. City council is expected to approve a similar motion later today.

Last Tuesday Vision Vancouver said it would introduce two motions next week — one at council and one at park board — arguing that the expansion of the pipeline and the resulting tanker traffic in Vancouver harbour would put the city at unnecessary risk of a spill.

The motions, which are expected to easily pass with Vision's majority, add weight to growing opposition among Vancouverites to the prospect of a quintupling of the number of tankers that will transit through the inner harbour before heading out on to the west coast.

Mayor Gregor Robertson, who has already said he will "fiercely oppose" the pipeline expansion, argued in an article in The Vancouver Sun Tuesday that he has a moral obligation to oppose the pipeline.

"As Vancouver's mayor, how could I ever support allowing a single, polluting industry — especially one with nearly no jobs in this city — to put Vancouver's thriving economy and global reputation at such serious risk?" he wrote.

READ ENTIRE VANCOUVER SUN ARTICLE HERE

ď ś Earth Day 2012 in British Columbia, Canada These photos were provided by Elly Edwards – wild Pacific salmon advocate

 Application salmon

made to reopen Cohen Commission into the decline of Fraser River

April 24, 2012

Editorial Comment: Wild Game Fish Conservation International and our associates support the application by the Aquaculture Coalition to reopen the Cohen Commission’s efforts to fully understand the cause(s) of recent declines in wild populations of Fraser River sockeye salmon.

The impacts of recently-detected, European salmon diseases in BC salmon (open pen raised Atlantics, purchased in BC retail outlets) must be fully vetted via this independent commission.

If approved, this application will likely push the date back for the Cohen Commission report from September 30, 2012

Discovery of Salmon Heart Virus Threat to Fraser Sockeye Vancouver: Today, the Aquaculture Coalition, which includes Alexandra Morton represented by Gregory McDade, submitted an application to the Cohen Commission into the decline of the Fraser Sockeye seeking to reopen hearings and examine new and significant disease findings pursuant to Rule 65.

Farm salmon purchased during February 2012 in BC supermarkets tested positive for the newly discovered piscine reovirus (PRV). This virus has been identified as the cause of Heart and Skeletal Muscle Inflammation (HSMI). Piscine reovirus weakens the heart of salmon. The Aquaculture Coalition believes the impact of this heart disease has to be considered as a contributing factor to the decline of the Fraser sockeye.

The Cohen Commission heard testimony that up to 90% of the sockeye entering the Fraser River die as they attempt to reach their spawning grounds, swimming through strong rapids such as the famous Hells Gate.

First discovered in a Norwegian salmon farm in 1999, HSMI spread rapidly through Norway to infect over 400 farms today. The disease is described as spreading like “wildfire”.

The Atlantic farm salmon (44/45 samples) purchased (February 2012) by Morton from Vancouver and Victoria supermarkets tested positive for PRV. Loblaw confirmed these fish had been reared in BC waters. This suggests PRV is widespread in BC farm salmon. Most salmon farms in BC are on the Fraser sockeye migration routes.

In a televised interview (April 20, 2012) Dr. Gary Marty, the Provincial farm salmon veterinarian and Cohen Commission witness confirmed he found the virus in 75% of BC farm salmon he tested. Dr. Marty suggests the piscine reovirus is not a concern. However, a joint scientific publication by the Center for Infection and Immunity, Columbia University, New York and Norwegian government scientists state: “…it is urgent that measures be taken to control PRV not only because it threatens domestic salmon production but also due to the potential for transmission to wild salmon populations.”

http://www.gofundme.com/SalmonDiseaseTestingFund

The evidence that PRV is common in farm salmon was missing from the disease reports provided to the Cohen Commission by Dr. Marty.

Although the provincial vet reports the virus in “sick fish,” spokesperson for the BC Salmon Farmer’s Association, Mary Ellen Walling claims they are not seeing any indication of the virus.

DFO spokesperson Frank Stanek assures us: “Government of Canada scientists have not confirmed the presence of this virus in Canadian fish, despite extensive monitoring and testing.” http://www.timescolonist.com/news/Government+officials+salmon+farmers+contradict+claims+diseas e+farmed+salmon/6462981/story.html#ixzz1sPPnrvg9 However, DFO scientist Dr. Kristy Miller testified at the Cohen Commission on early findings that the PRV virus was detected in Chinook farms in Clayoquot Sound, as well as, in Fraser sockeye.

HSMI is not a reportable disease so the Canadian Food Inspection Agency is not directly involved.

The Atlantic Veterinary Lab sequenced the virus found in the supermarket samples (collected by Morton in February 2012) and reports it is 99% identical to piscine reovirus found in Norwegian farmed salmon.

“The obvious potential that piscine reovirus is killing Fraser sockeye by weakening their hearts, rendering them less capable of fighting their way through white water rapids like Hells Gate was never raised at the inquiry. Despite the Province of BC apparently knowing it was common in salmon farms,” said Alexandra Morton.

Morton observed, “The presence of this virus is significant evidence in puzzle of the Fraser salmon collapse because Cohen heard evidence that over 90% of Fraser sockeye die as they are swimming upstream, a weakened heart could be causing this. Justice Cohen can not complete his work if pieces of the puzzle are kept from him.”

Morton went on to say, “I sympathize with Justice Cohen, he has seen DFO spokespeople contradicting their own scientists – which is how we lost the North Atlantic cod. Justice Cohen is blindfolded by the lack of full disclosure. His report will not be complete without getting to the bottom of this, just like he did for the ISA virus.”

The Aquaculture Coalition submits that the Commission should receive new evidence regarding the epidemiology and impacts of PRV and HSMI in salmon populations on a global scale and should hear evidence regarding its presence in British Columbia.

In particular, the knowledge of Dr. Miller and Dr. Marty regarding the presence of PRV and HSMI in fish farms in British Columbia is relevant to the Commissioner’s inquiry and an opportunity to hear their evidence is warranted.

For more information or to schedule interviews contact Alexandra Morton 250-974-7086, Gregory McDade 604-988-5201 Copies of the Application re HSMI- April 2012 (00541434).pdf (486.6K) letter sent submitted by Gregory McDade on behalf of The Aquaculture Coalition Download Application re HSMI- April 2012 (00541434).pdf (486.6K)

 Wild salmon need our help for survival May 4, 2012 Editorial Comment: As shared earlier in this issue of Legacy, Mary Ellen Walling is the June recipient of the WGFCI “Pants on Fire” Award.

This dubious recognition is due to her consistent efforts to present other than reality to those attempting protect and restore wild Pacific salmon and their ecosystems by better understanding the complex issues and impacts associated with open pen salmon feedlots sited in British Columbia’s wild Pacific salmon migration routes.

In an April 28 opinion piece, Mary Ellen Walling, executive director of the B.C. Salmon Farmers Association, Campbell River says: "Our Pacific salmon face many challenges, which we can alleviate and control."

Many of the challenges our wild salmon face are created by the very salmon feedlots that Ms. Walling represents. The open net pens dump millions of tonnes of untreated waste into our coastal waters. Farmed salmon release at least two highly contagious viruses into the water our wild salmon swim through. These killer viruses have been found in 94 per cent of the farmed salmon recently tested, coming from supermarket shelves. This disease damaged the hearts of wild salmon and contributed to the collapse of the Fraser wild sockeye runs. The fish died before spawning.

Ms. Walling asserts that, "Government has monitoring and auditing to ensure our farming practices are protecting wild fish." Unfortunately this is no longer true. The Harper government has weakened legislation and has dramatically cut the D.F.O. budget, to the point that they can no longer monitor or audit the fish farms.

Several First Nations have a certified, class-action lawsuit now pending before the courts. Their case states that salmon farms have damaged wild salmon runs, including those on the Chemainus, Koksilah and the Cowichan, that move through Georgia and Johnston Straits. Fish feedlots have destroyed economic opportunities and a way of life for coastal people. Salmon farms are not only destroying wild salmon but coastal culture and our wildlife that also depends on salmon.

If salmon feed-lots would only use closed containment and water filtration, they could enhance our wild salmon stocks and our coastal way of life. But that reasonable action would cut into their profit.

Jim Cooper Duncan

ď ś For the Record: Dr. Alexandra Morton April 19, 2012 Our discovery of the salmon heart virus, piscine reovirus (PRV) which causes Heart and Skeletal Muscle Inflammation (HSMI) has been reported on in the press. The quotes provided from the province, DFO and the industry are conflicting and hint at internal chaos and gears grinding.

Mary Ellen Walling-Director BC Salmon Farmers "We are not seeing any indication of a virus with the impacts that she has described in the release" FIS "In B.C., the government fish health lab assesses heart muscles routinely for indications of disease and has not found any consistency between these tissues and the presence of this virus." Times Colonist Dr. Gary Marty - B.C. government fish health lab "In 2010 the province found PRV was common in farmed Atlantic salmon, but infection was not related to disease" "If the fish were infected with a deadly virus, they would not have survived to be harvested or sold" Times Colonist

A farm salmon with Piscine reovirus from Superstore weighed 1.6 kg gutted. Normal harvest-size is 4.6 - 6 kg, the sores are unidentified DFO - Frank Stanek, media relations "Government of Canada scientists have not confirmed the presence of this virus in Canadian fish, despite extensive monitoring and testing."

Government of Canada Scientist testimony Cohen Dec. 15, 2011 Page 113 Q. Did you find piscine reovirus Dr. Miller. We did find fish positive for the piscine reovirus, which is thought to be causing HSMI.

Dr. Miller ... we see piscine reovirus in our wild migrating sockeye salmon.

How could the BC Salmon Farmers say they have not seen any indication of the impacts of this virus, when the provincial vet auditing their fish said it was "common"? In 2010, the virus had not been identified, the disease was known only by its "impact" on the fish. In his records made public by the Cohen Commission, there is 1 record of HSMI in Mainstream's fish in 2008 and in 2010 he repeatedly mentions a "distinctive lesion" in the hearts of farm salmon.

"Congestion and Hemorrhage in the stratum compactum of the heart (i.e., the peripheral layer of dense cardiac muscle) is a distinctive lesion that I started seeing in 2008 in clinical submissions both from Atlantic and Pacific salmon. I noted this change only once among samples examined from 20062008 as part of the BCV audit and Surveillance Program, but in 2009 I had several cases. Clinical cases included all Marine Harvest cases that ask had renal intratubular hemorrhage (i.e., those cases listed above)."

Walling and Marty's statements do not agree, she says they have not seen the impacts of HSMI, Marty reports the impact of HSMI on the hearts of Atlantic salmon belonging to Mainstream and Marine Harvest, which use fish from stock that were imported into BC as eggs. No one screened these eggs for piscine reovirus, because no one knew the virus existed until 2011.

The DFO spokesperson and the DFO scientist's statements also do not agree.

Here is what scientists from a World Health Organization-sponsored lab have to say:

Image: A healthy salmon, above; a salmon with HSMI, below./T. Poppe.

The identity of a mysterious disease that’s raged through European salmon farms, wasting the hearts and muscles of infected fish, has been revealed.

Genome sleuthing shows the disease is caused by a previously unknown virus. The identification doesn’t suggest an obvious cure — for now, scientists have only a name and a genome — but it’s an important first step.

“It’s a new virus. And with this information now in hand, we can make vaccines,” said Ian Lipkin, director of Columbia University’s Center for Infection and Immunity, a World Health Organizationsponsored disease detective lab.

Two years ago, Norwegian fisheries scientists approached Lipkin and asked for help in identifying the cause of Heart and Skeletal Muscle Inflammation, or HSMI, the official name for a disease first identified in 1999 on a Norwegian salmon farm.

Infected fish are physically stunted, and their muscles are so weakened that they have trouble swimming or even pumping blood. The disease is often fatal, and the original outbreak has been followed by 417 others in Norway and the United Kingdom. Every year there’s more of the disease, and it’s now been seen in wild fish, suggesting that farm escapees are infecting already-dwindling wild stocks.

Lipkin’s team — which has also identified mystery viruses killing Great Apes in the Ivory Coast, and sea lions off the U.S. West Coast — combed through genetic material sampled from infection salmon pens, looking for DNA sequences resembling what’s seen in other viruses, and inferring from those what the HSMI-causing sequence should look like. Lipkin likened the process to solving a crossword puzzle. The researchers eventually arrived at the 10-gene virus they called piscine reovirus, or PRV. The virus was described July 9 in Public Library of Science One. Related reoviruses have been found on poultry farms and cause muscle and heart disease in chickens. “Analogies between commercial poultry production and Atlantic salmon aquaculture may be informative,” wrote the researchers. “Both poultry production and aquaculture confine animals at high density in conditions that are conducive to transmission of infectious agents.”

Such findings may be useful as the Obama administration develops a national policy for regulating aquaculture.

“If the potential hosts are in close proximity, it goes through them like wildfire,” said Lipkin.

Helmsdale said...

The reactions to the comments by Ms. Morton (on piscine reovirus and heart and skeletal muscle inflammation in farmed salmon) by the farmed fish industry and the industry regulators are very defensive.

And very short sighted.

Perhaps if the industry and regulators were current with recent Norwegian research, they might not be so sanguine.

In a recent study, posted April 9, 2012, Norwegian researchers, funded by the Research Council of Norway, confirmed the association between PRV( piscine reovirus) and HSMI (heart and skeletal muscle inflammation). The researchers went on to state that their results strengthened the hypothesis that PRV is the causative agent of HSMI.

READ DR. MORTON’s ENTIRE BLOG ENTRY HERE

 CAAR opposes planned open net cage salmon production increases April 17, 2012

Vancouver, B.C The Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform (CAAR) is vehemently opposing plans

by Marine Harvest to increase production on salmon farms directly in the path of out-migrating juvenile Fraser River salmon. In an April 17, 2012 letter to DFO’s Regional Director General, CAAR demanded that any amendments to aquaculture licenses to increase production levels of farmed salmon in B.C. waters be denied.

Marine Harvest Canada submitted a license amendment application to DFO asking for an increase in production at its Shelter Bay site and they have already made significant changes to the size of their farm at nearby Marsh Bay. Both sites are located on the mainland shore across from Northeastern Vancouver Island. They are applying to transfer licensed production from sites that have not been operational for many years to this area. If these amendments are approved, these sites could see production increases by as much as 35 percent.

These two farms lie directly in the path of out-migrating Cultus Lake sockeye salmon – a stock of Fraser River sockeye that has been recommended for emergency listing as an endangered population by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC).

CAAR member groups believe that any expansion of salmon farm production along wild salmon migration routes on the B.C. coast will subject threatened and endangered wild salmon runs to significant increased impacts from both sea lice and disease from open net salmon farms.

“DFO and the industry are making use of bureaucratic loopholes to effectively increase production at open net cage salmon farms in B.C. waters and they are doing it in secret,” said Ruby Berry of Georgia Strait Alliance. “DFO has no mechanism in place for assessing existing, let alone increased or cumulative impacts of sea lice and disease from salmon farms sited on wild salmon migration routes.”

With the introduction of aquaculture licencing under the Federal Pacific Aquaculture Regulations (PARs), there is no longer any mechanism in place that will allow for public consultation on the proposed amendments, and repeatedly the people of B.C. have supported an end to open net-cage salmon farming and a transition to closed containment.

Download CAAR’s Letter to DFO’s Regional Director General Download CAAR’s Salmon Farm Production Increase Backgrounder About CAAR CAAR was formed in 2001 to ensure salmon farming in British Columbia is safe for wild salmon, marine ecosystems, coastal communities and human health.

READ ENTIRE FARMED AND DANGEROUS ARTICLE HERE

Editorial Comment: A preponderance of evidence:

 Supermarket salmon test positive for virus found in Europe April 17, 2012



Commercially available salmon raised in open pen feedlots are harmful to ecosystems and to humans



Open pen salmon feedlot industry representatives misrepresent reality



Elected officials disregard science-based findings

Learn for yourself by visiting: Cohen Commission

Fish-farm critic and independent researcher Alexandra Morton has opened another debate about salmon diseases in British Columbia.

Ms. Morton says samples taken from salmon purchased in four Vancouver supermarkets have tested positive for a virus that is suspected of being the “causative agent” of a disease killing Atlantic salmon in European aquaculture operations.

More related to this story   

Potentially deadly bacteria found in seafood at Lower Mainland stores The 100-year plan to restore Bowker Creek B.C. cruise puts environmental activism on the menu

The detection of the piscine reo virus (PRV), which researchers have associated with heart and skeletal muscle inflammation (HSMI) in fish, raises concerns that the disease could be in B.C waters, where it would be a threat to both farmed Atlantic salmon and wild Pacific salmon.

However, Mary Ellen Walling, executive director of the BC Salmon Farmers Association, has questioned the validity of Ms. Morton’s tests and both she and government officials say there is no sign of the disease on the West Coast.

“The idea of testing samples from a supermarket is highly unscientific: there’s no research design, the fish have no internal organs to sample … there’s no chain of custody and there’s a lot of opportunity for cross-contamination,” she stated in an e-mail.

She added that the industry is concerned about any indication of disease, but fish farmers have been doing their own routine tests “and are seeing no indication of a virus with impacts as described in the release.”

Ms. Walling also said that “the research that proposes a linkage between the piscine reo virus and HSMI is tenuous.”

Last year, Ms. Morton and researchers at Simon Fraser University, sparked a debate by announcing that Infectious Salmon Anemia virus had been detected in B.C. salmon. The finding has been disputed but is now under intense study.

The presence of HSMI, even if confirmed, would not raise any human health concerns. But the disease has been a serious problem for the aquaculture industry in Norway, where outbreaks have occurred in more than 400 salmon farms since it was first detected in 1999. The disease can stunt growth and weaken muscles, causing mortality rates of up to 20 per cent in infected salmon.

Ms. Morton said the lab tests, which were done by the Atlantic Veterinary College at the University of Prince Edward Island, did not determine the origin of the fresh Atlantic salmon that were purchased at two T&T and two Real Canadian Superstore outlets in Vancouver.

But a spokesman for Loblaw Companies Ltd., which owns Superstore and T&T, confirmed the fish came from a B.C. supplier.

Melanie McNabb, a spokesperson for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, said in an e-mail that government researchers have not found any sign of HSMI in either wild or farmed B.C. salmon.

“Fisheries and Oceans Canada and the Province of British Columbia have conducted an extensive monitoring and testing program over the years for diseases of concern in both wild and farmed fish; these efforts have revealed no signs of the presence of this disease in British Columbia. And no major mortalities have occurred at BC aquaculture facilities that would have led our fish health professionals to suspect the presence of this disease,” she stated.

Craig Ware, a spokesman for Loblaw, said his company is trying to learn more about the issue.

“As relates to this virus, this is definitely the first time we’ve heard about it in relation to any of the fish that have been sold in our stores,” he said on Monday. “Obviously, we take any of these kind of concerns seriously. And so we are looking into it with our suppliers.”

Mr. Ware said Loblaw would be staying in touch with DFO on the matter.

“We’ll take our lead from them,” he said.

The cause of HMSI has not been confirmed, but an international team of researchers at Columbia University’s Center for Infection and Immunity, has linked the disease to PRV. “Our data provide compelling evidence that HSMI is associated with infection with a new reo virus,” Gustavo Palacios, first author of the study told the popular journal Science Daily when results were published in July of 2010.

The study identified PRV using DNA sequencing and concluded that “measures must be taken to control PRV not only because it threatens domestic salmon production but also due to the potential for transmission to wild salmon populations.”

Another study, published in the April 2012 edition of Veterinary Research, states that the presence of PRV in the hearts of Atlantic salmon, coincides with the development of heart and skeletal muscle inflammation.

“Our results confirm the association between PRV and HSMI and strengthen the hypothesis of PRV being the causative agent of HSMI,” the study concluded.

ď ś Salmon Industry Hits Back at Claims of New Virus April 19, 2012

CANADA - The British Colombia (BC) Salmon Farmers Association has hit back at claims made by biologist Alexandra Morton that Heart and Skeletal Muscle Inflammation (HSMI) has been found in Atlantic Salmon purchased in the Vancouver area.

In her blog, Ms Morton claims that Piscine Reovirus (PRV) (which she links to HSMI) has been identified in 44 out of 45 farmed salmon, bought in Vancouver supermarkets.

Ms Morton has suggested that her findings show that the salmon has come from BC farms. If the salmon did not come from the farms, Ms Morton has stated that there is therefore a flaw in the BC Food Security Protocol.

Ms Morton's concern was also on how the disease could effect wild salmon populations in the Fraser river. Talking about infected fish, Ms Morton stated in her blog that; "People preparing to cook these may wash them, sending the virus into the water system."

However, the accuracy of Ms Morton's investigation has been questioned.

At present little is still known about the diseases and experts told TheFishSite that no conclusive link has been found between PRV and HSMI. The presence of PRV therefore does not mean a fish is infected with HSMI. However, some industry experts believe there is correlation between HSMI and high PRV virus titer in farmed fish.

According to the Norwegian Veterinary Institute, PRV is thought to have a major role in the pathogenicity of HSMI. But, virus investigations in Norway (which has been suffering with the disease since 1999) have shown that PRV is 'endemic' and can be found in healthy farmed fish.

In terms of testing for HSMI, experts say the most accurate method would be to test heart tissue by Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) methods. As Ms Morton tested fish from a supermarket it will have most likely have been gutted.

The BC Salmon Farmers Association released a statement saying that HSMI has never been found in BC farmed salmon and that no clinical symptoms have been observed.

According to the Norwegian Veterinary Institute, HSMI is a contagious disease in Atlantic salmon. It has been associated with the newly described disease, Piscine reovirus (PRV).

HSMI mainly affects the heart, where changes can be detected some months before an HSMI outbreak. During a clinical outbreak changes can also be seen in skeletal muscles and the liver.

Prevention is centered around good biosecurity measures and management of fish stocks.

Research is currently underway to develop a vaccine against PRV.

 More straight shooting from Anissa Reed

Thank you, Anissa, for your “politically-challenging” art

 Effects

of salvage logging, beetle-killed pine trees spur warning that many communities should brace ‘for the worst’ May 8, 2012

The province's River Forecast Centre warned Tuesday there is "an elevated flood risk present through the entire length of the mainstem" of the Fraser River from the Robson Valley to the Fraser Valley.

Aggressive salvage logging of beetle-killed lodgepole pine forests in the B.C. Interior has significantly increased the risk of flooding and sediment discharge, a University of B.C. expert warned Thursday.

“In my mind, there is no doubt the government decision to aggressively salvage logs will increase the flood risk big time,” said Younes Alila, associate professor in the University of B.C.’s department of forest resources management. “We should brace ourselves for the worst.”

Alila’s warning comes as the province’s River Forecast Centre announced there is “an elevated flood risk present through the entire length of the mainstem” of the Fraser River from the Robson Valley to the Fraser Valley.

The centre said its latest surveys show: very high snowpacks measuring more than 135 per cent of normal in the Upper Fraser, Nechako and Skeena-Nass basins; and high snowpacks more than 120 per cent of! normal in the Lower Fraser, Columbia, Kootenay, Vancouver Island and Peace basins.

Snowpack conditions are 129 per cent of normal across the entire Fraser basin.

The unusually high snowpacks represent a flood risk when combined with prolonged hot weather.

Environment Canada is predicting sunny weather, with high temperatures of 20 C for the rest of the week at Vancouver International Airport, rising to 25 C in Abbotsford and 27 C in Kamloops.

The mountain pine beetle worsened the flood situation by killing off vast stands of lodgepole pine.

But the province has exacerbated the problem by allowing large-scale salvage logging of dead pine that would have provided some shade to the snowpack, thereby reducing the rate of melt, said Alila.

Flooding poses a threat to people, property, and aquatic life, Alila continued, and creates more sediments that eventually settle in the lower Fraser River, where they increase the risk of waters overtopping dikes.

“That’s what worries me, frankly,” Alila said. “These are very well populated areas. A breach of a dike would cause big economic problems.”

Whether or not widespread flooding occurs this spring, the risk remains, he emphasized. “The longer we wait without it happening, the larger the chance of it happening in the next while.”

Alila raised the issue of salvage logging increasing the flood risk in a 2007 Forest Practices Board report on Baker Creek, west of Quesnel.

The study showed the mountain pine beetle increased the flood risk by 60 per cent, increasing to 92 per cent after salvage logging and representing a “major shift” in hydrology.

A 2011 report for the Canadian Forest Service also concluded: “As the total area salvage logged increased, peak flows also increased and generated an associated increase in flood frequency ...”

Alila said the results in the 2007 report have been confirmed in four subsequent study areas: the Fraser Experimental Forest near Denver, Colo.; and three others in B.C., Redfish Creek near Nelson, the Upper Penticton Experimental Watershed, and Kemp Creek west of Peachland.

Each of these areas contained both logged and unlogged forests to allow for direct comparisons.

Results of these studies reverse long-standing forestry perceptions, he said, and show that logging increases the rate at which major flooding can be expected. He said five-year flood levels might occur in two years in salvage-logged areas, a 20-year flood may occur in seven years, and a 100year flood in 20 years.

Alila conducted his latest research with UBC graduate student Piotr Kuras. The results were published earlier this year in the journal Water Resources Research and highlighted in the American Geophysical Union’s EOS newsletter. Alila said it’s important for the province to “seriously investigate” how much more sediment is flowing down the Fraser and its effect on the region’s dikes.

“Do something to ensure that the dike capacities are adequate enough — and do it sooner than later.

Somebody needs to sound the alarm bells for government to take this more seriously.”

No one with Emergency Management B.C. was immediately available to comment.

Alila explained the upper 60 per cent of the Fraser River basin is a relatively flat part of the Interior plateau, which means that snow tends to melt simultaneously. In comparison, a mountainous landscape will see the melt start at low elevations and work its way up as temperatures climb, helping to reduce flood risks.

“The melt is synchronized, all at once. It makes the situation worse. A relatively flat topography, landscape, watershed is much more sensitive to any forest disturbance — mountain pine beetle and salvage logging,” he said.

The Fraser Basin Council warns on its website that the “greatest vulnerability to flood risk” is in the floodplain of the lower Fraser River, where major floods occurred in 1894 and 1948.

“Scientists predict that there is a one-in-three chance that a flood of similar magnitude will occur within the next 50 years,” the council states, noting more than 300,000 people could be directly affected.

“A major flood today would result in severe social, economic and environmental impacts,” it states.

New Brunswick

ď ś Atlantic salmon catches in Fundy watershed worry anglers April 19, 2012 Moves being made to list Atlantic salmon in some provincial waters as endangered

A male Atlantic salmon is shown swimming in salt water. (CBC)

The opening of fishing season in southern New Brunswick has some anglers concerned about Atlantic salmon, an off-limit species in waters flowing in to the Bay of Fundy.

Atlantic salmon populations in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and the inner Bay of Fundy have declined by 90 per cent or more in recent years, according to Fisheries and Oceans Canada.

But Dean Magarvey says he saw people out fishing for trout on the Hammond River who were also targeting salmon.

He said many who hooked salmon accidentally didn't know how to handle them properly.

"People taking the salmon out of the water, taking them right in to their boats and not knowing how to handle a salmon. They were out of the water for long periods of time. I've seen them drug right up onto the shore. I've seen them holding them up to have pictures taken with them."

Those caught by accident must be released immediately, but there are concerns people aren't being careful enough.

There has already been one found dead on the bank, Magarvey said.

Tom Benjamin, a Hammond River Angling Association member, said there are steps anglers can take.

"It's much easier to release the fish if you're using a barbless hook, and also if you happen to get the hook stuck in your clothing — or yourself," Benjamin said. "It's a lot easier and less painful to get it out if it doesn't have a barb on it."

The process is underway to have Atlantic salmon in some provincial waterways listed as endangered.

ď ś Sounds Fishy? It's True: Salmon is on the Rise Again!

May 2, 2012 Government scientists have now provided data on the health of wild Atlantic salmon that agrees with anecdotal information from anglers who raved about the great 2011 fishing season. Experts have confirmed that many salmon populations met, or exceeded their minimum conservation requirements in 2011. This bodes well for both the restoration of Atlantic salmon runs, and further stimulation of the strong economic upswing in recreational salmon fishing that was experienced in 2010 and 2011.

More anglers were drawn to cast for salmon along the shores of rivers throughout Atlantic Canada, and Quebec in 2010 and 2011. With more salmon anglers come more spending, and more employment in river communities. Salmon angler numbers rose from 42,000 in 2005 to 54,000 in 2010. Gardner Pinfold Consulting Economists of Halifax reported that these anglers spent more than $128 million, and supported just over 3,300 full-time equivalent jobs, primarily in rural areas where employment opportunities are often scarce. In all, about 9,200 people benefited from seasonal wages in the recreational salmon fishing industry in 2010.

It is now up to provincial, and federal governments to recognize the salmon's economic value, and provide adequate funding for restoration, and protection to ensure that the benefits of this green, sustainable industry continue. Gardner Pinfold reported that Fisheries and Oceans Canada spends $12 million on wild Atlantic salmon annually, compared to $15.7 million spent by non-government organizations that also contribute another $12 million in-kind in the form of volunteer labour in restoring salmon, and their habitat.

An important reason for the upsurge in wild Atlantic salmon numbers includes a conservation agreement that the Atlantic Salmon Federation (ASF), headquartered in New Brunswick, and the North Atlantic Salmon Fund (NASF) of Iceland negotiated with Greenland's commercial fishermen to suspend their commercial fishery that harvests North American salmon on their ocean feeding grounds. NASF and ASF provide grants to the Greenlanders for turning in their commercial salmon nets to engage in more sustainable fisheries and employment.

Canada's 2011 Atlantic salmon runs have improved because of these investments. Some of the highlights of the scientific data now available are: In Newfoundland, the Gander, Middle and Campbellton rivers all exceeded conservation requirements, the Campbellton by 495 per cent. The Torrent River on the Northern Peninsula reached 867 per cent of its conservation requirement. The Exploits River had a run of 41,000 salmon, an incredible improvement from the 1,500 salmon that existed when an enhancement program began in in the 1970s. In Labrador, the few rivers that are assessed by the government all met spawning requirements, the Sandhill by 204 per cent.

In Nova Scotia, the Margaree River met its spawning requirement by more than 500 per cent, and the River Philip had the largest run since 1984.

In New Brunswick, approximately 80,000 salmon returned to the Miramichi River system last year.

The Southwest Miramichi met 220 per cent of its spawning requirement and the Northwest about 108 per cent.

READ ENTIRE HUFFINGTON POST ARTICLE HERE

Nova Scotia

ď ś CFIA

Says Cooke Aquaculture Could Process and Market ISA Salmon from Shelburne April 17, 2012

There's no doubt the people at Cooke Aquaculture were pleased to see the month of March come to an end, but their troubles with Infectious Salmon Anaemia may not be over for several months yet, according to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA).

By the time the month ended, salmon infected with the deadly virus had been found in four individual pens; over 100,000 salmon had been euthanized; and the entire 24-pen site placed under strict quarantine while testing in the remaining pens continued.

The company chose - of its own accord - to destroy salmon found in two of the pens, for which they will receive no compensation. The second set of two were ordered destroyed by the CFIA, which will pay compensation according to the "market value" of the fish euthanized.

Cooke Aquaculture will not say what their loss has been from the salmon already euthanized. That loss would escalate rapidly into many millions of dollars if the infection is found to have spread throughout the site.

However, if additional cages of fish are ordered killed, those salmon could find their way onto your neighbourhood supermarket fish counter. An email from the CFIA touches upon this possibility.

“Since infectious salmon anaemia poses no human health or food safety risk, the facility may explore processing options where available. If processing is not an option, fish are humanely destroyed and disposed of in accordance with provincial and municipal guidelines.”

“There would be no special labelling requirements,” because “There is no human health or food safety risk associated with infectious salmon anaemia.”

Cooke Aquaculture is not anxious to share detailed information on its intentions.

Should the company process and market additional salmon ordered euthanized by the CFIA, it would save the government from running up an expenditure of millions of dollars for compensation.

“The exact number of fish and cages that have already been removed and may be removed in the future, as testing continues, is proprietary information.” “...Like most companies we are not prepared to do our business and share production information and decisions in the public domain or in the media,” says Communications Director Nell Halse in an email to the Atlantic Fisherman.

A CFIA media release does not say whether additional pens are infected, only that any more fish found to be infected by the virus will also be destroyed.

“The facility will remain under quarantine until all fish have been removed from the site and all pens, cages, and equipment have been cleaned and disinfected. This process could take months to complete,” reads the email.

The CFIA says Cooke Aquaculture is co-operating with the federal agency, and compliments the company for what it terms its “pro-active approach.”

“Their actions are an excellent example of how the industry takes their responsibility for fish health and these situations seriously.”

“We did the right thing,” [by euthanizing salmon in two pens] says Ms. Halse, “when our own testing and that of the province indicated that ISA might be present, rather than wait for CFIA confirmation.”

ď ś N.S. salmon farm told to destroy all fish Food inspection agency confirms more diseased salmon Posted: Apr 26, 2012

Some groups are asking for a moratorium on fish farms. (CBC) Cooke Aquaculture has been ordered to kill the remaining salmon at its fish farm on Nova Scotia's South Shore.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency confirms more cases of infectious salmon anaemia, a disease that affects finfish but not humans.

Cooke must destroy all of its fish and disinfect every pen, cage and piece of equipment. The facility remains under quarantine until the whole process is done, which could be months.

In February, when the virus was first suspected, the company voluntarily destroyed two cages of salmon at its Shelburne facility.

The CFIA ordered the destruction of a third pen of fish after tests confirmed the virus. Last month, the agency said even more salmon would have to be killed.

Dozens of community, angling and tourism groups have called for a moratorium on fish farms.

The Nova Scotia government has shot that down, saying it believes that the industry is good for the province.

ď ś Feds to compensate fish farm for ISA losses April 28, 2012 The federal government will compensate Cooke Aquaculture for the hundreds of thousands of salmon ordered destroyed in Shelburne this week.

The Canadian Food and Inspection Agency order the New Brunswick-based salmon farming company to destroy all the remaining fish on a farm of cages just outside Shelburne Harbour after the CFIA confirmed "additional cases" of infectious salmon anaemia.

Two pens of fish had already been destroyed in February when officials first suspected and later confirmed ISA in those cages. ISA poses no known danger to humans.

CFIA spokesman Guy Gravelle says an assessment team has visited the site to begin the process of determining the amount of compensation.

He says the team will use information from an independent business publisher to determine market value and combine that with the age and weight of the fish.

"The amounts are intended to reflect the reasonable market value that an owner could expect to receive for the fish up to the maximum of $30, as set out in the Compensation for Destroyed Animals Regulations," he said. "In addition, compensation may include costs related to the destruction and disposal of the fish."

The assessment team consisted of an industry representative, two CFIA economists and a CFIA veterinarian, said Gravelle.

The Shelburne Harbour fish farm will remain under quarantine for several months while all the fish are removed to a compost facility, and all the pens, cages and nets are cleaned and disinfected.

Nell Halse, spokesperson for Cooke Aquaculture says the site and all the sites in the Shelburne area will lie fallow until probably this time next year.

She says this situation is one reason why Cooke's likes to have several farm locations.

"It's only one farm, but this is why we have farms in New Brunswick and in different areas around Nova Scotia, and farms in Newfoundland," says Halse. "It's a lot of fish, it's a setback, but that's why we're not putting all our fish in one area."

Halse says the company's plans for further expansion in Nova Scotia remain unchanged.

"We are still hopefully going forward in the near future with plans for the hatchery for the Digby area and expanding the feedmill , and making some applications for new sites."

ď ś Wild salmon numbers in decline along Atlantic coast April 26, 2012

The number of wild Atlantic salmon is in steep decline in parts of Nova Scotia. (CBC)

The number of wild Atlantic salmon in rivers along the Atlantic coast is in sharp decline, and may be deemed an endangered species in the region.

The Sackville River is one of 63 in the region known as the Southern Uplands. Those rivers are between Yarmouth and Canso and flow into the Atlantic ocean.

"Some of the rivers have extinct runs now. There's no salmon left," Walter Regan, of the Sackville Rivers Association, said Thursday.

Regan said a big problem continues to be urban development, but perhaps the biggest problem of all is acid rain.

He said the Department of Fisheries and Oceans has failed in trying to keep salmon populations in good shape.

"To me it's a national disgrace. Where is DFO? Why has DFO cut back the Atlantic salmon budget by over 80 per cent since 1994?" Regan said.

"We need DFO, we need the federal government to come back to the table, come back to the rivers, to help the wild Atlantic salmon."

Walter Regan, of the Sackville Rivers Association, says DFO has to do more to protect the wild Atlantic salmon stock.

(CBC)

READ ENTIRE CBC ARTICLE HERE

 Salmon farming: an industry that needs to be caged May 12, 2012

Brian Wheeler, hatchery manger for Cooke Aquaculture, examines 6-month-old Atlantic salmon parr at a hatchery in Bingham, Maine in October 2008.

Serious salmon farming is coming to Nova Scotia. Wonderful news, you’ve surely heard. Lots of jobs. A few people are against it, of course, but this shouldn’t be a problem — just come-fromaways fretting about the views from their fancy properties.

If that’s how you understand it, think again.

Salmon farming has gone from being a good idea on a modest scale to a pernicious excess worldwide involving noxious chemicals, harm to wild fisheries, lavish taxpayer subsidies and unwholesome government/industry collusion.

What’s coming to Nova Scotia is what’s going awry elsewhere. The recent wipeout of salmon farms in Shelburne Harbour by infectious salmon anemia — after the entire industry in Chile was similarly wiped out — may have perked your attention. The fact that you, the taxpayer, will be paying to restore the operation should perk it even more.

Nova Scotia is late to salmon farming. Our bays are becoming available because of global warming. The fish in the first operations 35 years ago often froze. We have time, in other words, to do it right. Alas, the government, even as it prepares an aquaculture strategy, is giving little indication of that. Applications for cages have been rubber-stamped; regulations run over; a vast coalition of opponents from the commercial fishery, tourism, sports fishing and others wanting a moratorium on open-pen aquaculture until it’s all worked out can’t get the time of day from government, and so on.

Nova Scotia is the next phase of operations for Canada’s salmon farming multinational, Cooke Aquaculture, the largest in North America, which is finding things tricky in its main operations in

New Brunswick. Ditto for Loch Duart, bursting out of Scotland, that wants to set up in Eastern Shore bays and inlets.

In New Brunswick, Cooke is up for trial on 72 counts of dumping illegal substances after a twoyear investigation into dead lobsters by Environment Canada in the salmon farming areas of the Bay of Fundy. Cooke CEO Glenn Cooke and two other executives are named. Penalties are up to three years in jail or a $1-million fine per count or both.

Plus this, from recent hearings of the Senate fisheries committee in Ottawa. In 2010, the New Brunswick Fisheries Department OK’d the use of a powerful chemical called AlphaMax against sea lice in the salmon cages, after some cursory tests. Sea lice are a big problem, and they get progressively immune to the chemicals used against them. They’re also crustaceans, so poisons used against them will affect other shellfish. Suspicious agents from Environment Canada showed up, put dye in the chemical as it was being applied, and followed the plume as far as eight kilometres out, immersing caged lobsters in it as they went. The lobsters all died. A stop was put to its use.

Here’s the kicker. The Harper government is gutting the Fisheries Act and Environment Canada.

In future, the committee heard, stopping such activities will be harder, maybe impossible.

There are other problems.

The caged salmon industry trades on the image of the leaping wild salmon. In fact, the nice pink you see on farmed salmon in the stores is food dye (“lucantin pink” from BASF chemicals or “carophyll pink” from Roche pharmaceuticals). In some cases, there are antibiotics and hormones.

There was a bust-up in Britain this winter: cautions from health authorities, and a headline in the admittedly over-the-top Daily Mail that proclaimed “pink poison.”

Aquaculture was meant to supplement declining wild stocks of fish. Mostly it has. But in the case of farmed salmon, it takes four to seven kilograms of feed to make one kilogram of salmon. The feed is fishmeal from herring mackerel, anchovies, Arctic krill and others along the food chain.

Thus, it’s far more destructive than helpful to the world’s fisheries. Plus, almost invariably, wherever fish farms appear, wild salmon stocks disappear. The St. Mary’s River and others of Eastern Nova Scotia are marked waters if Loch Duart gets its way.

Not least, salmon cages are extremely polluting. It’s like a sewer outfall wherever they establish — from excess feed and feces and sometimes heavy metals, like zinc and copper, from cage defouling agents.

And the promise of jobs is largely illusory. According to Susanna Fuller, co-ordinator of the marine divisions of the Ecology Action Centre, even within aquaculture, salmon farming is near the bottom as operations become more automated. She has produced an analysis on behalf of the “responsible aquaculture” coalition. It’s available on the EAC website under “marine.” It was created for the benefit of government. “They weren’t giving us any information, so we gave them some,” she says.

The coalition, which includes most of the commercial fishery, don’t want an end to salmon farming. They want it sustainable, an addition rather than a detriment to the wild fishery — an end, for example, to “open-pen” farming in favour of shore-based pens. The companies complain this is not economically feasible. A big mouthful for an industry which, says Fuller, has a 50 per cent rate of return and is stuffed silly with subsidies.

Ireland

 Minister Seeks Views On Salmon Conservation May 1, 2012

Fisheries Minister Carál Ní Chuilín has announced a public consultation on wild Atlantic salmon conservation in the DCAL jurisdiction.

The 10-week consultation begins on May 1. It sets out a number of options on the future of commercial and recreational salmon fishing.

The Minister said: “Earlier in the year, I made clear that our wild salmon are in serious decline and face the real threat of extinction. Since then, I have introduced voluntary conservation measures for commercial and recreational fishermen to address this ongoing issue.

“As the latest stage in this process, I have announced a public consultation. This is a key part of the effort to conserve an iconic species. As we embark upon this exercise, I reiterate my call for partnership – from commercial netsmen, anglers and the wider population.

“The views of stakeholders and the public, together with other important considerations such as scientific evidence, will inform the development of salmon conservation policy and any legislation required to underpin this.

“I would urge all interested parties to make their opinions known – the more input we get the more complete a picture we will have of the public’s views on this matter.

“Salmon conservation is an issue which has already been the subject of ongoing debate and discussion. However it is vital that the public look at the proposals put forward in the consultation and make their feelings known.”

Norway

 Eco

Queen and the Green Warriors of Norway taking the fight to the Norwegian salmon farming industry!

Kurt Oddekalv and Don Staniford – Ready for battle

Scotland

ď ś Salmon health alert Scientists Issued a devastating new warning last night about the safety of Scottish farmed salmon.

They said the fish is so contaminated with toxic chemicals it should be eaten no more than three times a year.

The chemicals, which have been linked to cancer and birth defects, come from the feed used in fish farms. The findings could have a shattering impact on the ÂŁ700million-a-year Scottish salmon farming industry, which supports some 6,500 jobs.

Sales of salmon soared as farming brought prices down and the health benefits of oily fish emerged.

It has overtaken cod as the best-selling fresh fish in Britain - and 98 per cent comes from Scottish farms.

Salmon farmers there branded the latest study "deliberately misleading" last night while the Food Standards Agency said the levels of pollutants were within safety limits used by Britain, the EU and the World Health Organisation.

Its chairman Sir John Krebs said the health benefits of eating oily fish outweighed any risk.

But Dr Jeffery Foran, an American toxicologist involved in the study, said neither he nor his family would eat farmed salmon again after what he discovered.

Pollutants The project - based at the University of Albany in New York state - looked at pollutant levels in farmed and wild salmon bought in Britain, Europe and North America.

Previous small-scale studies had identified a contamination risk, but this is by far the biggest and most comprehensive study.

Researchers measured the levels of industrial pollutants - PCBs and dioxins - and agricultural pesticides such as toxaphene and dieldrin.

They examined 700 fish, some bought in London supermarkets and some direct from Scottish farms.

The highest concentrations were found in fish from Scotland and the Faroe Islands.

Dr Foran said this may be because their feed contains oil recovered from the ground-up bodies of tiny sea life harvested in the North Atlantic - a dumping ground for decades for manmade toxins. Fish from Norway also performed badly.

The study, published in the respected U.S. journal Science, concluded: "The consumption advice is that no more than one meal every four months should be consumed in order to avoid an increased risk of cancer." Even smaller amounts, it suggested, could trigger harmful effects to brain function and the immune system.

Dr Foran said: "All the compounds we were looking for are classified as probable carcinogens. The evidence from comprehensive animal studies points to a range of cancers including liver, breast, lymphatic and thyroid.

"There are a variety of other health effects, particularly in relation to PCBs. "They include reproductive and developmental effects. There are also neurological, brain function effects and immune system effects."

All the fish tested was in fillets, but the findings apply equally to smoked salmon. Almost all tinned salmon, however, is produced from wild fish which have only low levels of pollution.

"Benefits outweigh risks" Despite the startling results of the survey, the FSA said it was sticking by its advice to consumers. Sir John Krebs said: "People should consume at least two portions of fish a week - one of which should be oily like salmon.

"There is good evidence that eating oily fish reduces the risk of death from heart attacks. We advise that the known benefits outweigh any possible risks."

Scottish Quality Salmon, which represents farmers, said the researchers had been wrong to use strict guidelines drawn up by the U.S. Environment Protection Agency rather than those used elsewhere in the world.

Technical consultant Dr John Webster said: "PCB and dioxin levels in Scottish salmon are significantly lower than the thresholds set by international watchdogs".

The organisation said its members apply "the most stringent independently inspected quality assurance standards in the world".

It said feed suppliers had taken steps to minimise PCB and dioxin levels, including sourcing fish meal and oils from seas which are less polluted and switching to plant oils.

But Don Staniford of the Salmon Farm Protest Group said: "This scientific study blows out of the water the myth that farmed salmon is safe, nutritious and healthy.

"It's official - salmon is now the most contaminated foodstuff on the supermarket shelf."

Dr Dan Barlow, head of research for Friends of the Earth, said: "We have long known that farmed salmon were more heavily contaminated with toxic pollutants than their wild relatives.

"We now know Scottish-raised salmon are among the most contaminated and that the levels of contaminants may be so high as to possibly detract from the health benefits of eating fish."

Pollutants are not the only problem facing salmon farmers. Recent studies have found contamination with radioactive waste from the Sellafield nuclear plant, while there are concerns about the use of malachite green to kill parasites and infections.

There are also health fears over feeding the fish chemicals which colour their flesh pink.

Scotland's estimated 300 salmon farms produce some 160,000 tonnes of salmon a year.

Almost three-quarters of the jobs in the industry are in remote rural areas with fragile economies.

These are boosted by an estimated ÂŁ1million a week in wages alone.

 US boosts Scottish salmon exports April 22, 2012 North America has become the biggest international consumer of Scottish salmon for the first time and has helped to boost exports to a record level for the second consecutive year, new figures have shown.

Some 44,454 tonnes of salmon crossed the Atlantic last year, a 35% rise on the previous year.

It has overtaken Europe for the first time after exports stagnated in 2011 amid continuing economic uncertainty, although at 39,979 tonnes economists said the market remained strong.

Meanwhile, demand for Scottish salmon in the "high end sushi and sashimi markets" has seen exports to the Far-East increase almost tenfold, from 682 tonnes to 6,779 tonnes. The Middle East has risen from 1,340 tonnes to 1,562 tonnes, a jump of 17%.

Overall salmon exports increased by 22%, rising to 95,638 tonnes in 2011 from 78,611 tonnes the previous year.

Editorial Comment: •

The wild salmon photo on the left is not anything similar to what Scotland is exporting to unknowing customers around the globe.

•

Chemical laden and disease ridden, Atlantic salmon raised in open pen feedlots are supplied to sushi and sashimi markets where clients consume this salmon substitute

•

In the meantime, salmon feedlot industry officials threaten local governments to play by industry rules.

Seven of the top 10 markets have grown in volume and fresh Scottish salmon now reaches 64 countries worldwide.

The new figures have been revealed ahead of the European Seafood Exposition (ESE), the world's largest seafood show held in Brussels this week. It is forecast to attract over 24,000 visitors from 80 countries.

Scott Landsburgh, Chief Executive, Scottish Salmon Producers' Organisation (SSPO), said: "Exports of fresh Scottish salmon have increased five out of the last six years and have almost doubled over the last decade. With both Scottish salmon exports and global demand for Atlantic salmon at an alltime high, the sector is a major player in the export-led recovery.

"We have worked with the Scottish Government to ensure the sustainable development of production over recent years and the early results are demonstrated in these encouraging figures. We must continue to work collaboratively to ensure continued confidence and avoid any unintended consequences in the proposed Aquaculture and Fisheries Bill as this would jeopardise further investment and job creation," he added.

Rural Affairs and Environment Secretary Richard Lochhead said: "The huge popularity surge from emerging markets in the Far East demonstrates the untapped opportunities for continued growth in Scottish salmon exports."

USA Alaska

ď ś EPA's Bristol Bay mining study upsets Alaska officials May 3rd, 2012 JUNEAU -- The state of Alaska is fighting a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency study that looks at the potential impacts of mining on the world-class Bristol Bay salmon fishery.

The watershed assessment is a direct response to concerns that have been raised about the Pebble Mine project, a large copper-and-gold prospect near the headwaters of Bristol Bay. But Alaska's attorney general, in letters to EPA regional administrator Dennis McLerran, has asked EPA to stop its work, claiming, among other things, that the agency's actions are premature and an overreach.

Michael Geraghty, in a March 9 letter, said EPA has shared "little information about its purported legal authority" to conduct the study, and he raised concerns that it could lead to the agency vetoing mining activity. If EPA were to invoke a section of the Clean Water Act that allows it to restrict or bar use of certain waters for dredge or fill materials, that could have the potential to "extinguish" the state's mineral rights and leases held by others, he said. Geraghty noted that the assessment encompasses about 15 million acres of largely state-owned land, an area that he says is comparable to the size of West Virginia.

He said the state would explore "all available legal options" should EPA move in that direction.

McLerran responded nearly a month later, saying EPA is acting within its authority and that the assessment will provide "important data that will help inform future decision-making with respect to Bristol Bay..." Geraghty, in a letter dated April 17, said McLerran's reply reflected little consideration for the "significant issues" the state raised.

The Pebble project has been the subject of a heated public relations war for years. Supporters say it would bring much-needed jobs to economically-depressed rural Alaska but opponents fear it could fundamentally change the landscape and disrupt if not destroy a way of life.

The Pebble Limited Partnership, the group behind the project, on its website calls it of the large deposits of its kind in the world, with the potential of producing 80.6 billion pounds of copper, 107.4 million ounces of gold and 5.6 billion pounds of molybdenum over decades.

Pebble spokesman Mike Heatwole said the group must finish a development plan before filing for permits. He said the group agrees with Geraghty's assessment that the EPA's study is premature.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, also worries that any action taken by EPA, in response to the study, could impact other development in the region. EPA's study is intended to look at large-scale development in general, though the agency said it would study information related to Pebble since that's the most likely large-scale development in the near-term.

EPA, on its website, said it initiated the assessment in response to petitions from nine federally recognized tribes and others who urged action to protect Bristol Bay salmon. The agency also heard from others, including other tribes, who support development in the region and asked that EPA take no action until the permitting process begins.

EPA said the information gleaned as part of the assessment will inform its response to the requests.

Public meetings will be held after EPA releases its draft assessment, and a peer review panel will be convened to look over the draft and comment on it.

Oregon

ď ś Oregon asks to kill salmon-eating birds April 27, 2012

Cormorants sit on East Sand Island in the Columbia River near Chinook last year.

Don Ryan | The Associated Press Five cormorants hitch a ride on a large piece of driftwood in Oregon City, Ore., earlier this year.

GRANTS PASS, Ore. — Oregon officials were successful in getting permission to kill sea lions that feed on protected salmon trying to swim upriver to spawn. Now they want federal approval to shoot a type of seabird that eats millions of baby salmon trying to reach the ocean.

In an April 5 letter to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Oregon Wildlife Chief Ron Anglin said harassment has “proved insufficient” in controlling double-crested cormorants. He said officials want the option of killing some of the birds to protect endangered wild fish as well as hatchery fish vital to sports and commercial fishing.

Oregon needs federal approval to start shooting dozens of the long-necked, dark gray seabirds on coastal rivers because they are protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. The letter obtained by The Associated Press was a formal request to add Oregon to the 28 states authorized to kill cormorants to protect public resources, such as game fish. The Fish and Wildlife Service is updating the authorization, which expires in 2014.

Anglin said sportsmen’s groups have been pressing the agency for years to do something about the growing numbers of cormorants, and research on the millions of salmon being eaten by the big nesting colony at the mouth of the Columbia River brought the issue to a head.

“Whether it’s logging, gravel removal or the fact we’ve had estuaries constrained through dikes and road systems and everything else, they are not naturally functioning systems anymore,” he said in an interview.

“Under that kind of system, it doesn’t take much of a stressor that could have a significant impact.”

Once considered a nuisance bird, cormorants were added to the Migratory Bird Treaty Act in 1972, the same year the pesticide DDT was banned.

Like eagles and other predatory birds, cormorant numbers started to climb. Current estimates are that about 70,000 cormorants live in the West between southern British Columbia, the Mexico border and the Continental Divide, said Dan Roby, a professor of wildlife ecology at Oregon State University who is studying the birds.

The largest nesting colony in the West is now on East Sand Island, at the mouth of the Columbia, where more than 27,000 birds are blamed for eating 22.6 million young salmon last year, 15 percent of the smolts — hatchery and wild — heading to the ocean, Roby said.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is just starting work on a plan to deal with the birds.

Oregon has already shot 16 cormorants on the coast under a federal scientific permit to see how many young salmon they are eating, and is preparing an application to shoot enough cormorants on the Rogue, Umpqua and Tillamook estuaries to reduce nesting colonies there by 10 percent, said Rick Swart, spokesman for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.

READ ENTIRE DAILY WORLD ARTICLE HERE

Washington State

 Judge Redden on Saving Salmon: Tear Down Those Dams April 25, 2012

In his first interview since stepping down from the Northwest’s landmark legal case involving salmon and hydropower, U.S. District Judge James Redden says the four dams on the Lower Snake River should come down. And he makes clear his support for spilling more water to help juvenile fish.

“I think we need to take those dams down … And I’ve never ordered them you know - or tried to order them that you’ve gotta take those dams down. But I have urged them to do some work on those dams…and they have.”

The four dams on the Lower Snake that Redden refers to are the Ice Harbor, Lower Monumental, Little Goose and Lower Granite dams.

Redden is no longer in a position to exercise legal authority over how federal agencies operate the Columbia-Snake system’s hydroelectric dams and enforce environmental policy to ensure the survival of the steelhead and salmon.

But the judge, whose courtroom is in Portland, still speaks with a uniquely powerful voice on the issue; Redden is the one person charged with listening to hundreds of hours of testimony, poring over thousands of pages of legal briefs and scientific research, and then rendering his independent judgment on how to make sure the mandates of the Endangered Species Act are upheld.

That wasn’t lost on Bill Sedivy, executive director of the conservation group, Idaho Rivers United.

“By virtue of his position, Judge Redden has followed this issue and the science of this issue perhaps more closely than anyone in the Pacific Northwest,” Sedivy said, reacting to Redden’s comments. “So his position is an informed one, and we agree with him.”

In his interview Redden also defends his decision to order the Army Corps of Engineers to spill more water — a policy meant to help more juvenile salmon survive their trip to the Pacific Ocean. The move has roiled opponents who want as much water as possible to flow through the dams’ turbines to generate more hydroelectricity.

Redden says he decided to order more water spilled over the Columbia and Snake dams based on the advice of scientists. And the results –- better survival rates for juvenile salmon (pdf) -– convinced him it was the correct decision.

“I had some people call and say it just looked like a river…and they could see the fish. It was just dramatic, the results,” he says.

Redden’s dam-removal advocacy is reigniting debate over one of the most controversial questions when it comes to saving salmon and steelhead. Many commerce groups oppose dam removal. Only Congress can authorize such action.

His comments generated a swift response from Northwest River Partners, which represents port, shipping, and hydropower interests. Its executive director, Terry Flores, said she respectfully disagrees with Redden when it comes to taking down the Lower Snake River dams.

“These four dams produce 1,100 megawatts of clean, renewable energy - enough to power the City of Seattle,” she said. “And, the dams allow farmers to produce and ship food that feeds the Northwest and the world.”

The dams were constructed from the 1930s through the 1960s, mainly to aid navigation for shipping grain and to generate electricity. They pose several deadly challenges for salmon and steelhead:

Predators take advantage of the juvenile salmon’s vulnerability as they emerge from fish passages at dams.

The reservoirs force salmon to exert energy as they swim through slackwater, leaving some too exhausted to survive. The dams expose salmon to deadly turbine blades and unsafe plunges from above the dams where spillways allow them to continue around the barriers.

Save Our Wild Salmon, a coalition that has long pushed for removal of the four Snake River Dams, hailed Redden’s comments.

“Removing the lower Snake dams is the measure most likely to restore wild Snake River salmon,” said coalition member Doug DeHart, a former Oregon chief of fisheries. “The judge knows it, scientists and economists know it, conservationists know it. The only real question now is why don’t the federal agencies know it?”

In his interview, Redden discussed some of the things he’s learned through his unique role in overseeing hydro and salmon policy in the Northwest. Redden says the collision of legal, political and scientific worlds hasn’t just been a challenge for himself.

“The politics of it makes it difficult for some of the scientists, I think,” he says. “But because we have those scientists, we have made a lot of gains — many gains — in the last ten years.”

Redden’s comments came from an interview last week with EarthFix journalist Aaron Kunz for a documentary he’s preparing for Idaho Public Television, and Cassandra Profita, OPB’s Ecotrope blogger.

Idaho Public Television’s documentary on salmon for Outdoor Idaho airs this July.

Ice Harbor

Lower Monumental

Little Goose

Lower Granite

Thank you for contacting me about salmon and steelhead on the Columbia and Snake Rivers. I appreciate hearing from you and share your concern for the long-term survival of endangered salmon species.

There are 13 Endangered Species Act protected salmon and steelhead runs that migrate through the Columbia River and its tributaries to the Pacific Ocean. These salmon and steelhead runs are affected by the operation of federally owned and operated hydroelectric dams in Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana. Recovery of salmon and steelhead species listed as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act is vital to communities up and down the West Coast.

In 2008, and supplemented in 2010, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) proposed a 10-year plan, known as a "Biological Opinion" (2008/2010 BiOp). This BiOp would govern the operation of the federal hydroelectric system for the years 2008-2018 while also protecting endangered salmon. In the Northwest, federal agencies, together with state and tribal governments, worked for over three years on a court-ordered, science-based, ground-up collaborative effort to develop the 2008/2010 BiOp. On August 2, 2011, the U.S. Federal District Court in Portland, Oregon, concluded that the 2008/2010 BiOp should remain in place through the end of 2013, but directed NOAA to provide more a more specific habitat program for the term 2014-2018. The Court remanded the post-2013 term of the BiOp to NOAA to work with the federal agencies that operate the hydroelectric system – the Bonneville Power Administration, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation – together with states and tribes to develop a more specific 2014-2018 habitat program

by January 1, 2014. The Court has ordered that the collaborative process that led to the 2008-2010 BiOp shall continue for developing a more specific plan for 2014-2018, to ensure that the plan put in place not only complies with the Endangered Species Act, but also reflects an important regional collaboration. The Court also ordered that spring and summer spill will continue in accordance with previous court-ordered spill levels, as would current river flow and reservoir operations.

Saving salmon requires sound science to develop the necessary plans, and the commitment of resources and political will to implement them. We must develop a solution that fulfills our energy needs and simultaneously preserves our valuable Northwest salmon species. Decisions regarding the future of our endangered salmon stocks must be based on sound science and carefully consider all potential impacts on the state.

Thank you again for contacting me to share your thoughts on this matter.

Sincerely, Maria Cantwell United States Senator

 U.S.: Salmon revival in sight as Elwha River dams fall April 29, 2012 Elwha, Glines dams being felled to open path for thousands of salmon

OLYMPIC NATIONAL PARK, Wash. — In the wilderness of Washington state’s Olympic National Park, hydraulic hammers chip away at the Glines Canyon Dam in the largest dam-removal project in U.S. history.

The grinding knocks off chunks of concrete, slowly removing the once-imposing 64-metre structure, whose construction in 1927 on the Elwha River blocked one of the world’s most prolific salmon runs.

Fourteen kilometres downstream, workers last month removed the 33-metre) Elwha Dam, built in 1913, allowing the river channel there to flow freely for the first time in nearly a century.

The two dams, about 129 km northwest of Seattle, blocked migratory routes of salmon and steelhead trout to about 112 km of tributary habitat, in the process robbing Native Americans of income by halting a treaty-guaranteed reservation fishery.

The river teemed with thrashing pink salmon before the Elwha Dam was built to generate electricity for the nearby mill town of Port Angeles, with a current population of around 19,000, and later, to a naval shipyard in Bremerton, about 130 km away.

The Elwha Dam’s removal, completed in late March, was hailed by state Gov. Christine Gregoire as a significant environmental milestone that “shows what happens, when against many odds, a river is restored to its natural beauty.”

Supporters of the dam’s destruction say the benefits to the environment of tearing it down outweigh the loss of its aging power-generating station.

The destruction of the Glines should be finished in about a year to 18 months, ending the biggest dam demolition in U.S. history.

READ ENTIRE VANCOUVER SUN ARTICLE HERE

 Proposed site for Chehalis River dam near Pe Ell

Approximate reservoir level resulting from multipurpose dam with the Hydropower and water retention option

The reservoir behind the proposed dam (300’ high x 2,000’ long) in the headwaters of the Chehalis River in SW Washington State (USA) would inundate most everything in this photo and more – prime habitat for wild salmon, trout, elk, deer, bear, cougars, eagles and more will be forever lost.

ď ś In response to: Reaction to Critical Fish Study Mixed Clearly, additional work is needed to verify and better understand Anchor QEA's findings from the recently completed Chehalis River Fish Study.

Some areas of concern include the notion that the proposed multipurpose dam will improve Spring chinook salmon populations by 140%. It's unclear how this could occur given that (1) spawning and rearing habitat above the dam will no longer exist, (2) large wood and rocks that are both essential mainstream habitat components for chinook salmon will be blocked behind the dam and (3) siltation downstream from the dam will be increased.

Another concern is that no fish passage (upstream or downstream) is designed or budgeted for either the water retention only or the multipurpose (hydropower) options included in the Fish Study. Without fish passage, these fish will be wiped out.

The losses associated with poor fish passage (60%) and more so with no fish passage (100%) will not be tolerated. Providing effective fish passage will lead to this dam not being constructed as it would yield a benefit: cost ratio of less than 1.0, the number required in order to build

James Wilcox Publisher – Legacy Wild Game Fish Conservation International

Critical habitat for elk and other local wildlife will also be inundated by the proposed Chehalis River dam

 Wild Olympics — not much middle ground May 11, 2012

MACLEOD PAPPIDAS | THE DAILY WORLD Lake Quinault High School teacher Tracy Horn speaks in against the Wild Olympic campaign, saying it hurts the Quinault economy and that hurts schools. .

MACLEOD PAPPIDAS | East County News On the left at last night’s forum at the Bishop Center were speakers supporting the Wild Olympics campaign. On the right were opponents to the plan from a group called Working Wild Olympics, and in the middle are congressional staff workers from the offices of Sen. Patty Murray and Congressman Norm Dicks.

By Angelo Bruscas The Daily World

The Wild Olympics proposal to add wilderness designation protection to national forest land around Olympic National Park and put several Olympic Peninsula rivers on the list of “wild and scenic” streams was examined and debated on all sides last night at a spirited town hall meeting sponsored by the mayors of Grays Harbor cities.

Rex Valentine, a lifelong Grays Harbor County resident, speaking against the plan said he was mostly disappointed about the timing of the issue.

“I really don’t think we should go ahead with this in any way. We don’t need it,” said Valentine, one of about two-dozen citizens to comment on the proposal that has galvanized timber communities around the national park. “I think our area can pretty well take care of itself.”

Valentine questioned whether the proposal would result in closed roads to some of the back-country areas and wanted to know what would be done to maintain existing roads.

Commenting in favor of the proposal, Lillian Broadbent of Ocean Shores said she was concerned much of the opposition was based on “past history and not forward looking.”

“I believe this measure will go a long way toward protecting a very precious resource,” Broadbent said.

The first part of the event featured 30-minute presentations from the Wild Olympics campaign and from the group opposed to it, Working Wild Olympics, including state Rep. Brian Blake, D-Aberdeen.

It also included presentations and information by staff members from the offices of Congressman Norm Dicks and U.S. Sen. Patty Murray.

The Wild Olympics proposal recently was modified when Dicks and Murray dropped a controversial part that could have added 20,000 acres to the Olympic National Park if private landowners were willing to sell to the federal government.

PLAN OUTLINE Former Grays Harbor County Commissioner Al Carter, now working for the Wild Olympics campaign, first described how recreation and conservation groups have been working to provide more wilderness protections around Olympic National Park for more than two years.

Carter and other proponents insisted the plan already has changed or modified significantly to reflect the concerns they have heard.

“The campaign has worked very hard to address a number of other issues voiced from various stakeholders and resource managers,” Carter said.

“We have been changing this over time after public input,” added Shawn Bills, a staff member for Murray who has worked on the plan.

The plan now contains roughly 130,000 acres of forestland owned by the National Forest Service that abuts the National Park and would be designated as wilderness. It would also declare 23 rivers in and around the park as “wild and scenic.” It was initially developed by environmental groups, but Dicks and Murray have said they will back legislation to make it law, something Bills said should be drafted soon so that everyone will have the chance to review and comment on the proposal that will go before Congress.

Sara Crumb, a district manager for Congressman Dicks, assured the crowd of about 200 people that there would be no impact to existing roads in the area and that there would be no private land taken.

She and other supporters also said there would be no impact on existing hunting uses.

“Let me be very clear, there is no park expansion under this legislation,” she said.

As far as the wilderness that will be designated by the proposal, Crumb added, “We are continuing to redraw those lines to fine tune that. It is very important to our bosses to make sure we have minimal impact on timber harvest.”

HARBOR IMPACTS Bill Pickell a retired logger, forester and 45-year Harbor resident, questioned such assurances even with a modified plan. He noted that the Bishop Center where the forum was held was “built with timber dollars” and that most of the opposition group originated in Grays Harbor County.

“We passionately believe that the proposal … is not beneficial to our community,” he said to loud applause from opponents, many wearing red shirts that read, “Stop Wild Olympics Land Grab.”

Pickell said the proposal “totally ignores the last 20 years of what has happened here on the Harbor” after the federal 1994 Northwest Forest Plan curtailed logging in an attempt to preserve spotted owl habitat. Harvest levels, he said, were cut 95 percent by that decision.

“The spotted owl has been a tremendous disaster for Grays Harbor,” Pickell said. “… We have already given all we can give in this community.”

But Wild Olympics proponents argue the plan would not have a similar negative impact on surrounding communities.

“We think we can do something that protects clean water, healthy fish runs, those important resources, but does not have an impact on jobs,” Crumb said.

She read a letter from Cosmo Speciality Fibers in an effort to show that the plan would not affect the Cosmopolis pulp mill’s fiber supply. The letter noted that the Wild Olympics plan as modified would be on federal land and “our own fiber interests are not affected.”

“Cosmo Speciality Fibers recognizes the efforts made by the Wild Olympics proponents to stand before the community, state their proposal, take the full brunt of feedback and make adjustments,” the letter read. “Too often in the past, environmental actions have simply ignored community concerns. That has not been the case here.”

The Wild Olympics Campaign this week announced the findings of a new economic report commissioned by the group that concluded the draft proposal “would likely have little downside but provide significant upside for the (Olympic) Peninsula’s economy.” But the report by a group known as Headwaters Economics from Bozeman, Mont., also noted that “Grays Harbor in particular has struggled to absorb losses in timber-related industries and develop a robust service economy.”

Overall, the report found the “potential fiscal impact of proposed wilderness would be quite small” and that the entire proposal “will have little or no impact on timber jobs or the overall timber economy of the region.”

Crumb said the state’s congressional delegation sees the Wild Olympics plan as a “complement to a lot of the restoration work that already is going on.”

“Protecting these areas is very important to them,” she said.

Blake, however, called the plan “a bridge to nowhere,” in reference to the now-abandoned federal project to build a bridge over the Tongass Narrows in Alaska, a subject that became a controversial topic in the 2008 presidential election campaign.

“It’s a bridge to nowhere for recreational access, and it’s a bridge to nowhere for the economy of Grays Harbor,” Blake said.

RIVER DESIGNATIONS One of the biggest issues was how the wild and scenic designation would affect uses on the rivers in the plan, and whether that would extend downriver outside the boundaries of the proposal.

Owen Shaffner who runs Shaffner Farms in the Wynooche River valley, said he was worried the wild and scenic designation would be a stepping stone for the environmental community and the designation could eventually spread and affect his property. Other parts of rivers included in the plan are the upper reaches of the Humptulips, the Satsop, the Quinault, the Queets, Hoh, Skokomish, Bogachiel, Calawah, Sol Duc, Elwha, Graywolf, Dungeness, Dosewallips and Duckabush rivers.

Tom O’Keefe of the Wild Olympics Campaign said there are different designations for either wild or scenic portions of the rivers, and there are provisions for timber harvesting, thinning and other uses, including recreational, hunting and fishing in rivers with just the “scenic” designation as opposed to the more restrictive “wild” designation.

Rivers on the wild and scenic list are qualified under three designations, two of which allow timber harvesting near the streams and one that doesn’t, according to the congressional staffers. Asked for clarification as to which of the three would be applied to the Peninsula rivers, Bills said: “The kinks are still being worked out as to which stretches will be designated as which, but anything outside of the wilderness area will be scenic or recreational.”

Karl Spees of Clallam County echoed a popular sentiment: a distrust of the federal government and the motivation behind the Wild Olympics effort.

“This is not about the environment. I want clean air, land and water. This is about power and control and taking by the government,” Spees said, asking for a show of hands for those for and against the proposal. Far more hands went up against the plan.

But right after the impromptu straw poll, Janet Strong of the McCleary area, said she was supporting the plan as a teacher, biologist and grandmother.

“The Olympic Peninsula, the park and all the surrounding areas is a world heritage area. It’s a treasure,” she said.

Robbie Myers of Westport, said she was confused by the opposition rhetoric that Wild Olympics was a private land takeover, and she asked opponents: “What are you afraid of?” A response from behind her called out, “The government.”

“The government is us,” Myers said. “They are telling us it is not a takeover. If it was a takeover then they would have done it without asking us anything.”

Randy Ross of Aberdeen urged the congressional staffers to “hear the passion that is here tonight and take that back to your respective leaders.”

“This is a little bit of a different climate than when the spotted owl came about,” Ross said. “We actually have a group that has come to us in a public forum to ask for input. That’s almost a first. …

Let them know how we feel down here.”

Featured Fishing Photo: Jill Davis (Kodiak, Alaska)

From Jill: “It is a Coho or Silver Salmon caught on my Dry Fly the Ice Cream Cone in a Salt Water Chuck in Kodiak, Alaska.”

About Jill “I am an Adventure Guide in Alaska. I love to show people the true beauty of Alaska. I film my adventures and make videos. I am a professional Top Water Silver Salmon Fly fisherwoman, tie my own flies and give casting and technique instruction.”

Please visit my website http://www.alaskawildadventures.tv

Featured artist: Richard Mayer (British Columbia)

Spectacular scenes like this free flowing salmon river on the northern end of Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada are shared with our readers by unselfish artists to illustrate the importance of conserving planet Earth’s wild game fish and their fragile ecosystems for this and future generations.

Any one of the topics presented in the June 2012 issue of Legacy (open pen salmon feedlots, irresponsible logging practices, floodplain development, damming rivers, oil pipelines, coal transportation, mining, marine harvest practices and more) could irreversibly and adversely impact these uniquely productive areas that support wild salmon based cultures, economies and ecosystems.

Thank you, Richard, for sharing your awesome photograph of this very special place.

It’s a reminder of why we as wild game fish conservationists dedicate much of our lives to ensuring that these important places remain healthy.

Youth Conservation News

ď ś Elma challenged to help stream project April 24, 2012 This is a letter to those that live in Elma (Washington, USA). As many of you know, my son has been working on the restoration of a small stream that runs through Elma. At 14 he took on the responsibility to gain an understanding of the hydrology of McDonald Creek and the status of its fish populations. While doing this work he talked to many property owners associated with the stream and made contact with those that he did not meet personally. He explained his observation regarding fish blockages and gained historical fish habitat information from those he talked to. He has given presentations before many groups including state, county and city officials and has held public meetings to gain support for restoring the creek. His efforts were recognized by the Grays Harbor Stream Team and Chehalis Basin Fisheries Task Force which helped him secure funding for two projects to restore the lower part of the stream.

He also worked with Mark Reed Hospital to insure fish friendly design for the new hospital site and has made contact with the Washington Department of Transportation, the Puget Sound and Pacific Railroad and a new church group to enlist help in restoring sections of McDonald Creek. For the last two years (one more year to go) he planted adult coho in the stream that where supplied by the state Department of Fish and Wildlife. Now there are hundreds of coho fry throughout the stream. It looks like in the fall of 2013 for the first time in 30 years adult salmon could be returning to McDonald Creek. I am very proud of his effort.

Recently, Jarred and five members of the “Stream Team� and two of his high school friends planted trees and cut out blackberries along the stream. This is the third time Jarred has done this work to restore the habitat. This effort is long term. So, who will benefit? The hundreds of fish that could be the result of his work will grace the dinner plates of fisherman throughout the watershed. Hopefully in this day and age people realize it was from small streams associated with the rivers that gave us our coho. It was the local small streams that gave small coho fingerlings shelter before returning to the ocean. Many of these streams have been ditched, diverted, drained or used as garbage dumps for yard waste and trash. So here is an opportunity to bring back coho salmon to a tributary of the Chehalis River and to set things a little right.

Elma, how about stepping up and give my son a call, invest some time, help support this work? What this can be and what he envisions is healthy, for the community and our souls.

Ron Figlar-Barnes Elma

Fishing Tips and Tricks: Summertime King Salmon OLYMPIA CHAPTER OF TROUT UNLIMITED MAY 23, 2012 7:00PM NORTH OLYMPIA FIRE STATION 5046 BOSTON HARBOR ROAD NE

Summertime and the Fishing is Easy

Team Lowrance Boat

Capt John Keizer with Westport King Salmon

The public is invited to the May 23 meeting of the Olympia Chapter of Trout Unlimited for a presentation on fishing the ocean and Puget Sound for summer king salmon, refreshments, and fishing equipment raffle. Capt John Keizer, a well know Northwest fishing expert and leader of the Team Lowrance boat, will be the guest speaker. Invest an hour to learn where to fish, run timing, downrigger trolling, boat rigging, top lures, local secrets, and the use of electronics for catching the biggest of the salmon species. Come with your questions and get experienced answers. Program starts at 7:00pm at North Olympia Fire Station, 5046 Boston Harbor Rd NE, Olympia, Washington, USA. Bio - Capt. John Keizer is a well known outdoor writer for local fishing magazines, newspapers and national sport fishing publications; however he is best known in the Northwest as a lecturer. He began his fishing career at age 14 as a deckhand on the Westport charter fleet. Years on the ocean fisheries sparked his love of big game sport fishing. After serving in the Navy, John returned to Washington and devoted his time to fishing the waters of the Northwest, Alaska and British Columbia. His passion for introducing new anglers to the sport led to his co-founding of Salmon University. This annual seminar and its accompanying website grew in popularity over several years.

Now Capt. John has developed a new, all encompassing project aptly named SaltPatrol.com.

Conservation Video Library – “Why we fight” The Facts on Fish Farms (60:00+) Undamming Elwha (26:46) Is your favorite seafood toxic? (6:06) “Algae culture fish farm” (6:40) Pebble Mine: “No Means No” (1:15) Salmon Wars- Aquaculture, Wild Fish & The Future of Communities (6:25) Vegetarian Fish? A New Solution for Aquaculture (7:32) Everyone Loves Wild Salmon – Don’t They? - Alexandra Morton (2:53) The End of the Line (1:08) Sacred Headwaters - British Columbia, Canada (16:14) Atlantic salmon feedlots - impacts to Pacific salmon (13:53) Salmon: Running the Gauntlet - Snake River dams (50:08) Farmed Salmon Exposed (22:59) Salmon farm diseases and sockeye (13:53) Shame Below the Waves (12:37) Locals Oppose Proposed Pebble Mine (7:23) Occupy Vancouver, BC - Dr. Alexandra Morton (6:18) Farming the Seas (Steve Cowen) (55:53) Farming the Seas (PBS) (26:45) Cohen Commission – Introduction (9:52) Deadly virus found in wild Pacific salmon (1:57) A tribute by Dr. Alexandra Morton (5.35) Green Interview with Dr. Alexandra Morton (6:06) Closed containment salmon farms (8:15) Don Staniford on 'Secrets of Salmon Farming' (7:50) H2oil - A documentary about the Canadian tar sand oil (3:20) From Tar Sands to Tankers – the Battle to Stop Enbridge (14.58) Risking it All - Oil on our Coast (13:16) To The Last Drop: Canada’s Dirty Oil (22:31) Greed of Feed: what’s feeding our cheap farmed salmon (10:37) Land-based, Closed-containment Aquaculture (3:14)

Attention Conservation-minded Business Owners Many businesses around planet earth rely in part on sustained populations of wild game fish. This is true for fishing guide/charter services, resort and hotel owners, fishing tackle and boat retail stores, clothing stores, eco/photo tours, grocery stores, gas stations and many more. In fact, wild game fish are the backbone of a multi-billion dollar per year industry on a global scale.

This is why we at Wild Game Fish Conservation International offer complimentary space in each issue of “LEGACY” for business owners who rely on sustained wild game fish populations to sustain your business. An article with one or more photos about your business and how it relies on wild game fish may be submitted for publication to LEGACY PUBLISHER. Please include your business website and contact information to be published with your business article. Selected submissions will be published each month.

Sustained wild game fish populations provide family wage jobs and balanced ecosystems while ensuring cultural values. They also provide a unique, natural resourcesbased lifestyle for those fortunate to have these magnificent creatures in our lives.

Conservationists working together with the business community can effectively protect and restore planet earth’s wild game fish for this and future generations to enjoy and appreciate. This will be our LEGACY. WGFCI endorsed conservation organizations

 American Rivers  Global Alliance Against Industrial Aquaculture  LightHawk  Salmon Are Sacred  Save Our Salmon  Sierra Club – Cascade Chapter  Sportsman’s Alliance For Alaska  Trout Unlimited  Wild Salmon First