Legacy July 2012

Issue 9

July 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

You have the power!

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 Nine Consecutive Months of Wild Game Fish News

SalmonAreSacred.org

Contents Featured Topic: Infectious Hematopoietic Necrosis (IHN) 6  Salmon Aquaculture Dialogue Releases Environmental and Social Standards ...................................................... 7  Wild migrating salmon likely infected their farmed cousins in B.C., say experts ................................................... 8  Meet salmon farming's worst enemy .......................................................................................................................... 10  B.C. salmon farm takes big financial loss as virus forces cull of 560,000 fish ...................................................... 11  Quarantine violation puts farms and jobs at risk ...................................................................................................... 13  Third fish farm quarantined over virus concerns ..................................................................................................... 14  Salmon-farm industry denies risk to wild fish ........................................................................................................... 16  Salmon farms do not belong near wild salmon ......................................................................................................... 16  An Online Database for IHN Virus in Pacific Salmonid Fish: MEAP-IHNV ............................................................. 17  Viral outbreak in Cermaq farm in Clayoquot ............................................................................................................. 18  Irresponsible anti-salmon farming activists continue to put farms, jobs at risk ................................................... 20  Mainstream Canada costs unknown after Atlantic salmon virus outbreak ........................................................... 21  Salmon virus lab results expected ............................................................................................................................. 22  The public deserves the truth ..................................................................................................................................... 23  Fish-farm viruses cause for concern ......................................................................................................................... 23  Fish infections raise issue of public's right to know ................................................................................................ 24  Trying to get answers .................................................................................................................................................. 24  Keep diseased salmon out of our markets and restaurants – Get involved .......................................................... 25

Planet Earth 26  Chicago Protesters Decry Canada’s Tar Sands Oil Extraction Methods................................................................ 26  Deformed Fish Found Downstream of Tar Sands Mines ......................................................................................... 27  US Senator Maria Cantwell (Washington State): proposed Keystone XL pipeline project................................... 29  Tarsands: Before and After ......................................................................................................................................... 31  Enbridge launches multimillion-dollar ad campaign to combat B.C. pipeline opposition ................................... 32  Keystone XL Will Increase Gas Prices ....................................................................................................................... 34  104-car train hauling oil crosses Maine ..................................................................................................................... 35  On World Oceans Day, celebrate the little fish, unglamorous but essential ......................................................... 36  Accumulation and distribution of polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxin, dibenzofuran, and polychlorinated biphenyl congeners in Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar). ............................................................................................. 37  Fights brewing over massive coal-export plans for the Northwest ........................................................................ 38  Coal Exports and Carbon Consequences II ............................................................................................................... 39  Seattle opposes coal-export ports.............................................................................................................................. 40  The Truth About China's Coal ..................................................................................................................................... 41  Coal Industry Pays Fake Activists $50 To Wear Pro-Coal Shirts At Public Hearing ............................................. 42  Support restaurants that feature wild Pacific salmon: ............................................................................................. 46  “Pants on Fire” Recognition: Laurie Jensen (Mainstream Canada) ....................................................................... 48  Continued Atlantic Salmon Recovery Hinges on International Meeting ................................................................ 49 Canada 50  Budget cut overkill? Canada axes entire marine pollution program ...................................................................... 50  Salmon standards under fire ....................................................................................................................................... 51  C-38: Environmental Devastation Act ........................................................................................................................ 52  Gwen Barlee: Environmental standards should build, not erode ........................................................................... 53 British Columbia ................................................................................................................................................................. 54  “Alexandra Morton and the Battle against Disease in BC Fish Farms” by Rosa Saba......................................... 55  Dear Mr. Alf-Helge Aarskog, CEO Marine Harvest: ................................................................................................... 56  Fraser River sockeye face triple whammy of threats: new SFU study ................................................................... 58  Fisheries Act changes: Seeking the right mix between protection and development .......................................... 59  More straight shooting from Anissa Reed ................................................................................................................. 60 Ireland 61  Save Bantry Bay group accuse officials of ignoring facts ....................................................................................... 61 Scotland 62  FoI by Salmon and Trout Association shows reality of failure on sea lice control in salmon farms .................. 62 USA 64  President Barak Obama: America’s Natural Resources and Landscapes ............................................................. 64  EPA proposes new rules for muddy logging roads .................................................................................................. 65  Seafood Species Substitution and Economic Fraud ................................................................................................ 66 Alaska ................................................................................................................................................................................... 67  Bristol Bay mining would harm Alaska salmon habitat, EPA analysis says ......................................................... 67 Kentucky .............................................................................................................................................................................. 69  Even in Coal Country, the Fight for an Industry ........................................................................................................ 69 Maine .................................................................................................................................................................................... 70  Hat Trick on the Penobscot River: Fewer Dams, Same Energy, More Fish ........................................................... 70 Montana................................................................................................................................................................................ 72  Missoula City Council supports study of coal trains' effects .................................................................................. 72 Oregon.................................................................................................................................................................................. 74  Coal Train and Barge Numbers Staggering. Oregon Environmental Disaster Assured. ...................................... 74 Washington State ................................................................................................................................................................ 76  Deadly Virus Makes First Appearance in Washington Salmon Farm ..................................................................... 76  Salmon from infected pens sold for compost and, possibly, food ......................................................................... 77  IHN virus detected in Atlantic salmon farm near Bainbridge Island ....................................................................... 78  Proposed site for Chehalis River dam near Pe Ell .................................................................................................... 79  Irresponsible logging practices directly responsible for repeated catastrophic flood related damage in the Chehalis River Basin .................................................................................................................................................... 80  Our Views: Data Support Dam to Control Chehalis River Flooding ........................................................................ 81  A burning question: Should Northwest be coal-export hub? .................................................................................. 82  Wash. Gubernatorial Hopefuls Weigh In On Coal ..................................................................................................... 83  Coal trains through Washington: few benefits, much to fear .................................................................................. 84 Wyoming .............................................................................................................................................................................. 85  Wyoming delegation says China coal forum worth the trip ..................................................................................... 85 Featured Fishing Adventure: Washington’s coastal waters - ling cod and sea bass 86 Conservation Video Library – “Why we’re involved” 87 Attention Conservation-minded Business Owners 88 WGFCI endorsed conservation organizations 88

Legacy Forward

A handful of dedicated wild Pacific salmon activists in British Columbia, Canada continue to submit samples from free-swimming and pen-raised salmon to world class laboratories for testing and analysis in order to determine the presence of one or more deadly salmon diseases that could potentially impact wild Pacific salmon and their ecosystems. These sample collections and analyses are privately funded. We invite you to join with us, other organizations and caring individuals to donate to this very worthy cause.

We understand full well that it is our responsibility through Legacy 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. Please feel free to share these monthly publications with others.

Our hope 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!

It’s exciting that a growing number of recreational anglers and conservationists around planet earth are passionate about conserving 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

Featured Topic: Infectious Hematopoietic Necrosis (IHN) Aka: Oregon Sockeye Salmon Disease, Columbia River Sockeye Disease, Sacramento River Chinook Disease Outbreaks of IHN in open pen salmon feedlots sited in British Columbia, Canada and in Washington State, USA have recently been reported. Some of these articles are reprinted in this issue of Legacy.

Hundreds of thousands of these infected fish have been killed - some will be processed and sold for human consumption while others deemed to not be marketable will be composted.

Ineffective quarantines have been established around the BC pens. Of course this does nothing to contain the virus within the pens nor does it keep wild salmon smolts, herring and other wild species from swimming in and near the infected pens; thus also putting these wild species in harm’s way.

A few IHN facts: Importance Infectious hematopoietic necrosis (IHN) is a serious viral disease of salmonid fish. This disease was first reported at fish hatcheries in Oregon and Washington in the 1950s. The causative virus now exists in many wild and farmed salmonid stocks in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. It has also spread to Europe and some Asian countries. Clinical infections are most common in young fish, particularly fry and juveniles. Infectious hematopoietic necrosis can have a major economic impact on farms that rear young rainbow trout or salmon; the cumulative mortality rates on these farms can reach 90-95%. Occasional epizootics have also been reported in wild salmon.

Species Affected Infectious hematopoietic necrosis affects rainbow/ steelhead trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss), cutthroat trout (Salmo clarki), brown trout (Salmo trutta), Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar), and Pacific salmon including chinook (O. tshawytscha), sockeye/ kokanee (O. nerka), chum (O. keta), masou/ yamame (O. masou), amago (O. rhodurus), and coho (O. kisutch).

Transmission IHNV is transmitted by clinically ill fish and asymptomatic carriers. This virus is shed in the feces, urine, sexual fluids and external mucus. Transmission is mainly from fish to fish, primarily by direct contact, but also through the water. IHNV can survive in water for at least one month, particularly if the water contains organic material. This virus can also be spread in contaminated feed. The gills or the digestive tract have been suggested as the major sites of virus entry, but recent evidence suggests that IHNV may enter at the base of the fins. “Egg-associated” (vertical) transmission also occurs; whether IHNV can be present inside the egg as well as on the surface is controversial.

Invertebrate vectors may exist.

 Salmon Aquaculture Dialogue Releases Environmental and Social Standards WASHINGTON, DC, June 13, 2012 – Today, the Salmon Aquaculture Dialogue announced the completion of global standards for salmon farming. The voluntary standards are the result of a comprehensive multistakeholder process that sought innovative approaches to addressing the industry’s environmental and social impacts. The Dialogue is handing over the standards to the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC), which will oversee certification of farms.

Editorial Comment: Voluntary standards such as this are not worth the paper they are written on – This “standard” and associated certification process will in fact enable the ongoing devastation of wild fish around planet earth

“We are faced with the challenge of feeding seven billion people on a finite planet with limited resources. To succeed, food production systems have to change, including improvement in the salmon aquaculture industry” said Jason Clay Senior Vice President of Market Transformation at World Wildlife Fund (WWF), who helped to initiate the Dialogue. “Engaging with multiple stakeholders to develop environmental and social standards and voluntary certification schemes for a range of commodities is at the core of WWF’s work to transform markets and, ultimately, conserve the world’s biodiversity.”

The new standards are intended to address the key negative environmental and social impacts associated with salmon farming and allow for the economic viability of the industry, which has grown by more than 50% by volume since 2000. Impacts addressed through the standards include water pollution, sourcing of feed ingredients, disease transmission between farmed and wild salmon and labor issues on farms. “The standards will challenge the industry to improve in many areas, and they are one of many tools that must be used to ensure the health of the environment, industry, and society.” said Hernan Frigolett from Fundación Terram and a Dialogue Steering Committee member.

“The final standards represent an extraordinary accomplishment, and sets a new and unprecedented standard for responsible farmed salmon production.” said Petter Arnesen from Marine Harvest, who is a member of the Dialogue’s Steering Committee. “I look forward to seeing the results of their implementation and hope that retailers and customers will value the efforts of farms that choose to work towards certification. As an industry we are often challenged on lack of transparency and data from farms, and these standards require an unprecedented amount of transparency. Implementing the standards will therefore provide useful documentation on current environmental and social status of salmon farms and the efficacy of the standards.”

The standards-development process began in 2004 and has included more than 500 farmers, conservationists, scientists, seafood buyers, government officials, Aboriginal people and other salmon farming stakeholders.

The Steering Committee is handing the final standards and a draft audit manual to the ASC. The ASC will oversee field-testing and finalization of the audit manual. The ASC will be responsible for working with independent, third-party entities to certify farms that are in compliance with the standards being developed by participants of the eight Aquaculture Dialogues. Two members of the Steering Committee sit on the ASC Technical Advisory Group, which helps oversee implementation of the standard.

The Steering Committee that manages the salmon Dialogue is composed of individuals from both conservation and industry sectors and includes representatives from Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance, Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform, Fundación Terram, Marine Harvest, Norwegian Seafood Federation, Pew Environment Group, SalmonChile, Skretting, and WWF. For more information about the salmon Dialogue, go to www.worldwildlife.org/salmonstandards

 Wild migrating salmon likely infected their farmed cousins in B.C., say experts June 11, 2012 VANCOUVER - Observers of the decades-long argument over fish farming in B.C. can now add one more shade of grey to the debate.

Industry critics have long feared Atlantic salmon raised in open-net cages in the ocean can pass on diseases to wild salmon and as a result, jeopardize those wild stocks.

Editorial comment: Clearly, the problem is that the industry (with government backing) is raising Atlantic salmon in open pens sited in wild Pacific salmon migration routes. This irresponsible practice is destructive and is not sustainable.

You can help remove these problematic “farms” by not purchasing pen raised Atlantic salmon from your local markets and restaurants. It’s up to you!

But an outbreak of infectious haematopoietic necrosis, known as IHN, on an Atlantic salmon farm off Vancouver Island's west coast in May appears to have been caused by passing wild stocks, a reversal of the traditional arguments against the industry.

Instead of harming wild stocks, the May outbreak actually led to the quarantine of Mainstream Canada's Dixon Bay farm, north of Tofino, the cull of more than 560,000 young Atlantic salmon, and fears of a larger outbreak industry-wide.

The all-clear bell was rung by the BC Salmon Farmers Association on Friday, when it announced that independent tests for the virus on all active Atlantic salmon farms in the province have now come back negative.

But farms will continue to watch and test their fish, the association announced.

"Any infectious agent has the potential to cross from fish to fish, and some of those fish might be outside the pen and some of those fish might be inside the pen," said Gary Marty, a veterinarian and fish pathologist for B.C.'s Ministry of Agriculture.

"We have to assess each infectious agent individually."

Native to Pacific waters, IHN can cause death in young finfish raised in freshwater hatcheries, juveniles recently introduced to sea water and older finfish raised in sea water, states the Canadian Food Inspection Agency on its website.

About 20 species found in the natural environment, including pink, chum, coho, sockeye and Atlantic salmon, as well as Pacific herring, are susceptible to infection, as well, the agency adds.

But Marty said while Pacific salmon have developed a natural resistance to the virus, which means they can be infected but not show any signs of infection or even die, Atlantic salmon have not.

"It basically kills the blood forming cells in the fish, and that includes white blood cells so the fish cannot fight disease, and red blood cells which carry oxygen," said Marty. "Both things essentially shut down. The fish dies."

Vaccines for IHN are available, but Mainstream Canada did not vaccinate fish at the company's Dixon Bay farm, said Marty.

Fears about IHN and its impact on the industry emerged for the first time in nearly a decade when Mainstream Canada reported May 15 that third-party tests results had detected it at a farm, later identified as Dixon Bay.

The food inspection agency quarantined the site, and the company announced plans to cull its salmon, which were then transported to a composting facility in Port Alberni, B.C. Two other B.C. farms were also quarantined briefly, but those quarantines were lifted after followup testing failed to detect the virus.

In the midst of the scare, the industry announced heightened bio-security procedures to prevent the spread of the virus from farm to farm.

While the cost of the outbreak and scare to Mainstream remains unknown, it won't be minuscule, Laurie Jensen, a Mainstream spokeswoman, said previously that in addition to the cull, the company had to absorb the costs of cleaning the site and replacing equipment like nets that couldn't be disinfected.

Larry Hammell, a professor of aquatic epidemiology at the University of Prince Edward Island, said he's predicting more outbreaks because the virus cycles every seven to 10 years.

"Once you get it in this one exposure, it probably means that there's wild populations out there that have a slightly higher infection prevalence this coming season," he said.

The origins of the virus remain uncertain, said Sonja Saksida, executive director and researcher at the Centre for Aquatic Health Sciences, in Campbell River, B.C..

Based on studies of its genotype, though, she suspects it came from sockeye salmon migrating from Washington state.

"The more likely source is some population of out-migrating sockeye salmon smolts because, I mean, this is, you know, we generally call it sockeye disease," said Saksida, who studied the last outbreak of IHN between 2001 and 2003.

"It's a very common pathogen affecting sockeye salmon."

She said the virus can spread through feces and mucus, and then it becomes a problem for other Atlantic salmon farms, much like the 2009 outbreak of avian influenza in B.C.'s Fraser Valley poultry industry.

Thousands of birds were destroyed because of that outbreak.

In contrast, the last outbreak of IHN led to the destruction of about 19 million Atlantic salmon, said Saksida.

With one outbreak under control, Saksida suggests now may be the time to do a broader examination of what viruses are in the marine environment.

She said some studies are taking place by federal fisheries officials in the Strait of Georgia and the Discovery Islands, but they need to be expanded.

"Obviously water transmission of pathogens can be a problem," she said. "So if you do have a problem you want to know how something's going to move in the water.

"But you also need to know what's out there. So I think doing some kind of wild fish surveillance and trying to figure out what they have, when they have it, if they have it is really important."

 Meet salmon farming's worst enemy May 26, 2012 A B.C.-based biologist stunned U.S. scientists last year with trace findings of a virus usually linked to farmed fish in wild salmon.

BROUGHTON ARCHIPELAGO, B.C. — She's perched in her boat near a fish farm, talking about diseases, the kind that might escape and kill wild salmon. Then she spies a worker peeling toward her in a boat.

Alexandra Morton, bane of North America's salmon farms, runs a hand over tired eyes and awaits a confrontation.

It's no surprise this eco-provocateur is again in someone's sights.

The biologist has spent countless days just like this — zipping through a pristine jumble of uninhabited bays and islands to check on Canada's remote fish farms. Few activists try harder to convince the globe that salmon farming threatens the marine world. Few are taken as seriously — much to the chagrin of her many enemies.

It was Morton who stunned U.S. scientists last fall with trace evidence found in wild salmon of a virus that killed millions of farmed fish in Chile.

Researchers from Washington state to Washington, D.C., scrambled to grasp the risks of so-called infectious salmon anemia (ISA), a virus typically linked to fish farms. Congress demanded federal agencies test American fish. Wild-salmon lovers seethed. Leaders of British Columbia's $500 milliona-year salmon-farming industry scoffed — in part because they so distrust Morton.

Then, just last week, another virus raced through salmon farms at Vancouver Island and Bainbridge Island, forcing operators to kill hundreds of thousands of farmed fish on both sides of the border.

Unlike ISA, this virus, infectious hematopoietic necrosis (IHN), is native to wild Northwest salmon, but experts worry that the clustering of nonnative Atlantic salmon in farm-fish net pens could amplify the pathogen and make it more virulent or cause it to mutate into something far more deadly for wild stocks.

Now, as researchers in both countries struggle to determine if a wild fish-killing pathogen is here or coming, Morton — a Connecticut native and former killer-whale biologist — is everywhere. She's testifying in Canadian court, blogging about viruses, shuttling about in her sea dory. She gathers farmed-fish heads at ethnic groceries and travels the province teaching groups to sample fish. She hunts for clues to support her belief that Atlantic-salmon farms are big trouble.

Her single-mindedness, bombast and memorable white mane make her a target for an industry sensitive to criticism. (One company sued an activist friend of hers for creating cartoon cigarette packs with the slogan "Salmon Farming Kills Like Smoking.")

Morton has heard rumors fish-farm workers keep pictures of her boat thumb-tacked to their bulletin boards. The B.C. Salmon Farmers Association dedicates a Web page to correcting Morton's statements. The B.C. government is considering making it a crime for anyone to release — or a journalist to publish — information about disease outbreaks, including on salmon farms. Fines could reach $75,000.

READ ENTIRE SEATTLE TIMES ARTICLE HERE

ď ś B.C. salmon farm takes big financial loss as virus forces cull of 560,000 fish May 18, 2012

Editorial Comment: Canadians, not Mainstream Canada/Cermaq, will suffer financially from this deadly salmon disease outbreak as Mainstream Canada/Cermaq will be reimbursed by Canada for all losses (product, infrastructure, etc.).

In the meantime, wild Pacific salmon from Canada and the United States swimming in or near these pens will continue to become infected with IHN and other deadly salmon diseases directly associated with open pen salmon feedlots

Atlantic salmon farms around Vancouver Island have begun testing and formed a special outbreak management team after a virus outbreak at one farm led to a site quarantine and the cull of more than half a million fish.

VANCOUVER - Atlantic salmon farms around Vancouver Island have begun testing and formed a special outbreak management team after a virus outbreak at one farm led to a site quarantine and the cull of more than half a million fish.

The farm most seriously affected by the virus is one run by Mainstream Canada, which confirmed tests conducted earlier this week showed the presence of infectious haematopoietic necrosis at its site on the Island's west coast, located at Dixon Bay, north of Tofino, B.C. A second farm announced Friday afternoon that the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans has identified a "low positive result" for the same virus in coho salmon samples on a Sunshine Coast farm.

Grieg Seafood said further tests will be conducted next week.

Stewart Hawthorn, a spokesman for Grieg Seafood, said in a statement the low-positive test does not confirm the presence of the virus and additional tests will be conducted next week.

He said the test result is not entirely unexpected because the virus occurs in natural and wild salmon, and coho are local and wild.

Hawthorn said the company's fish are not showing any signs of disease or significant or unusual mortality, and out of caution Grieg is increasing its internal monitoring and implemented a voluntary isolation protocol.

Mary Ellen Walling, executive director of the BC Salmon Farmers Association, said an outbreak management team is now in place on Vancouver Island after the Mainstream incident and includes members from across the industry.

She said companies are ensuring heightened bio-security procedures are in place and are reviewing visitor, boat and plane traffic to farms and are now taking samples and testing for the virus on a priority basis.

"I don't think it's started yet on the east coast of the island but it will," she said. "The intention is that all of the farms will be tested."

Walling said the last few years have been challenging for the industry because of increased competition from Chilean farmed salmon in the U.S. market.

As a result, prices have dropped, she said, and B.C. remains the highest-cost producer in the world.

But she said the outbreak is expected to have little impact on the market because the virus does not cause any human-health concerns and demand remains high for B.C. product.

According to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, the virus exists in B.C. coastal waters and does not affect human health or food safety, but it does pose a risk to aquatic animal health and the economy.

"We are taking samples at all our farm sites in Clayoquot Sound and on the east coast of Vancouver Island," said Laurie Jensen, a Mainstream spokeswoman. "This is a precautionary measure only. We want to know what's going on."

Mainstream Canada, which is headquartered in Oslo, Norway, is a subsidiary of Cermaq and also operates in Chile, Canada, Scotland and Vietnam.

The company produces 25,000 tonnes of fish in B.C. annually.

Jensen said she suspects the virus came from wild salmon, and the company has already begun to remove and cull about 560,000 Atlantic salmon, all less than a year old, from the Dixon Bay farm.

Just how much the cull will cost the company is not yet known and won't be known, said Jensen, until the farm has been depopulated and disinfected.

Equipment, like nets, that can't be disinfected will have to be destroyed, too, said Jensen.

She expected the depopulation and cull to have a significant impact, adding the company will probably leave the farm to fallow, without restocking, for at least three to four months.

"Right now, this is not about the cost. This is about the fish. We want to keep the fish surrounding the area healthy, we want to keep the oceans healthy, we want to, as humanely as possible, remove these fish," she said.

The company is taking the outbreak seriously because it doesn't want to see the virus spread, but it doesn't foresee any layoffs in the future, said Jensen.

READ ENTIRE GLOBAL TORONTO ARTICLE HERE

 Quarantine violation puts farms and jobs at risk May 18, 2012 The quarantine around our (Mainstream Canada) Dixon Bay farm was deliberately broken today by Tofino filmmaker and anti-salmon farming activist Warren Rudd, who was collecting video footage on behalf of CHEK TV. This deliberate violation of quarantine puts farmed salmon at other sites at risk. The actions of the activist and Tofino Water Taxi, which transported him, are now being investigated by the RCMP and by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA).

Mainstream Canada is considering legal action against the parties who violated the quarantine.

Salmon farming provides approximately 160 jobs on the West Coast of Vancouver Island, and contributes millions of dollars to the local economy. The actions of Rudd and others could jeopardize these positive economic benefits.

As Mainstream Canada announced on May 17, the site has been quarantined to control all movements in and out of the area. The purpose of quarantine is to minimize any risks of spreading the IHN virus from one location to another. This quarantine was ordered under the authority of the CFIA. The CFIA's quarantine is under the authority of the Health of Animals Act and the Health of Animals Regulations. Any violations can be prosecuted as a criminal offence.

Mainstream Canada reminds all community members, media, activists and boats to respect the quarantine around Dixon Bay farm.

More

regarding

discovery

of

IHN

by

Mainstream Canada and American Bounty Seafoods: • Candid Canada: Infectious Disease Going Viral!

• CHECK News video: Fish Farm Quarantine • B.C. salmon farm: virus forces cull of half million fish • Video by Alexandra Morton: Mainstream Canada: Offloading infected dead pen-raised salmon • Video by Anissa Reed: Mainstream Canada Offloading infected dead-pen raised salmon • Virus forces Peninsula company to destroy salmon stock

Above: Warren Rudd and the boat he hired violated the quarantine around our Dixon Bay farm site on May 18, despite being warned not to do so. Their actions have put our other Tofino area farms, our jobs, and the local economy at risk.

Dixon Bay Mainstream farm. (Photo: Alexandra Morton)

ď ś Third fish farm quarantined over virus concerns May 28, 2012 The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) has quarantined a second Mainstream Canada farm.

This makes for three quarantined salmon farms in the province of British Columbia in just two weeks over fears about the presence of haematopoietic necrosis virus (IHN).

Mainstream Canada said this farm is located at Bawden Point off the west coast of Vancouver Island, north of Tofino. CFIA made the move after tests results gave a "low-positive" result for IHN, The Canadian Press reports.

The first quarantine was two weeks ago also at a Mainstream farm north of Tofino. The firm was forced to destroy more than 560,000 juvenile Atlantic salmon.

In addition, CFIA quarantined a farm owned by Grieg Seafood for the same reason. The company announced on Friday that independent laboratory tests for IHN at a farm on the Sunshine Coast came back negative.

READ ENTIRE FIS ARTICLE HERE

This iconic North American Bald Eagle relies on sustainable wild Pacific salmon.

This white “Spirit Bear� and many other wild animals also rely on sustainable populations of wild Pacific salmon and their fragile ecosystems.

ď ś Salmon-farm industry denies risk to wild fish May 25, 2012 Re: 'Virus raises question about salmon farming' (Your Letters, May 23) Mr. Hancock offers no facts to support his opinions about salmon farms and fish health. I would like to provide some to correct his inaccurate statements about this issue.

The virus detected at our Dixon Bay farm north of Tofino was IHN, a virus which is naturally carried in the Pacific Ocean by Pacific salmon and herring. It is low risk to wild salmon, who often carry the virus with no signs of disease.

However, we farm Atlantic salmon, which are not native to B.C. and have not had hundreds or thousands of years to evolve a natural resistance to IHN like their Pacific cousins. That is why IHN is high risk to Atlantic salmon.

Our farmed salmon are regularly screened and tested for a variety of viruses and diseases, using good samples collected and tested under a proper chain of custody.

It is precisely this fully-documented, scientific process which allowed us to detect IHN in our farmed salmon and act quickly and decisively to prevent the virus from spreading to other farms.

Finally, every single one of the 560,000 fish at our Dixon Bay farm were removed in contained harvest boats, transported to Port Alberni along a path avoiding all other salmon farms, vacuumed out of the hold into special self-contained trucks and disposed of at a composting facility. There was no risk to wild salmon throughout this entire procedure. All of these facts have been posted on our website.

ď ś Salmon farms do not belong near wild salmon May 29, 2012

Re: 'Salmon-farm industry denies risk to wild fish' (Your Letters, May 25) Grant Warkentin for Mainstream Canada states that "- we farm Atlantic salmon, which are not native to B.C. and have not had hundreds or thousands of years to evolve a natural resistance to IHN like their Pacific cousins.

That is why IHN is high risk to Atlantic salmon."

He makes the case that Atlantic salmon do not belong in Pacific waters. The outbreak of IHN is evidence of that. Where nature will self-regulate to deal with viruses and parasites, this industry has introduced an entirely unnatural practice into the marine waters of B.C.'s most vital species.

Salmon farms do not belong near wild salmon. Those within the salmon farming industry repeatedly say that they are learning as they go, but they fail to acknowledge that they are putting wild salmon at risk.

It is infuriating and sickening that this industry has been experimenting with and introducing unknown factors that pose a lethal threat to wild salmon. Globally salmon farming has proven to be fatal. There are so many things wrong with this industry that it leaves one to question a government that would rather protect such an unsustainable and dangerous industry than invest in protecting the wild salmon that are the lifeblood of B.C. Elena Edwards Quadra Island

 An Online Database for IHN Virus in Pacific Salmonid Fish: MEAP-IHNV North American IHN Virus “IHN virus is a well known pathogen of salmonid fish, with a host range including many species of salmon and trout (Bootland and Leong, 1999).

Taxonomically it is the type species of the genus Novirhabdovirus, within the virus family Rhabdoviridae, which includes other well-known animal viruses, such as rabies virus and vesicular stomatitis virus.

IHNV originated in western North America, where it is currently endemic to most Pacific watersheds that contain salmonid fish. In the 1970s and 1980s, IHNV was introduced to Europe and Asia by transport of virus-contaminated fish eggs.

IHNV can be transmitted either horizontally through waterborne virus, or vertically as eggassociated virus. Infection in fish can result in lethal necrosis of the hematopoietic tissues of the kidney and spleen, and disease outbreaks can cause as much as 90 percent mortality depending on various host, virus, and environmental factors (fig. 2).

IHNV is a significant impediment to rainbow trout farm culture and to hatchery and net-pen programs that grow salmon and trout.

Due to the economic impact of IHNV, spawning adult and juvenile fish in most cultured salmonid populations in western North America are routinely surveyed for IHNV. Several molecular epidemiology studies of North American IHNV field isolates have revealed three major genetic subgroups of IHNV, designated U, M, and L because they occur in the upper, middle, and lower parts of the IHNV geographic range in North America (fig. 3; Emmenegger and others, 2000; Troyer and others, 2000; Emmenegger and Kurath, 2002; Garver and others, 2003; Kurath and others, 2003; Troyer and others, 2003; Rudakova and others, 2007).”

ď ś Viral outbreak in Cermaq farm in Clayoquot May 20, 2012 On May 15 Mainstream, owned by Cermaq, which is largely owned by the Norwegian government announced their farm at Dixon Island, Clayoquot Sound is positive for IHN virus. This is different from the European ISA virus I have been tracking. IHN virus is local to BC, but what happens to it in salmon farms is highly unnatural. Mainstream reports "Third-party lab PCR test results have shown the presence of the virus. Sequencing has confirmed the presence of IHN virus in these fish." No one I know has seen these results. Since reading all their emails posted now as Cohen Exhibits I find it impossible to believe government and the salmon farming industry when they talk about viruses so, I need to see the evidence. It could be IHN in that farm and if it is we need to know what strain and what it is doing to the wild salmon going to sea past that farm, or it could be something else.

IHN is dangerous enough to be an internationally reportable disease to the OIE (similar bovine tuberculosis and the ISA virus).

Dr. Kyle Garver who is presumably looking at this outbreak for DFO, testified at the Cohen Inquiry into the Decline of the Fraser Sockeye that a farm with 1,000,000 fish could shed 650 billion viral particles/hour. The Norwegian salmon farm at Dixon has 1/2 that many fish so 320 billion viral particles per hour are potentially coming off this farm into the narrow channel where the Province of BC has given it a license of occupation.

READ ENTIRE POST BY DR. ALEXANDRA MORTON HERE

Anissa Reed: May 22, 2012 “Industrial Disease” “The Ocean King came in low in the water loaded with the diseased farmed Atlantic from Mainstream.

They brought these trucks in and were sucking them out from 8am ‘til noon when we left.”

ď ś Irresponsible anti-salmon farming activists continue to put farms, jobs at risk May 22, 2012

Mainstream Canada Newsletter The actions of anti-salmon farming activists who continue to disregard biosecurity measures are putting salmon farms and jobs at risk.

Mainstream Canada employees and contractors who were disposing of IHN-infected fish from Dixon Bay farm in Port Alberni were harassed by anti-salmon farming activists Tuesday morning. Some of them violated biosecurity protocols in place at the offload and disposal site.

"It is frustrating and concerning that anti-salmon farming activists choose to ignore biosecurity protocols," said Laurie Jensen, Communications and Corporate Sustainability Manager for Mainstream Canada. "By being careless about biosecurity they could end up spreading virus and disease themselves."

Mainstream Canada has been working diligently with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and following the agency's advice to maintain strict biosecurity while we dispose of our fish. The company is concerned about any violations of these measures.

"Anti-salmon farming activists only seem concerned about advancing their anti-salmon farming ideology. Their actions could put millions more fish at other farms and thousands of jobs at risk," Jensen said.

The IHN virus detected in Mainstream Canada's fish at Dixon Bay farm poses no risk to wild salmon or humans.

"However, if the virus is not quickly and properly contained, as we have been doing, it could become a bigger problem, especially if people do not respect the biosecurity measures we have in place," Jensen said.

Activists in Port Alberni included the same individual who ignored Mainstream Canada's requests to stay away from Dixon Bay farm for biosecurity reasons.

The fish disposal has been undertaken following Canadian Food Inspection Agency protocol. The fish have been contained every step of the way. They were taken out of Dixon Bay farm in secure well boats; transported to Port Alberni along a route which went nowhere near any other farms; and were offloaded and transported to the composting facility in secure containers.

ď ś Mainstream Canada costs unknown after Atlantic salmon virus outbreak May 23, 2012 A virus outbreak has Mainstream Canada killing off 560,000 Atlantic salmon at its Dixon Bay farm north of Tofino, but it's too soon to know the financial costs of the outbreak, a company spokesperson said Friday.

Mainstream Canada announced early last week that the IHN (Infectious Haematopoietic Necrosis) virus had been detected in two of the farm's 10 net pens. On Thursday, the company announced it had begun the process of killing all the Atlantic salmon, or 'depopulating' the farm, a process expected to take four to five days. Company spokesperson Laurie Jensen said the fish had been growing at the farm since last fall and were roughly one kilogram in size. She said Mainstream would normally grow them out to the five kilogram range.

She said the financial impacts of the IHN outbreak aren't yet known.

"It's always speculative as to how much profit could have been made, but of course that would depend on the price we got for them and everything," she told the Courier-Islander. "Until we do the final clean-up, depopulation, everything, we really won't know a final cost.

Certainly, it's more than we have expected to spend on that site but I can't really give a dollar figure right now.

"But it's not about the cost. It's about healthy fish and healthy oceans. We're not hiding anything. We want everyone to know. There's no human health risk here. There's no risk to the wild salmon here.

The only risk is to the Atlantic salmon so we're taking this seriously."

Open net pen opponents disagree. They say fish farms can amplify salmon diseases to the detriment of wild salmon. Mainstream says studies show the risk is low for transmitting the virus from fish in a high-density situation (a farm or hatchery) to fish in the wild.

"Fish removed from the site will be euthanized and transported to a composting facility disposal," Mainstream said Thursday. "Strict biosecurity protocols will be followed during all stages of this process. The site is currently under the authority of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) which has quarantined the farm and is overseeing the depopulation and disposal process."

Mainstream said the salmon were to be seined from the pens into a harvest boat, euthanized and removed from the site. Under strict biosecurity procedures, the fish will be taken to an approved composting facility."

The total mass from the fish kill comes to roughly 1.2 million pounds of dead fish. Isn't that a lot of fish to dispose of, Jensen was asked.

"Not really," she said. "That's why it's called depopulation.

It's not like they're all taken up in one load and dumped somewhere. They're taken up over days, a few pens at a time. It's calm, cool and collected. It's very organized and very methodical.

"I guess in the scheme of things it's a large amount, but they're not full-production fish so it's actually not as big as one might think. They're early in the production cycle."

READ ENTIRE CANADA.COM ARTICLE HERE

 Salmon virus lab results expected May 25, 2012 Grieg Seafood is expecting lab results within days after last week’s discovery of the IHN virus at a coho salmon farm in Jervis Inlet, as are concerned officials.

“We expect to get results back late this week or early next week,” said Stewart Hawthorn, managing director with Grieg Seafood. “The lab’s pretty busy just now because of the load of samples being taken out of our area.”

Grieg Seafood said it first discovered IHN, or more precisely infectious haematopoietic necrosis, at its Ahlstrom Point farm, May 18, during a routine test of its coho salmon stocks.

That discovery led the company to impose a voluntary quarantine, one that was followed up with an official lockdown by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency on May 22.

As fish native to the province, coho salmon are generally less at risk for contracting IHN compared to their Atlantic counterparts. This is due to their having a stronger immunity to the virus, according to fish pathologist Gary Marty of the B.C. Animal Health Centre.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency will have the final say on what happens to the farm’s fish population should lab results yield a positive result.

Last week, a Tofino fish farm culled its Atlantic salmon population after discovering IHN at a Clayoquot Sound farm.

Besides destroying the fish, another possible solution could simply be to send them to market for human consumption, as the virus is not dangerous to people.

“Mainstream [owners of the Clayoquot Sound farm] characterized the Atlantic salmon outbreak as code red. When we see it in coho salmon, which are native to B.C, it’s maybe code yellow,” Marty said. “We’re concerned, we’re not sure. We need to confirm it before we move further.”

Marty added that officials will also keep a close eye on nearby operations, like Totem Sea Farms, which has a licence for St. Vincent Bay that includes Atlantic salmon, among others.

For salmon virus researcher Alexandra Morton, worries are more focused on the possibility that an outbreak could have disastrous consequences on the sockeye currently emerging from the Fraser River.

The outbreak could indicate that vaccines guarding against IHN have lost their effectiveness, Morton said.

“Finding IHN in coho is alarming because they aren’t really known to be affected by it,” she explained. “If this thing has mutated so that the vaccine isn’t working, we really don’t know what it’s going to do.”

Novartis, a major producer of IHN vaccines, could not be reached for comment by press time Thursday morning.

“More vaccines are in the pipeline, with researchers actively pursuing several viral pathogens of salmon and other fish species,” read a section of their website on IHN. Grieg Seafood said that as of May 23, no signs of any fish health concerns had been documented at the site, including unusual death rates.

ď ś The public deserves the truth May 23, 2012 To BC Salmon Farmers Association: A few weeks ago I saw you respond negatively to a letter asking for independent testing of your farmed salmon.

Now two of your farms have tested positive for the highly contagious IHN virus, resulting in the ordered killing of your stocks.

Without any proof you place the blame of your outbreaks entirely on wild fish, while deceptively proclaiming IHN won't harm wild salmon.

Those studies you quote were done on adult salmon, yet you don't mention numerous studies showing IHN to be deadly to juvenile wild salmon, you know, the innocent ones now swimming past your filthy infected farms.

While world leading labs are confirming a myriad of "European strain" diseases from store bought BC farmed salmon, you not only deny those findings as well, but arrogantly still refuse independent testing!

This has many of us questioning your ethics or lack thereof.

Since your main argument with independent lab results is about "foul play" or "contamination" why don't you accompany your fish to the lab, just to make sure there's no hanky panky going on?

If your fish are as squeaky clean as you claim then there should be no problem.

The public and wild salmon deserve to know!

Angela Koch

ď ś Fish-farm viruses cause for concern May 30, 2012 I am concerned about the outbreak of viruses in salmon fish farms on our coast. I find it disturbing that some of these diseased fish will be sent to market and end up on someone's dinner plate, likely without them even knowing what they are eating.

I have two questions that I am hoping somebody can answer: How does one quarantine a fish farm in an open pen in the Pacific Ocean when the water is moving constantly from tides, wind and currents?

I would also like to know if the federal government will compensate Mainstream Canada for the fish that were destroyed. I would be awfully disappointed to see my tax dollars going to this cause.

Carolyn Wold Victoria

ď ś Fish infections raise issue of public's right to know May 30, 2012 Re: Another B.C. fish farm is quarantined following detection of lethal virus, May 28 With the cull of over a half-million salmon from a Mainstream fish feed-lot near Tofino, it is time we warn the public what is in some of the food they may buy at local supermarkets.

While the Mainstream farm has been emptied, and fish destroyed, two more outbreaks have been reported in B.C. and one in Washington state.

A farm in Sechelt has been quarantined for the IHN virus, as has a second facility in Tofino. Another farm in Washington state has also tested positive for the virus.

What is disturbing about these facilities is their intention to sell the infected fish to the public, rather than cull them.

As a result, you can expect infected fish in local supermarkets, with no warning labels.

The government and the aqua-culture industry say the virus is not known to be harmful to humans, but at one time neither was the avian flu virus until it had a chance to mutate in overcrowded factory conditions. I don't understand how the Canadian Food Inspection Agency can allow this product to be sold to an unsuspecting public.

In addition, the B.C. government has a law in front of the legislature which would restrict the dissemination of information on diseases on farms in B.C., with disclosure penalties up to $75,000 and two years in jail. Once this is passed, information on this questionable industry will dry up.

Jim Rosgen Sointula

ď ś Trying to get answers May 30, 2012 In Mary Ellen Walling's response to "The actual truth" she states that Ms. Koch never contacted the BC Salmon Farmers directly for answers. I cannot speak for Koch's attempts to contact Ms. Walling or getting answers from the BCSFA, but when I tried I never received one response to my phone messages. The one time I did get someone on the phone the fellow was very suspicious of every question asked, wanting to know who I was "with". He could/ would not answer any of my questions, not even as to the safety of the salmon farm structures in the event of a tsunami. (Could happen.)

My limited experience in attempting communication with the BCSFA is that they refuse to answer questions they have not been trained to answer and quickly kill communication by deferring to the BC Salmon "Facts" website.

While the salmon farm PR people are praising the swiftness of their response to the deadly IHN outbreak, they are negligent or oblivious to the dangers of what such an outbreak is capable of. Suppose for a moment that rather than IHN, which the BCSFA excuses as being "harmless" to wild salmon, that this outbreak were the highly lethal and contagious ISAv? Or piscine reovirus? HSMI? Why should we believe that the BCSFA will be transparent about that when they've denied fish samples to any scientist who does not work for salmon farmers and when the CFIA considers this all to be a "PR war"?

Elena Edwards Quadra Island

ď ś Keep diseased salmon out of our markets and restaurants – Get involved

1. Click on the above and sign this petition today 2. Click below to learn more about SalmonAreSacred.org Learn how you can help protect and restore wild Pacific salmon

Planet Earth

 Chicago Protesters Decry Canada’s Tar Sands Oil Extraction Methods May 18, 2012

With ties to Occupy Chicago about a dozen protesters covered themselves in fake oil and performed a symbolic death in front of the Canadian Consulate in downtown Chicago Thursday evening.

Those who “died” were joined by more than 100 supporters in protesting Canada’s extracting of crude oil from the Alberta Tar Sands, which is the world’s third-largest deposit of oil. The protesters pointed to a recent report which said the oil derived from the tar sands could emit 10 to 12 times more greenhouse gases than conventional crude oils, and the Chicago Tribune recently reported that the increased level of emissions could be as high as 22 percent.

“Canada and America are colluding on getting a pipeline running from Alberta to here for processing tar sand, which it’s already been shown is going to release so much more carbon dioxide,” said Chris Ivanovich, an “oil”-covered protester from Chicago.

Ivanovich and other protesters at the rally also said the extraction methods used “requires the devastation of boreal forest the size of England.”

READ ENTIRE ROGRESS ILLINOIS ARTICLE HERE

ď ś Deformed Fish Found Downstream of Tar Sands Mines June 14, 2012

Chief Allan Adam, the head of the Fort Chipewyan community in the far north of Alberta, has been fishing in Lake Athabasca for all of his life. His father, now 76 years old, has been fishing there even longer. And neither of them has seen anything like what they pulled from the lake on May 30: two grotesquely deformed, lesion-covered fish.

= When they caught the sickly fish, each taken from a different part of the lake, the two Indigenous men immediately figured that it had something to do with the massive tar sands oil mines that lie about 300 kilometers upstream along the Athabasca River. “We have been putting two and two together, and raising concerns about the fast pace of [tar sands] development,” Chief Adam told me in a phone interview this week. “The tailing ponds are leaking and leaching into the rivers, and then going downstream to Lake Athabasca.”

Here in the United States, public opposition to the tar sands has centered on the proposed Keystone XL pipeline: how it could jeopardize the fresh water supplies of the Ogallala Aquifer and how it would increase greenhouse gas emissions by keeping us locked into the petroleum infrastructure. For now, those worries remain hypotheticals. But for the people of Ft. Chipewyan — a community of about 1,200 that is only accessible by plane most of the year — the environmental impacts of the tar sands are already a lived reality. According to a 2009 study by the Alberta Cancer Board, the cancer rate in Ft. Chipewyan is higher than normal. Many of the residents there blame the industrial development south of them for the disproportionate cancer rates.

The deformed fish caught two weeks ago included a northern pike that had lesions along its back and belly and a sucker that was missing many of its scales. Chief Adam says the strange fish are so worrisome because the majority of Ft. Chipewyan residents still rely on traditional foods, including fish from the lake, to eat.

Chief Adam sent the two fish to the labs of the Canadian Cooperative Wildlife Health Centre in Alberta for testing. It will take biologists there several weeks to determine the cause of the deformities.

This isn’t the first time that sickly fish have been pulled from Lake Athabasca. In September 2010, the Ft. Chipewyan band released photos of fish that were also lesion-covered.

The Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation are one of the most active and outspoken critics of the tar sands development. In 2011 the tribe filed a suit against Shell Oil Canada for failing to uphold agreements it had made for two of its open pit mine projects. Chief Adam has said that his tribe may follow the example of the Beaver Lake Cree and challenge proposed tar sands projects on the grounds that increased mining could violate the tribe’s treaty rights to practice hunting and fishing.

“They keep building and building, and something has to give,” Chief Adam says. “And it’s the environment down here in Lake Athabasca. We want answers before we want further development. If they won’t give us answers, we will give them further resistance.”

ď ś US

Senator Maria Cantwell (Washington State): proposed Keystone XL pipeline project

Dear Mr. Wilcox, Thank you for contacting me about the Keystone XL project, a proposal by the TransCanada Corporation to construct a 1,661-mile oil pipeline to bring Canadian tar sand oil from Alberta to the Gulf of Mexico. I appreciate hearing from you on this important matter.

Because the pipeline crosses the U.S.-Canada border, TransCanada was required to apply for a permit from the U.S. Department of State, which began a thorough and rigorous review of the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline project in 2008. The procedure for this review is guided by Executive Order 13337, signed by President Bush on April 30, 2004.

Due to the magnitude of the project and proposed route adjustments, the State Department announced in November 2011 that it could not make a determination regarding the permit application without additional information. The proposed route changes came primarily from stakeholders in Nebraska who raised serious concerns over the use of eminent domain to utilize their private property and the risk of a pipeline spill in the sensitive Sand Hills region which serves as a capstone for the Ogallala Aquifer. This giant underground source of freshwater supplies drinking water to around 3 million and provides nearly one-third of our nation's irrigation groundwater. Nebraskans and others noted that since TransCanada's original Keystone 1 pipeline opened in 2009, it has spilled at least a dozen times, including a 21,000-gallon spill last spring. The State Department estimated that a safe alternative route for the pipeline could be found and reviewed by the first quarter of 2013, a timeline accepted by both the State of Nebraska and TransCanada.

As you may know, the Temporary Payroll Tax Cut Continuation Act of 2011 (P.L. 112-78) required President Obama to determine whether the Keystone XL pipeline is in the national interest by February 23, 2012. Due to the short timeline set by Congress, the State Department was forced to reject TransCanada's application because 60 days was not enough time to conduct a legally defensible review of the project. The State Department will likely consider the merits of the proposal when TransCanada reapplies for the permit, which the company says they plan to do.

The number of jobs associated with the Keystone XL proposal has been a source of confusion. In the original permit application, TransCanada provided expected expenses for labor associated with the pipeline. These labor expenses would account for roughly 5,000 to 6,000 jobs for two years. A study from Cornell University estimated fewer jobs from the pipeline, between 2,500 and 4,650 temporary construction jobs.

While I understand the appeal of importing tar sands oil from Canada rather than from hostile countries, it is important to note that the Keystone XL pipeline would not alter our dangerous over dependence on foreign oil. TransCanada projects that the Keystone pipeline would carry about 700,000 barrels of oil per day, accounting for only 3.7 percent of the 19.1 million barrels of oil that the U.S. consumed per day in 2010. This amount is also less than half of the 1.8 million barrels of refined

oil that the U.S. exports per day. Because the quantity is relatively small and some of the oil transported through the Keystone pipeline would ultimately be exported to other countries, the Keystone pipeline would not make a noticeable impact on oil prices or our national security.

I believe the United States needs to diversify its domestic energy supply with a mix of both traditional fossil fuels and alternative, renewable fuels. The reality is that the United States only holds 1.6 percent of the world's oil reserves, meaning that we simply do not have enough to impact global supplies or prices significantly -- even with the most aggressive domestic drilling plan. In fact, U.S. crude oil production today is at its highest level since 2003, and oil imports have fallen from 57 percent in 2008 to 45 percent in 2011, but still Washingtonians are burdened by record high gas prices. The solution is to accelerate the use of cheaper alternatives to petroleum, which can also provide competition at the gas pump, as well as produce more efficient vehicles that do not need to be filled up as often.

That is why one of my top priorities as a U.S. Senator has been to work on shifting our nation from our overreliance on fossil fuels to a cleaner, more diverse energy system based on domestically produced and environmentally friendly 21st century technologies. Our nation's continued economic, environmental, and national security depends on finding alternative sources of energy produced right here at home. In Washington State, and across the country, we must seize the opportunity to become a world leader in manufacturing and deploying new energy technologies. I want Americans to be the ones building and exporting the new clean energy technologies and fuels the world will be demanding in the near future.

To that end, I helped author legislation that enacted historic increases in fuel economy standards which will save approximately 1.8 billion barrels of oil over the lifetime of vehicles sold in model years 2012 through 2016. Additionally, the average consumer will save more than $3,000 in fuel costs over the lifetime of a model year 2016 vehicle. I have strongly supported innovation and development of the biofuels industry in order to bring advanced biofuels to market. These advanced biofuels can be produced from a wide array of non-food feedstocks like cellulosic biomass, including perennial grasses, agricultural and wood waste, and other sources like algae and are economically competitive with petroleum or are likely to be soon. I also authored legislation with Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) which today provides up to $7,500 to consumers who purchase plug-in electric cars, trucks or SUVs. According to Consumer Reports, the cost of running a plug-in electric vehicle is less than a third of running even an efficient gasoline powered car like the Toyota Corolla. A recent Rice University report concluded that the single most effective way to reduce US oil demand and foreign imports would be an aggressive campaign to launch electric vehicles into the automotive fleet. Last September I introduced a bill with Senator Dick Lugar (R-IN) that would break oil's monopoly over the U.S. transportation fuel industry by ensuring that most new vehicles in the United States are capable of running on a range of domestically produced alternative fuels starting in 2015. Please be assured I will keep your thoughts in mind should I have the opportunity to consider this issue in the future.

Thank you again for contacting me to share your thoughts on this matter. Please do not hesitate to contact me in the future if I can be of further assistance.

Sincerely, Maria Cantwell United States Senator

ď ś Tarsands: Before and After

ď ś Enbridge

launches multimillion-dollar ad campaign to combat B.C. pipeline opposition May 30, 2012

The Northern Gateway pipeline is the most explosive environmental debate in B.C.

Enbridge pipeline Enbridge Inc. said Tuesday it is launching a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign in British Columbia promoting its Northern Gateway pipeline project in response to stiffer opposition than it anticipated over the $5.5-billion Alberta-to-Kitimat proposal.

"You are going to see a much higher visibility for Enbridge over the next few days. In newspapers, in television and online," said Paul Stanway, manager of Northern Gateway communications for Enbridge. "It's become quite apparent that the debate has become a provincewide issue."

The same day Enbridge announced its campaign, which the company said will cost several million but less than $5 million, Greenpeace activists hung an anti-pipeline banner from the Lions Gate Bridge.

Cosmetics retailer LUSH also joined the anti-Enbridge pipeline campaign by posting "Stop Enbridge" signs in its windows. LUSH is urging customers at its 44 Canadian stores to register their opposition to the pipeline by voting against it in an in-store poll over the next two weeks.

The Northern Gateway pipeline is the most explosive environmental debate in B.C. since the battles over clearcut logging in what is now called the Great Bear Rainforest on the B.C. central coast.

It pits environmentalists and many first nations worried about risks of a spill against the Harper government, which has said the project is essential for Canada's economic prosperity as it would open up new markets for the country's oil resources. It may also become a source of friction between B.C. and Alberta, which have very different outlooks on the proposal. Stanway said Albertans generally express much more support for the pipeline than do British Columbians.

READ ENTIRE VANCOUVER SUN ARTICLE HERE

225 roundtrips annually through British Columbia’s treacherous Douglas Channel - Each tanker will carry 2,000,000 barrels of crude oil from the tarsands in Alberta (via the Kitimat terminal) to China. Wrecks are expected and feared given the immediate and irreversible devastation to the area’s uniquely productive ecosystems.

First Nations along Enbridge’s proposed Northern Gateway pipelines say NO to this project

 Keystone XL Will Increase Gas Prices May 30, 2012

Keystone XL, the contentious TransCanada pipeline that would deliver tar sands oil from Alberta, Canada to Texas for refining and shipment, has met another challenge: the pipeline may actually increase gas prices rather than drive costs down. The reason? According to NRDC, Keystone XL is likely to “decrease the amount of gasoline produced in U.S. refineries for domestic markets, and increase the cost of producing it, leading to even higher prices at the pump.”

This is unwelcome news for proponents of the pipeline who apparently will stop at nothing to get the pipeline built. However, it’s very welcome news for environmental groups and concerned citizens alike who are fearful of the short and longterm ramifications of the pipeline. Groups like ForestEthics, 350.org, Tar Sands Action and Bold Nebraska have played key roles in the fight against the pipeline, citing environmental devastation and health concerns, but it’s still an uphill battle.

Last summer, in an effort to cease construction and draw national attention, Bill McKibben rallied more than 1,000 activists to sit in front of the White House in peaceful protest against the pipeline.

Many attest this protest is the reason why President Obama continues to delay a final decision, but even though the President has pushed off any potential construction (now until 2013) until a more thorough environmental impact assessment can be made, construction of the southern portion of the pipeline, running from Cushing, Okla., to Port Arthur, Texas, has curiously already begun.

Whether or not Keystone XL is fully operational in the near future, however, will determine, on many levels, if we will live on a habitable planet. It’s been said that building the Keystone XL is equivalent to “game over” for our climate given tar sands oil is some of the most dirty and carbon-intense on the planet. Bitumen, a thick and sticky form of crude oil that’s found in the tar sands, is so viscous and difficult to work with that it must be heated with hydrocarbons in order to flow. This heating process only adds to the level of carbon that’s already being emitted into the atmosphere by the tar sands alone.

READ ENTIRE CARE2 ARTICLE HERE

ď ś 104-car train hauling oil crosses Maine May 30, 2012 Crude oil from the West has begun moving across Maine -- not by pipeline, as some environmental activists fear it will someday; but by railroad.

A train carrying 104 tank cars of crude from the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota came through Maine last weekend on a 2,435-mile journey to the Irving Oil refinery in Saint John, New Brunswick. It rolled through Portland, Waterville and Bangor on Pan Am Railways tracks, on its way to Canada's largest oil refinery.

This so-called unit train -- made up only of oil tank cars -- is an example of how Irving and other energy giants are reacting to a fast-changing North American petroleum market, and how Maine figures into the developments.

"I think we're going to be seeing more of this," said Tom Hall, a former assistant general manager for Pan Am Railways in Maine.

New technologies and high global oil prices have made it economical for energy companies to develop mammoth petroleum reserves in North Dakota, as well as the Canadian province of Alberta. The challenge is getting all the oil to refineries across North America.

The easy-to-refine oil in North Dakota is locked up in shale formations and is released by injecting pressurized water and chemicals, a process called fracking. In Alberta, a similar process is used to free heavy, tar-like oil located in sand formations. Both methods are under fire, in part because they can pollute groundwater.

Growing controversies and delays in building new pipelines or reversing the flow of existing ones to move this oil, are threatening production goals and export plans. That has created an unexpected opportunity for railroads, which see a void. They're building loading facilities and adding tank cars to compete with pipelines for a piece of the evolving business.

Maine's freight railroads stand to benefit as well. They're upgrading service to handle an expected increase in traffic to Saint John.

The first big shipment was made over the weekend. Each of the 104 cars carried roughly 700 barrels of oil. The train traveled through Chicago to Rotterdam Junction, N.Y., where it moved over Pan Am Railways track through southern and eastern Maine and connected with the New Brunswick Southern Railway for the trip to Saint John.

The train was photographed as it crossed the Merrimack River in Massachusetts by Kevin Burkholder, the editor of Eastern Railroad News.

"Deemed a test train, this is the first of what could be a steady flow of the rolling crude oil pipeline to feed the Irving refinery," Burkholder wrote last weekend in his newsletter.

Pan Am has been improving its tracks and adding locomotives and crews, making it a player in the growing crude-oil competition, according to Hall.

READ ENTIRE KJONLINE ARTICLE HERE

ď ś On World Oceans Day, celebrate the little fish, unglamorous but essential June 8, 2012

Today is a day to celebrate the ocean's intrinsic majesty and the bounty it provides. Let's celebrate World Oceans Day this year by honoring the ocean's little fish. Hardly the charismatic sea otter or awe-inspiring humpback whale, forage fish are the unglamorous and underacknowledged little fish -sardines, herring and squid.

Aptly called forage fish, because of their role as a food source for everything else larger than they are, these fish also indirectly support ocean-based tourism and recreation sectors that provide 400,000 jobs and $18 billion in revenue to California, Oregon and Washington, according to the National Ocean Economics Program.

But these little fish are in trouble.

The National Marine Fisheries Service has more than doubled the U.S. sardine catch level from 50,526 metric tons in 2011 to 109,409 metric tons in 2012, despite the fact that agency scientists determined Pacific sardine are in steep decline and at risk of collapse.

Pacific eulachon, a type of smelt, are now listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. In 2010 alone, more than a million eulachon were killed in the pink shrimp trawl fishery off the West Coast.

Spawning populations of herring off Oregon are way down, and some spawning populations in Washington's Puget Sound are in critical condition or have disappeared entirely.

Meanwhile, demand for forage fish is increasing as aquaculture and agriculture expand worldwide.

Most of the forage fish catch is not consumed directly by humans, but is sold in global markets, where the fish are ground into meal for farmed fish, chicken and pigs. Expansion of aquaculture and agriculture can increase pressures on wild forage fish stocks, and forage fish that are not currently fished may soon become commercially targeted.

READ ENTIRE OREGONLIVE ARTICLE HERE

 Accumulation and distribution of polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxin, dibenzofuran, and polychlorinated biphenyl congeners in Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar).

Isosaari P, Kiviranta H, Lie O, Lundebye AK, Ritchie G, Vartiainen T.

Reader comments: Claudette Bethune: “A farming nightmare that just gets worse, the "organic" compost being made from the culled farmed salmon in Canada and the US will concentrate the most toxic types of dioxins into unsuspecting consumers garden soils. The compost rendering process would need to get up to 1200 deg Celsius to break down the dioixin, I'm afraid this is not possible when making compost.”

Gael Duchene: “Compost made from dead fish is in every single garden store.”

Laurie Watt: NZ King Salmon chief executive Grant Rosewarne responds: “As an aside, I am in Norway at the moment. The salmon industry is a huge success there, delivering for all stakeholders. It is one of the most sustainable ways of producing animal protein."

“What a ridiculous statement, since we all know Norway's feedlot industry moved to Canada and other countries to take advantage of our compliant environmental controls because the industry had killed off wild salmon runs resulting in its banning from many Norwegian fjords, plus the fact that it consumes much larger quantities of wild fish stocks than feedlot salmon produced. Feedlot salmon industry, GET OUT of our oceans!”

Source: National Public Health Institute, Department of Environmental Health, P.O. Box 95, FIN-70701 Kuopio, Finland. pirjo.isosaari@ktl.fi Abstract: Adult Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) were fed on four diets containing polychlorinated dibenzo-pdioxins (PCDDs), polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDFs), and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) for 30 weeks. Lipid-normalized concentrations showed that all congeners were equally partitioned between whole-fish and fillet samples. Skinned fillet accumulated approximately 30% of the total PCDD/F and PCB content in fish. Accumulation efficiencies in whole fish were 43% for 2, 3, 7, 8chlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans, 83% for dioxin-like PCBs, and 78% for other PCB congeners. Among PCDD/Fs, tetra- and pentachlorinated congeners were preferentially accumulated in salmon, whereas hepta- and octachlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins were excreted in the feces.

Substitution patterns that were associated with a preferential accumulation of PCBs in salmon included non-ortho substitution and tetrachlorination. Accumulation efficiencies and lipid-normalized biomagnification factors (BMFs) were not influenced by the PCDD/F and PCB concentrations of the diets. Biomagnification (BMF > 1) of tetra- and pentachlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans and of all the PCBs was observed. Differences in the behavior of PCDD/F and PCB congeners resulted in a selective enrichment of the most toxic congeners in salmon.

PMID: 15230320 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

 Fights brewing over massive coal-export plans for the Northwest May 19, 2012 Editorial Comment: Increased burning of fossil fuels (coal is the worst offender) has led directly to increased acidification of our oceans and our atmosphere. This is huge given our reliance on the world’s oceans to provide healthy nutrition to planet earth’s citizens.

Similarly, forests and agriculture areas near industrial centers suffer increased adverse impacts of “acid rain”.

Wild Game Fish Conservation International opposes shipping of American coal to China given the known and unknown health and environmental impacts this “cheap” energy source has.

The Northwest is poised to become the country's leading coal-exporting region, but critics worry about one of the biggest impacts: increased greenhouse-gas emissions from burning U.S. coal in China.

Empty aluminum boxcars sit at the railroad yard near the Westshore Terminal near Vancouver, B.C., waiting for their return to the coal fields. Westshore, a coal-shipping operation on the West Coast, has been in business on a man-made island for 40 years.

With the Northwest poised to become the country's leading coal-export region, fights are emerging on several fronts.

On the table are proposals to capitalize on Asia's thirst for cheap energy by building a half-dozen terminals in Washington and Oregon that would export coal from the Rockies.

Physicians fret about an explosion of locomotive exhaust, while mayors grumble about the potential for long traffic-snarling trains. Washington state fears 1,200 new barge trips on the Columbia River could spark more accidents and marine-vessel groundings. Tribes worry that spilled coal could poison aquatic food webs.

But as the federal government begins its first lengthy review of plans to ship coal through Northwest ports, it's not clear how — or if — the feds will weigh in on perhaps the most far-reaching issue: the potential effect new markets for coal could have on greenhouse-gas emissions.

READ ENTIRE SEATTLE TIMES ARTICLE HERE

 Coal Exports and Carbon Consequences II May 23, 2012 How much is 145 million tons of coal?

This post is part of the research project: Northwest Coal Exports There are at present six proposals to export coal from Northwest ports. If all of these proposals are built, and if all of them operate at full capacity, the Northwest would be shipping 145 million tons of per coal year.

When burned, that coal will produce roughly 262 million tons of carbon dioxide per year. It’s such a staggering figure, that it’s a little hard to grasp. So here’s some context:

The coal export proposals are, in other words, a disaster for the climate. In aggregate, they are actually far worse than the Keystone XL pipeline.

If you want to dig into the numbers on a project by project basis, here they are: Cherry Point, Washington. SSA Marine is planning to build and operate the Gateway Pacific Terminal, a new shipping facility north of Bellingham that would be capable of handling 48 million tons of coal per year. Peabody Energy, the world’s largest private sector coal company, has already agreed to supply 24 million tons of coal.

Longview, Washington. Millennium Bulk Terminals, a subsidiary of the Australian coal mining company Ambre Energy, purchased a port site on the Columbia River. Arch Coal, a major American coal mining company, has a 38 percent stake in the site. Ambre hopes to export 44 million tons of coal, with 25 million tons in the first phase.

Grays Harbor, Washington. According to newspaper accounts, RailAmerica is planning to develop a coal export terminal at the Port of Grays Harbor’s Marine Terminal 3 that could handle 5 million tons of coal each year.

Port of St. Helens, Oregon. Kinder Morgan is planning to build and operate a coal export terminal at the Port Westward Industrial Park near Clatskanie that will be capable of handling 30 million tons of coal per year, with 15 million tons in an initial phase of development.

Port of Morrow, Oregon. Ambre Energy is planning to construct a facility on the Columbia River in eastern Oregon that will transfer coal from rail to barges that will be towed downriver to Port Westward where the coal will be loaded on ongoing vessels. The company says that the system will be capable of handling 8 million tons per year.

Coos Bay, Oregon. The Port of Coos Bay is considering a mysterious proposal, known to the public only as “Project Mainstay,” that officials say could export 6 to 10 million tons of coal per year.

Notes: My calculations assume that Powder River Basin coal generates 8,500 BTUs per pound, and that 1 million BTUs produces 212.7 pounds of CO2. Gasoline consumption refers to “motor gasoline” and comes the US Federal Highway Administration’s statistics and assumes 19.6 pounds of carbon dioxide per gallon of gasoline.

 Seattle opposes coal-export ports May 29, 2012 SEATTLE (AP) -- The Seattle City Council has unanimously passed a resolution opposing the development of coal-export terminals in Washington state over concerns about increased train traffic and potential harm to health and the environment.

Tuesday's vote comes as the federal government is reviewing the first of at least six port facilities proposed in Washington and Oregon to ship coal from the Powder River basin of Montana and Wyoming to thirsty markets in Asia. If all the facilities are built, at least 100 million tons of coal a year could carry coal in trains through the Northwest before being shipped to Asia.

Councilmember Mike O'Brien says mining and burning more coal isn't consistent with the city's goal to fight climate change.

Opponents say the resolution is premature and the council should let the environmental review be completed.

ď ś The Truth About China's Coal May 24, 2012 There was another big blow in the realm of conventional thinking this week. And it comes to us straight from our frenemies in China.

No more coal, they said.

And you can keep your iron, too.

The headlines proclaimed it as a sign of China's great economic plunge. The country's economy is falling faster than even the most bearish of bears had thought.

At least, that's according to conventional logic.

If we gaze through the prism from a different angle, though, our picture changes.

You've probably heard that Chinese traders defaulted on half a dozen coal orders this week. And, like I said, you probably heard that it is because of China's great slowdown.

That's not the truth, though.

The truth is the defaults are the result of a great global shift in energy.

Here in the United States, the EPA is virtually at war with the coal industry. The antiquated fuel source is dirty and, more importantly, it doesn't play well with Obama's alternative energy policy.

For some reason, "all of the above," doesn't include coal.

And the harder Washington works to send coal-fired power plants to the history books, the further coal prices will fall.

In the United States, coal prices have fallen roughly 30% in the past year. And with a declining domestic demand (thanks to stiff rules from the EPA), miners have put their coal on the global market.

That means the price of coal across the planet has dropped. Here's what Australia's coal industry has faced:

This rapid decline in coal prices is the real reason China is canceling orders.

 Coal Industry Pays Fake Activists $50 To Wear Pro-Coal Shirts At Public Hearing May 25, 2012

"Activists" offered $50 to wear pro-coal shirts.

Apparently unable to find real activists, the coal industry paid astroturfers $50 to wear pro-coal t-shirts at an Environmental Protection Agency hearing yesterday.

The EPA hearings, held yesterday in Chicago and Washington, D.C., were focused on the agency’s first-ever carbon standards for new power plants. The industry has adamantly opposed these standards, as well as standards on mercury — a pollutant that even Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) admits is harmful.

This year, coal is throwing around its weight by spending tens of millions of dollars on media advertising and political contributions.

Coal is also engaging in fake advocacy campaigns, known as astroturfing. In a Craigslist ad found by the Environmental Law & Policy Center in Chicago, a coal group promised participants $50 to “wear a t-shirt in support of an energy project.” Upon further digging, the Sierra Club blog pieced together much of the deleted Craigslist ad:

People needed to attend a public meeting (Tinley Park /Chicago) Reply to: px6mq-3031150602@gigs.craigslist.org (email address no longer valid) Looking for people THIS THURSDAY, MAY 24 who want to make a couple of dollars for a few hours of your time.

All you need to do is wear a t-shirt in support of an energy project for two hours during the public meeting. We will be departing the Tinely Park convention center at 8:15 am for the meeting and we will be back by 1:30 pm.

For your time we will pay you $50 cash and provide you lunch once we return to the convention center.

If you can’t beat ‘em, cheat ‘em.

ď ś Support restaurants that feature wild Pacific salmon:

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 “Pants on Fire” Recognition: Laurie Jensen (Mainstream Canada)

Wild game fish conservationists around planet earth believe that some things we hear and read from corporate representatives, natural resources agency professionals and elected officials might not reflect reality. In fact some have associated these “leaders” with those who wear burning pants.

The July 2012 recipient of the Wild Game Fish Conservation International “Burning Pants” honor is: Laurie Jensen (spokeswoman, Mainstream Canada): “we want to keep the oceans healthy”, “virus came from wild salmon”, "there's no repercussions to humans or other fish". Watch CHECK News video “According to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, the virus exists in B.C. coastal waters and does not affect human health or food safety, but it does pose a risk to aquatic animal health and the economy.”

 Continued Atlantic Salmon Recovery Hinges on International Meeting May 30th 2012

A meeting being held in Edinburgh, Scotland from June 3 to 8, has the ability to make or break the beginnings of wild Atlantic salmon restoration in North America.

St. Andrews, NB Canada The outcomes of the annual meeting of the North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organization (NASCO) to be held in Edinburgh, Scotland from June 3 to 8, have the ability to make or break the beginnings of wild Atlantic salmon restoration in North America. “Up for negotiation,” said Sue Scott, VP of Communications for the Atlantic Salmon Federation (ASF), “is a quota on Greenland’s commercial fishery that harvests wild Atlantic salmon from North America’s rivers.”

ASF, along with 34 other non-government organizations from North America and Europe, will urge NASCO to heed scientific advice and implement another three-year agreement for a zero quota on Greenland’s commercial salmon fishery. Scientific advice from the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) is that there is no option for a fishery in Greenland in the next three years that would allow the number of large Atlantic salmon returning to North American rivers to reach their minimum overall conservation limit. Although ICES scientists did predict that large salmon returns will continue to increase over the next three years, their numbers will not increase enough to sustain a harvest at Greenland.

The 2011 returns to North America were the best of the past two decades for both grilse (salmon that spend only one winter at sea) and large salmon that travel to distant Greenland feeding grounds.

These increases are the first indicators that large salmon are beginning to move out of a critical danger zone that reached an all-time low in 2001. Upturns in grilse numbers in 2011 approached 700,000, closer to the good runs of the past, when they peaked at 900,000 in 1981.

READ ENTIRE VIRTUAL STRATEGY ARTICLE HERE

Canada ď ś Budget cut overkill? Canada axes entire marine pollution program May 25, 2012

Peter Ross, seen here holding a harbor seal off southern Vancouver Island, is one of 75 staff losing their jobs with the closure of Canada's marine pollution program.

Canada has been sending letters to government scientists notifying them that their jobs will be eliminated or affected by the closure of the country's marine pollution program -- but at least one isn't going without making some noise.

"It's perplexing that we face the loss of this program, given the 25,000 chemicals on the market and the ever-increasing threats posed by shipping and oil and gas exploration and development in temperate and Arctic waters," Peter Ross told msnbc.com. Ross is perhaps Canada's best known marine scientist for his work on identifying killer whales as the most contaminated marine mammals on the planet.

"As can be expected when one is told their position is being terminated, one is shocked and saddened," he added. "However, when told that the entire pollution research and monitoring program for Canada's oceans is being eliminated, I was speechless."

The program, which employs 75 staff, is set to be shut down by April 1, 2013, the Victoria Times Colonist reported.

"I cannot think of another industrialized nation that has completely excised marine pollution from its radar," Ross said.

The program is under the Department of Fisheries, which is shedding a total of 400 jobs. More than 600 others will be "affected." Of the some 1,000 jobs impacted, three quarters are with the Canadian Coast Guard.

READ ENTIRE MSNBC ARTICLE HERE

 Salmon standards under fire June 15, 2012

Editorial Comment: Thanks to Canada’s Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform (CAAR) for opposing the Salmon Aquaculture Dialogue (SAD) standard as reported below.

Although closed containment salmon feedlots offer limited increased environmental protection when compared to problematic open pen salmon feedlots, they are from risk free. 

Closed containment salmon feedlots would still be sited in salmon migration routes where they will negatively impact wild salmon and their ecosystems



Atlantic salmon reared in closed containment salmon feedlots still require that massive amounts of forage fish be killed to feed them – salmon are carnivores!

THE salmon farm performance standards that form the basis of the Aquaculture Stewardship Council certification process do not adequately protect wild salmon and the environment, according to Canada’s Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform (CAAR).

After seven years of hard work by numerous stakeholders CAAR has concluded that closed containment salmon farming is the only verifiable way to effectively reduce or eliminate the key negative environmental impacts of salmon farming and is on the record as formally voting ‘no’ to the standards in the steering committee vote.

CAAR is particularly concerned that the Salmon Aquaculture Dialogue (SAD) standard falls short in a number of significant areas including elimination of disease transmission between farmed and wild fish and, addressing the risks from existing exotic species. While there are some important limits on the use and discharge of antibiotics and toxic sea lice chemicals, the standard does not eliminate them. The standard is intended to certify individual farms, and thus struggles to deal with the cumulative impacts of the industry and its potential expansion.

One significant concern is that the SAD standard does not compare salmon farm performance to ecological benchmarks. It compares salmon farms to other salmon farms. Recent science-based research on global aquaculture performance and certification have indicated that while SAD certified farms would be better performers than farms not meeting the standard, the open net cage industry, as a whole, still has a significant negative environmental impact. The standard does not compare to other seafood, farmed or wild, making it hard for consumers to use it to select the most environmental seafood options.

CAAR member groups agree that, while the SAD standards cannot ensure truly environmentally responsible practices, they are measurably stronger and based on a far more credible process than other standards such as those being promoted by the GAA (Global Aquaculture Alliance) Best Aquaculture Practices and Global Trust. The SAD also addresses key social and labour issues in a globally significant way.

ď ś C-38: Environmental Devastation Act

The misnamed Budget Implementation Act, Bill C-38, brings in sweeping changes to Canada's environmental laws. Fully 30% of the 420 page bill is actually not about the budget at all.

Instead, it attacks environmental legislation, repealing the Canadian Environmental Assessment and introducing an entirely new approach to environmental assessment. It also re-writes Fisheries Act, the Species at Risk Act, and the Navigable Waters Protection Act. It also repeals Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act, and cancels outright the National Round Table on Environment and the Economy.

Act the the the

This will forever change Canada's natural environment with devastating effects on our future, and that of our children.

Elizabeth May will use her voice on Parliament Hill to stop this legislation.

 Gwen Barlee: Environmental standards should build, not erode Sustainability must be at the core of an improved process May 22, 2012 Polls repeatedly show Canadians value honesty, accountability and kindness – attributes that are completely missing these days from the federal government’s approach to the environment.

A case in point is the government’s sweeping budget bill. Tabled on April 26th Bill C-38 dedicates over a third of its 420 pages to rolling back environmental legislation that generations of Canadians have fought to establish. Written with no public consultation, the bill wages war on: laws that protect our air and water, regulations to safeguard fish habitat, public participation in environmental assessments, and government oversight of large industrial projects.

Ottawa has cloaked these draconian changes with soothing language. Decimating environmental standards is portrayed as providing “certainty” and “efficiency” for industry while gutting conservation laws is characterized as “streamlining” and removing “red-tape.” This language is misleading and fundamentally dishonest to the vast majority of Canadians who value clean air and fresh water.

These changes are also harmful to industry. Low environmental standards, reduced public participation and increased political interference provide neither certainty nor public support for business. In fact a dramatically weakened regulatory environment is a recipe for litigation, civil disobedience and certain environmental damage.

Accompanying the government’s scorched earth approach to environmental laws is rhetoric that tears a page from the Republican playbook of our neighbours to the south. Environmental organizations have been branded as “radical,” accused of laundering money and have had their charitable status targeted. Silencing critics through the powers of the state rather than engaging in an informed debate is the new norm.

This is not the Canada in which I was raised; nor the Canada I envision for the future.

The impetus for a dramatically weakened regulatory environment appears to be Western Canada, especially B.C., where proposed pipelines, oil tankers and mines have created the perfect storm of controversy. The concern is particularly charged here because we have so much to lose; after a decade of provincial environmental cuts the federal rollbacks will leave B.C.’s environment with just an illusion of protection. Thousands of miles of coastline, hundreds of wild salmon rivers and the belief in good government and rule of law hang in the balance.

History has shown us that rock bottom environment standards don’t make for better projects, good jobs or healthy communities. Right now the federal government, and taxpayers across the country, are on the hook for $7.7 billion in cleanup costs for over 10,000 contaminated sites ranging from abandoned mines to old fuel spills. Low environmental standards and lax enforcement in the past created this situation and more of the same bad medicine will only make the problem worse.

Ottawa is correct when it says that a regulatory overhaul is needed for environmental laws – but they are headed in the wrong direction. More democracy, enhanced citizen engagement and robustly enforced environmental laws are the cure for what ails us, not the illness.

READ ENTIRE VANCOUVER SUN ARTICLE HERE

British Columbia

 “Alexandra Morton and the Battle against Disease in BC Fish Farms” by Rosa Saba June 8, 2012 Alexandra Morton, a biologist from Echo Bay, has recently been fighting desperately against the government and the fish farming organizations in British Columbia to alert the public and the farms to a virus sweeping the fish population and endangering their reproduction. Research published up to early 2012 has confirmed clear association between the Norwegian Piscine Reovirus and a disease called Heart and Skeletal Muscle Inflammation, or HSMI. Morton, along with the Aquaculture Coalition, has discovered that almost 100% of BC farm salmon tested positive for the virus. HSMI is a disease that weakens the tissue around the heart, therefore causing eventual heart failure, especially under extreme pressure. The virus is thought to have come from Norway since the 1980s, when the BC fish farming industry imported 30 million Atlantic salmon eggs.

While the BC Salmon Farmers Association has claimed they have never seen the effects of this virus, almost 100% of Atlantic salmon in markets in Vancouver and Victoria have tested positive for it. Dr. Gary Marty, a BC Provincial fish farm veterinarian, claims to have found it in over 75% of the fish he tested in 2010. The virus has a reputation for being highly contagious and proves fatal for the salmon carrying it, as their hearts give out under the strain of swimming upstream each year. According to Morton, up to 90% of Fraser sockeye salmon are going missing after passing Mission. As the dead salmon are washed back downstream, and the virus is carried in the flesh of the dead fish, it is easily transferred through watersheds and into where farm salmon are sold and washed.

While Morton is continuing to spread the word and test for European viruses in farm salmon, she is coming up against great obstacles. Despite many published reports by biologists and scientists on proof of this virus, the government has failed to include evidence of it in any of their technical or yearly reports. In fact, they have continued to pass bills making it easier for the virus to be transferred. The leaders of BC’s 500-million-dollar-a-year fish farming industry turn a blind eye to Morton’s findings, while she continues to dig to the heart of the matter, visiting fish farms for research and giving talks in communities to help spread awareness and rally support for the issue at hand.

This virus, and many others that have swept the fish farming industry in recent years, just add more fuel to Morton’s many plausible arguments against fish farming in general. BC Agriculture Minister Don McRae attempted to silence her and others like her by trying making it a criminal offence for anyone, including journalists, to publish works reporting on disease outbreaks, especially on salmon farms, with fines reaching $75,000 as well as possible jail sentences00. Due to public outrage, he withdrew the bill. Morton presses on with campaigns such as the Salmon Are Sacred group, working to preserve the health and living conditions of BC salmon and to eliminate fish farms and the viruses and other problems they cause. She urges the public to choose locally fished salmon from reliable sources in an effort to diminish the BC salmon farming industry and speak out against salmon farming conditions.

You can read more on Alexandra Morton’s various petitions and arguments against fish farming and its causes, as well as updates on the fish farming battle, at alexandramorton.typepad.com.

 Dear Mr. Alf-Helge Aarskog, CEO Marine Harvest: June 3, 2012 Dear Mr. Alf-Helge Aarskog, CEO Marine Harvest: corporate@marineharvest.com

There are serious viral issues with salmon farming in British Columbia that are being suppressed here in Canada that your shareholders should be informed about.

We have found Norwegian Piscine Reovirus associated with HSMI, as well as, the Infectious Salmon Anemia virus mutations HPR5 and HPR7b in fresh Atlantic salmon purchased in British Columbia, Canada markets. Both of the HPR5 and HPR7b mutations of ISA virus have caused large mortalities in salmon. While the BC Salmon Farmers Association and Federal Government Canada deny these viruses are present in BC - it is hard to explain their presence in fresh Atlantic salmon in the markets - someone’s farms must be infected with ISAv and PRv. Are you informed about the potential risk of an ISAv outbreak in BC and the strong negative reaction that the people of British Columbia will have to this?

There is a sequence of events you should be aware of: • In 2003 Marine Harvest requested Atlantic salmon eggs from an Icelandic hatchery that did not meet Canada’s Fish Health Protection Regulations. Permission was granted.

• In 2009, Marine Harvest began requesting multiple tests for ISAv from the Provincial farm salmon veterinarian, Gary Marty and never imported eggs from Iceland again.

• In 2010, Marine Harvest, Cermaq and Grieg signed a Memorandum of Understanding to share information about viruses with each other, while at the same time they told the Province of BC they would no longer participate in government health audits of their fish.

• In 2004, Fisheries and Ocean Canada got ISAv positive tests in 100% of the most endangered Fraser sockeye stock (Cultus Lake) and never revealed this to the Stò:lō Nation, or the Cohen Commission into the Decline of the Fraser Sockeye

• Your public relations manager for British Columbia, Mr. Clare Backman testified under oath at the Cohen Commission that:

The level of surveys done in the country of origin and then again, the quarantine and follow-up sampling here in British Columbia has been successful in preventing any exotic disease, including this particular one, ISAV. (Cohen Commission, testimony Sept. 7, 2011, page 37) • And yet we are getting positive results for Norwegian Piscine reovirus in nearly 100% of the Atlantic salmon we have purchased in supermarkets and positive tests for ISA virus.

In a recent survey over the past few weeks of your salmon feedlots in BC, I found many are empty (red squares). I understand the price for farm salmon is so low you might not want to restock, but there are reports of large numbers of dead Atlantic salmon being moved to dumps and there are the growing number of lab tests suggesting the presence of highly virulent strains of ISAv.

The picture below is young wild salmon taken today from outside one of your feedlots - Glacier Falls - near my home. These juvenile wild salmon are suffering from sea lice - a problem Canada denies, but you are familiar with this in Norway and everywhere you operate. Eleven years after I noticed sea lice infestation on BC juvenile salmon near salmon feedlots, seven years after Marine Harvest signed an agreement with several BC environmental companies, and a few weeks after that arrangement collapsed the young BC wild salmon are still being harmed. This is not progress for the people of British Columbia who depend on wild salmon.

READ DR. MORTON’s ENTRE BLOG ENTRY HERE

ď ś Fraser River sockeye face triple whammy of threats: new SFU study May 18, 2012

Increased numbers of competitive pink salmon, salmon farms on migration routes, and warming ocean temperatures together could be contributing to the long-term decline of Fraser River sockeye, scientists report.

VANCOUVER - Increased numbers of competitive pink salmon, salmon farms on migration routes, and warming ocean temperatures together could be contributing to the long-term decline of Fraser River sockeye, scientists report.

Brendan Connors, a post-doctoral fellow in the School of Resource and Environmental Management at Simon Fraser University, said the three factors, when considered in combination, "appear to play a very important role."

Researchers in a paper published in the journal Conservation Letters said that increasing numbers of pink salmon across the north Pacific Ocean represent increased competition for food with Fraser sockeye.

They also said sockeye passing close to salmon farms early in the ocean phase of their life cycle may pick up viruses, bacteria or parasites, reducing their ability to compete for food with pink salmon.

The study, which also said increasing ocean temperatures can reduce survival of juvenile sockeye, highlights the need for international cooperation on salmon management.

The Cohen Commission has been investigating the decline of Fraser sockeye. Its final report is due

by Sept. 30.

 Fisheries Act changes: Seeking the right mix between protection and development Third in a four-part series June 6, 2012 A seasonal stream flowed through Larri Woodrow’s one-hectare hobby farm in the north Langley neighbourhood of Walnut Grove.

Although the property, purchased in 1970, was outside the agricultural land reserve, Woodrow personally favoured the area remaining rural. But that’s not what happened.

Over time he found himself surrounded by townhouses and compact single-family homes. Woodrow accepted his fate and decided to sell his property for development, too. At least that was the idea.

Salmon never reached his property and the stream dried up in summer. But, as a tributary of cohobearing Yorkson Creek, a 15-metre setback applied under the Streamside Protection Regulation of 2001. The provincial legislation was meant to complement the federal Fisheries Act — the subject of controversial changes pending under Bill C-38.

Combined with a BC Hydro easement, that left just .37 hectares on Woodrow’s property that could be developed.

He tried to be creative, hiring a consultant to propose relocating the tributary and building new habitat in the hydro easement, thereby allowing for more developable property to attract a buyer.

Government officials rejected the idea.

In 2011, local developer Lanstone Homes finally bought the property and built 13 townhouses — marketed as Woodrow Lane, a relatively modest project for that area.

Woodrow has since bought a 1991-built single-family home in Walnut Grove. “When people think of landowners’ property going to development, they think of windfall profit,” he said. “We couldn’t get enough money to buy another similar hobby farm anywhere in this area.”

Woodrow understands the need for rules and regulations but wishes there could have been a way to appeal his case and reach a compromise.

Unlike some property owners who quietly cut down trees and fill in wetlands to enhance their chances of development, he said he planted firs and cedars to enhance his property’s streamside habitat.

“There has to be some means of fairness applied to these regulations,” he said.

Despite his experience, Woodrow remains a strong believer in fish habitat protection and is concerned that the federal government is water down protection under the Fisheries Act.

READ ENTIRE VANCOUVER SUN ARTICLE HERE

 More straight shooting from Anissa Reed

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

Ireland  Save Bantry Bay group accuse officials of ignoring facts June 15, 2012

A group opposing plans for a multi-million euro salmon farm in Bantry has called on the Government to acknowledge research outlining the impact of sea lice on wild salmon. The committee, Save Bantry Bay (SBB), which was formed in objection to the proposed €3.5 million organic salmon farm by Marine Harvest at Shot Head near Adrigole, has stated that officials are “using statistics as a drunken man would use a lamp post- for support rather than illumination”.

The group claims that raw data from a report published by the Marine Institute indicates that sea lice emanating from salmon farms are causing a “significant problem”. They stated that officials are only focusing on the report’s data that on average 0.7% of young salmon at sea die from sea lice compared with 93% to other causes. However, SBB stated that further data shows that sea lice causes a 10% decrease in numbers of sea young salmon returning. “This is a significant figure, showing quite the opposite of what the officials appear to be claiming,” said the group.

The SBB further outlined that recent research by Inland Fisheries Ireland highlighted that “sea lice larvae emanating from farmed salmon may influence individual survivorship and population conservation status of wild salmon in these rivers”.

“This figure suggests salmon farms could cause a 44% reduction in unprotected wild salmon populations that are exposed to sea lice. Not just a significant figure, but a deeply worrying prospect for Ireland’s wild salmon stocks and angling businesses,” stated the SBB. The group’s secretary, Alec O’Donovan stated: “If Ireland wishes to prevent further collapse of valuable wild trout and salmon stocks, and maintain its biodiversity and angling industries, such misrepresentation of the facts must stop.”

Scotland  FoI by Salmon and Trout Association shows reality of failure on sea lice control in salmon farms June 13, 2012 The Salmon and Trout Association (S&TA) has today published yet more worrying evidence of widespread failure to control sea lice in the Scottish salmon-farming industry. An analysis by S&TA of the inspections conducted by the Scottish Government’s Fish Health Inspectorate (FHI) of marine salmon farms in Scotland between June and December last year (2011), obtained under Freedom of Information (FoI), shows:  

of the marine farms inspected over 30% were breaching the industry’s own CoGP sea-lice standards during the period for which sea-lice records were inspected; either resistance to, of lack of efficacy of, sea-lice treatments was recorded at 17% of sites inspected.

Hughie Campbell-Adamson, Chairman of S&TA Scotland, says: ‘Contrary to all the bland assurances the salmon farmers’ trade body, the Scottish Salmon Producers Organisation (SSPO), gives to conservation bodies, to Marine Scotland and to the supermarkets which buy their fish – the information obtained by S&TA shows that sea-lice are not controlled on over 30% of salmon farms and control with chemicals is becoming more difficult. This is not good news for wild fish.

‘These figures explain why the industry has argued so vehemently against the publication of farm specific weekly sea lice counts in its response to Scottish Government proposals for the forthcoming Scottish Aquaculture and Fisheries Bill, but the case for legislative action is now cast-iron’.

Here is the detailed analysis in question: Analysis of FHI reports final.

Why are sea-lice a problem ?

After they transfer to sea water, wild salmonid smolts enter bays and sea lochs containing salmon farms that produce an abundance of juvenile sea lice – many orders of magnitude above natural background levels.

The most recent research, from Ireland, has concluded, like very many independent studies before it, that ‘sea lice-induced mortality on adult Atlantic salmon returns [in Ireland] can be significant, and that sea lice larvae emanating from farmed salmon may influence individual survivorship and population conservation status of wild salmon….’.

There are already reports this summer of very high densities of sea lice larvae in the coastal margins of parts of the north-west Highlands. Netting of juvenile sea trout for monitoring purposes has found many to be carrying alarmingly high lice burdens – at levels which are likely to prove fatal.

Relocation and closed containment The S&TA believes that the fish-farming industry can thrive alongside healthy self-supporting wild fish populations; but only if:  

those existing fish-farms in sensitive locations are relocated away from the wild salmonid rivers and, ultimately, the industry moves into closed containment systems.

These systems almost entirely eliminate polluting discharges to the sea and create a ‘biological separation’ between wild and farmed fish.

Paul Knight, CEO at the S&TA says: ‘There is a fundamental principle at stake here. It should not be permissible for the salmon-farming industry to discharge its waste food, faeces, toxic chemicals, huge numbers of parasitic sea-lice and escaped fish into the marine environment in a way and in locations that cause damage to marine wildlife.

‘Fish-farmers should not assume that the wider environment is theirs to exploit.

‘Fish-farming is a high input, intensive food production operation.

‘The evidence overwhelmingly suggests that there are sensitive locations on the west coast and in the isles of Scotland that are simply not the right place to practice open cage fish-farming.

‘The only pragmatic option is to relocate inappropriately sited farms in the short term and in the medium to long term, to move to closed containment production.

‘In the interests of the wider public marine environment and the protection of wild fish and shellfish upon which employment on the west coast and in the isles often depends, the Scottish Government must now give a clear political pointer to the industry (Ed: our emphasis) that relocation and closed containment is the way forward and, if not carried forward voluntarily, will be driven by law’.

Supermarket claims of responsible management or responsible farming UK supermarket shelves are stocked with Scottish farmed salmon products that claim to be the result of ‘responsible farming’ or ‘responsible management’.

S&TA’s findings again call into question exactly how these claims are justified.

Guy Linley-Adams, Solicitor to the S&TA Aquaculture Campaign says: ‘In the light of this and other S&TA research into fish-farming, and in the face of industry intransigence, we will increasingly be looking at the claims made on food-labelling about Scottish salmon.

‘The big supermarkets need to realise that the impact of poorly-managed fish-farms on the Scottish marine environment is not something they can safely or legally gloss over any longer.

‘We look to the supermarkets to bring their considerable influence to bear to alter fish-farmers’ behaviour’.

USA  President Barak Obama: America’s Natural Resources and Landscapes

May 22, 2012

Dear James:

Thank you for writing. I have heard from many Americans concerned about environmental issues, from recycling and pollution control to the well-being of our national parks and wildlife. I appreciate your perspective.

America’s natural resources and landscapes are among our Nation’s most precious treasures. We have an obligation to be responsible stewards of our environment and to protect these resources for future generations.

My Administration is taking action to protect and restore our land, water, and air. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which I signed in 2009, provides funding for hazardous waste cleanup, wastewater infrastructure construction, and projects that improve our Nation’s parks and wildlife refuges.

In March 2009, I also signed the Omnibus Public Land Management Act, the most extensive expansion of land and water conservation in more than a generation. It designates thousands of miles of trails under the National Trails System, protects more than 1,000 miles of rivers, and secures millions of acres of wilderness.

As individuals, we can all take steps to reduce our impact on our environment. Americans can walk, bike, and use public transportation; buy products with less packaging; recycle and reuse paper, plastic, glass, and aluminum; and teach young people about environmental preservation. Families can save money by purchasing energy-efficient products, turning off lights, and unplugging appliances. These small changes in our daily lives help build a cleaner, safer planet. To learn more about our environment and how you can make a difference, I encourage you to visit www.EPA.gov or www.WhiteHouse.gov. For more information on ground water and drinking water, please visit Water.EPA.gov/Drink. To learn about America’s Great Outdoors Initiative, visit AmericasGreatOutdoors.gov or read my 2011 Great Outdoors Month proclamation.

Thank you, again, for writing.

Sincerely, Barack Obama

ď ś EPA proposes new rules for muddy logging roads May 23, 2012 The Obama administration wants to change the rules applying to stormwater running off logging roads, blunting a landmark court ruling that found the muddy water running into salmon streams and drinking water reservoirs should be regulated like industrial pollution.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency filed notice Wednesday in the Federal Register proposing to revise stormwater regulations to say hundreds of thousands of miles of logging roads on private and public lands nationwide don't need the same kinds of permits that factories must get. Some of the roads are paved, but most are graveled, and some are bare dirt.

Instead, they would be regulated under a less stringent system known as "Best Management Practices," where authorities set up guidelines for the design and maintenance of logging roads to minimize erosion that sends mud into rivers. EPA is reviewing how states and tribes handle the issue, and plans to issue the new rules by Sept. 30, when an exemption for the timber industry enacted by Congress expires.

EPA spokeswoman Enesta Jones said the agency was taking advantage of flexibility within the Clean Water Act and would consider a full range of approaches that did not require permits.

The EPA rulemaking comes as the U.S. Supreme Court is considering whether to hear the case. The high court asked the Obama administration's top lawyer to suggest whether the question needed higher review. The U.S. Solicitor General's brief is expected in a few days.

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 2010 that the muddy water running off roads used in industrial logging is the same as any other industrial pollution, requiring a Clean Water Act permit from EPA. The case was brought by the Northwest Environmental Defense Center in Portland, Ore., against the Oregon Department of Forestry over logging roads on the Tillamook State Forest.

The timber industry said maintaining the status quo through best management practices as suggested by EPA was the best course, but urged Congress to make permanent the temporary exemption granted the timber industry after the appeals court ruling.

"If allowed to stand, the 9th Circuit approach will cost hundreds of millions of dollars, kill thousands of jobs and invite protracted litigation over permit technicalities without any corresponding environmental benefit," Dave Tenny, president of the National Alliance of Forest Owners, said in a statement. "Federal, state, tribal and private resource professionals agree that complicated and costly federal permits will not make our rivers and streams any cleaner."

Mark Riskedahl, executive director of the Northwest Environmental Defense Center, said industrial permits would provide better protection for salmon habitat and clean drinking water than best management practices, and EPA could award blanket permits similar to those held by the Oregon Department of Transportation for paved roads to makes things less complicated.

"EPA ought to provide clarity and certainty through guidance and rule-making, but the substance of the proposal is off-base," he said in an email. "EPA has long recognized that there are some industrial logging activities and logging roads that pollute streams and require (National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System) permits.

READ EINTIRE SEATTLE PI ARTICLE HERE

ď ś Seafood Species Substitution and Economic Fraud Seafood Substitution Economic Deception or Fraud in the sale of seafood occurs when a less expensive species is substituted for a more expensive-species. For example, the substitution of less expensive rockfish (Sebastes spp.) for more expensive red snapper (Lutjanus campechanus) in interstate commerce constitutes fraud and is prohibited under the Misbranding Section of the Federal Food Drug and Cosmetic Act Section 403: MISBRANDED FOOD. (See also, United States Code, Title 21, Chapter 9, Subchapter IV, Section 343.)

Section 403(b) - Misbranded food: A food shall be deemed to be misbranded if it is offered for sale under the name of another food.

FDA's Examples of Substituted Seafood Products in Column A have been known to be substituted for those in Column B, which in most cases are products that are more expensive.

Column A

Column B

Rockfish

Red Snapper

Yellowtail Mako Shark

Mahi Mahi Swordfish

Oreo Dory or John Dory Alaska Pollock

Orange Roughy Cod

Sea Bass Arrowtooth Flounder

Halibut Dover Sole

Black Drum White Perch

Red Drum (Red Fish; Southern or Gulf) Lake or Yellow Perch (Great Lakes)

Zander Paddlefish and other Fish Roe

Lake or Yellow Perch (Great Lakes) Caviar (Sturgeon species)

Sauger Pacific Salmon

Walleye Atlantic Salmon

Pink Salmon Skate Wings

Chum Salmon Scallops

Alaskan Pollock Steelhead Trout

Walleye Salmon

Imported Crabmeat Farm Raised Salmon

Blue Crabmeat Wild Caught Salmon

Alaska  Bristol Bay mining would harm Alaska salmon habitat, EPA analysis says May 18, 2012 Large-scale mining operations in Alaska’s Bristol Bay will harm habitat for wild salmon, the Environmental Protection Agency concluded in a draft assessment Friday, but agency officials said they had not decided whether they would move to block a proposal for a major gold and copper mine there.

The Nushagak and Kvichak watersheds produce nearly half the world’s sockeye salmon. Tribal leaders, environmentalists and salmon-fishing operators have lobbied the EPA to invoke the Clean Water Act, which includes provisions protecting fishery areas, to block the mining project proposed by Northern Dynasty Minerals, a Canadian company.

Large-scale mining operations in Alaska’s Bristol Bay will harm habitat for wild salmon, the Environmental Protection Agency concluded in a draft assessment Friday, but agency officials said they had not decided whether they would move to block a proposal for a major gold and copper mine there.

The company announced this week it would spend roughly $107 million to prepare its Pebble Mine project for permitting by the end of the year. The firm will produce a detailed description of the project, which could produce more than 80 billion pounds of copper, 107 million ounces of gold and 5.6 billion pounds of molybdenum.

Northern Dynasty Minerals and its subsidiary, Pebble Limited Partnership, estimate the mine could also produce 2,000 jobs during construction and 1,000 jobs when it is operating.

In a call with reporters Friday, the EPA’s Region 10 administrator, Dennis McLerran, said large-scale mining is likely “to have adverse impact on the productivity and sustainability of the salmon fishery” in Bristol Bay, primarily through destruction of habitat.

McLerran, who described the draft as “a scientific document” and not “a regulatory decision,” emphasized that it was an analysis of the potential impact of a hypothetical scenario rather than of a specific project.

“The assessment is not about a single mine,” he said, noting that in addition to Pebble, “at least seven mine proposals are in advanced stages of exploration and development.”

The study estimated that a large-scale mine “would likely result in the direct loss of [54 to 87.9 miles] of streams and [3.9 to 6.7 square miles] of wetlands.” It added that water withdrawals for mine operations “would significantly diminish habitat quality in an additional [1.2 to 6.2 miles] of streams.”

It also stated that while it was highly unlikely that dams containing mine tailings would break, other “potential accidents” include acid, metal and other contaminants being released from the mine site, waste-rock piles or tailings storage, or spilled copper concentrate.

“Though precise estimates of the probabilities of failure occurrence cannot be made, evidence from the long-term operation of similar large mines suggests that, over the life span of a large mine, at least one or more accidents or failures could occur, potentially resulting in immediate, severe impacts on salmon and detrimental, long-term impacts on salmon habitat,” the analysis said.

In a telephone interview Friday, John Shively, chief executive of the Pebble Limited Partnership, questioned the assessment’s integrity given that it was conducted in just one year.

“We’ve been studying a small part of these two watersheds for eight years,” he said, adding that the company had spent $120 million on scientific studies so far. “We don’t understand how [the EPA’s draft assessment] can possibly be adequate and meet their standards.”

Shively added that while President Obama has pledged to streamline the federal permitting process, the EPA has been complicating the permitting process before it has begun.

“The issue is how are we going to design a mine that protects fish,” he said. “You figure that out in the permitting process. We understand the fish need to be protected. We want an opportunity to prove it.”

However, many fishing operators and Bristol Bay residents said any mining operation could jeopardize the area’s average annual run of 37.5 million sockeye salmon. The EPA estimated that Bristol Bay’s wild salmon fishery and other ecological resources generate $480 million in annual revenue and provide at least 14,000 full-time and part-time jobs.

“What I read here is pretty definitive. There will be loss of habitat and impacts on the fishery in any large-scale mining scenario in the area,” said Lindsay Bloom, who fishes for sockeye salmon as captain of the ship Rainy Dawn. “It’s really nice to see someone finally taking this seriously.”

Sharon Leighow, spokeswoman for Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell (R), said the governor “will work to ensure any new development fully protects the resource values of the area” but believes “the EPA has clearly overreached with this unprecedented process. Without a specific proposal, the EPA cannot evaluate the potential impacts or risks from the project.”

Elizabeth Dubovsky, salmon outreach director for Trout Unlimited’s Alaska program, said she was confident that the analysis would lead the Obama administration to block mining operations in Bristol Bay. “This is not about being anti-mining. This is about recognizing that some places are not appropriate for these sorts of industrial activities,” Dubovsky said. “For the first time, we now have the information in hand for Obama to take action on that.”

Kentucky  Even in Coal Country, the Fight for an Industry May 29, 2012

A coal wall at a Kentucky mine. The use of coal is declining because of new pollution rules and a surge in natural gas production.

LOUISA, Ky. — For generations, coal has been king in this Appalachian town. It provided heat, light and jobs for the hundreds of people who worked in the nearby coal mines and the smoke-coughing Big Sandy power plant that burned their black bounty.

But now, coal is in a corner. Across the United States, the industry is under siege, threatened by new regulations from Washington, environmentalists fortified by money from Michael R. Bloomberg, the billionaire mayor of New York City, and natural gas companies intent on capturing much of the nation’s energy market.

So when the operator of the Big Sandy plant announced last year that it would be switching from coal to cleaner, cheaper natural gas, people here took it as the worst betrayal imaginable.

“Have you lost your mind?” State Representative Rocky Adkins, a Democrat and one of Kentucky’s most powerful politicians, thundered at Michael G. Morris, the chairman of the plant’s operator, American Electric Power, during an encounter last summer. “You cannot wave the white flag and let the environmentalists and regulators declare victory here in the heart of coal country.”

READ ENTIRE NEW YORK TIMES ARTICLE HERE

Maine  Hat Trick on the Penobscot River: Fewer Dams, Same Energy, More Fish June 11, 2012

Aerial shot of the Great Works dam, removal of which starts today.

Today, steel rams will start to break apart an old hydroelectric dam on Maine’s longest river, ushering in a restoration project that will keep the electricity flowing while rehabilitating some of the state’s most damaged and valuable fisheries, like herring and Atlantic salmon.

The dam destruction on the Penobscot River caps a 13-year, $25 million campaign involving six conservation groups, the local Native American tribe, federal and state governments and two hydropower companies to decommission three dams that have choked the lower river for decades, while upgrading power output on six other dams.

“Removing the lower two dams and bypassing a third opens up nearly 1,000 miles of habitat for endangered Atlantic salmon, sturgeon, river herring and eight other species of sea-run fish in Maine.

As fish passage is improved at four remaining dams and energy increased at others, these ecological benefits will be realized while maintaining or even increasing energy production,” according to the website of the Penobscot River Restoration Trust, which was formed in order to rehabilitate the river.

A ceremony is being held today to celebrate the removal of the Great Works dam, which has blocked the fish commute on the Penobcot since the 1830s. The Penobscot River, the second-longest in New England, begins below Mount Katahdin in the North Woods and ends its journey 109 miles later in Penobscot Bay. Great Works, the dam second-closest to the coast, is expected to be removed by November.

Destruction of the most oceanward dam, called the Veazie, will start in 2013 and be complete by 2014, said Laura Rose Day, executive director of the Penobscot Trust.

Removing the two dams will restore the entire run of some fish, like Atlantic and shortnose sturgeon and striped bass. Meanwhile, Atlantic salmon will gain access to their historic hatching grounds with the help of a fish elevator to be installed on a dam upriver.

“Restoring access to this prime habitat represents our single best opportunity to recover Atlantic salmon, the most endangered migratory fish in the northeastern United States,” according to a memo by the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration, which has invested almost $20 million to rebuild fisheries on the Penobscot.

One of the most important creatures to find relief will be river herring, a class of small baitfish that historically ran in the tens of millions on the Penobscot but now number just a few thousand. They are tasty meals for cod and pollock, some of the most valuable fish in Maine that vanished when the herring did. Herring are also prime baitfish for the lobster fishery, which in Maine earns $331 million a year.

A similar dam removal project was performed in the late 1990s on the Kennebec, a smaller river in Maine. It caused a rally in the population of alewife, a key baitfish whose census shrunk to the low thousands before the dam removals and have since returned 2.8 million strong per year, according to the Penobscot Trust.

The trust originally bought the two dams from PPL Corporation, which subsequently sold its remaining assets on the Penobscot to Black Bear Hydropower. Now Black Bear Hydropower is retooling six other dams on the Penobcot to make up for the loss of the Great Works and Veazie dams. The company is raising the level of one dam and adding powerhouses in vacant slots at others, all at its own expense. “We probably will at least equal the energy we’re losing,” said Dick Fennelly, a vice president at Black Bear Hydro.

Members of the Penobscot Trust include the Penobscot Indian Nation and the environmental groups American Rivers, Atlantic Salmon Federation, Maine Audubon, Natural Resources Council of Maine, Trout Unlimited and The Nature Conservancy.

NOAA estimates that the dam removal project will create 258 jobs.

Montana  Missoula City Council supports study of coal trains' effects May 22, 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.

Everyone who breathes will be at risk in Missoula if all the planned coal terminals on the Pacific Coast get built out – and coal train traffic here skyrockets, one doctor said Monday.

“It is a fact that putting that much particulate from coal into our airshed will dramatically increase the diagnoses of asthma, pneumonia, lung and sinus infection, allergies, emphysema, (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) and cancer – lung, esophageal and stomach – and cardiovascular diseases as well,” said Amy Haynes, a Missoula physician who offered prepared remarks at a Missoula City Council meeting. “We know this. Medical research supports this as a fact.”

Haynes was among many members of the public speaking in support of a resolution calling on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to study the cumulative and local environmental effects of multiple proposed coal export terminals on the Pacific Coast. The council approved the resolution on a 6-3 vote with one abstention and two councilors absent.

“The state of Montana has a long history of being treated and seen as a colony by large corporate interests ... oftentimes leaving us with a mess to clean up for years and sometimes decades to come,” said Councilman Dave Strohmaier, who proposed the resolution.

The measure notes that proposed export terminals in Oregon and Washington have the capacity to handle 150 million tons of coal a year, and that means as many as 60 more trains a day running through Missoula from mines in the Powder River Basin.

Similar to legislation drawn up in other rail line communities, the resolution calls on the Corps of Engineers to conduct a “programmatic environmental impact statement” on the cumulative effects of air pollutants, traffic delays, coal dust, and noise pollution. It also calls for a public hearing in Missoula.

“What we need are clear answers about what’s going to happen in our town, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is certainly in a position to get them for us,” said Councilman Jason Wiener.

Members of the public largely agreed. When Rattlesnake resident Jan Hoem came up to the microphone, she asked if people in the audience would raise their hands if they supported the resolution, and hands shot up from most members of the public in the packed house.

J. Bob Yarger, a Missoula resident and member of the Northern Plains Resource Council, said more train traffic will require more infrastructure, and the review from the Corps of Engineers will allow the city to understand the costs of necessary upgrades.

“It will also provide the knowledge that can be used to ensure that the taxpayers of Missoula aren’t left footing the bill for these massive, expensive upgrades,” Yarger said.

Some people argue that diesel emissions are just a small part of the pollutants in Missoula, but Sue Spanke said it’s not that small if you’re living next to it. She’s spent time near the railyard in Livingston and witnessed firsthand the negative effects.

“I wouldn’t wish that on anybody. It’s a serious health concern, and we have an ongoing air problem,” Spanke said of Missoula.

Another Missoula resident, Laulette Hansen, said she has always liked trains, but these days, there’s a lot of them going through Missoula. She called for a baseline study of pollution along the rail line.

“I’d like to see these companies pressed, if the coal is going to travel through Montana, to do something to make sure that it doesn’t just stay in Montana in our communities and in our waterways,” Hansen said. “This is very near the Clark Fork River, which I believe we just spent hundreds of millions (of dollars) trying to clean up.”

Councilors Adam Hertz, Dick Haines and Ed Childers voted against the resolution; Mike O’Herron said he abstained because he works for an agency that sees financial benefit from coal extraction in Montana. Childers said he wanted to represent another point of view.

“I will vote against this if for no other reason than this is a democracy, and it certainly should be made aware to everyone that we don’t all speak with one voice all the time,” Childers said. “I think there are some people in this town that like trains.”

Oregon

ď ś Coal

Train and Barge Numbers Staggering. Oregon Environmental Disaster Assured.

May 24, 2012

A reasonable estimate of coal dust particle spillage is 1 pound per rail car per mile. An average 125 car coal train will spill 125 pounds of coal dust particles per mile within one and a half miles on either side of the track. 6,691 coal trains traveling along both sides of the Columbia river from the Hermiston area in Eastern Oregon westward would spill 836,375 pounds of coal dust particles per mile per year for decades. Long stretches of the Columbia river could absorb more that 400,000 pounds of coal dust particle spillage per mile per year. This does NOT include coal dust particle spillage from 5,333 standard coal barges per year from Port Morrow to Port Westward.

What Can You Do? Read These Sightline – http://www.sightline.org/research/energy/coal/coal-FAQ.pdf http://www.sightline.org/research/energy/coal/Coal%20Export-A%20History%20of%20Failure.pdf Sierra Club http://www.beyondcoal.org/ Portland Tribune – http://portlandtribune.com/sustainable/story.php?story_id=133721219844877400 Daily Journal of Commerce – http://djcoregon.com/news/2012/05/22/coal-export-companies-target-pacific-northwest/

Alert Your Friends And Neighbors And Share Information Send, distribute, publish this post to everyone you know in Oregon and Washington. Permission is granted to publish all or parts of this post and the attached map to news organizations and anyone else that may be interested.

Prepare To Recall Port Commissioners If you are a registered voter in any public or private leadership position in the Port Morrow or Port of St. Helens voting district you should find those who oppose coal shipments through your community and start recall petitions for all the Port Commissioners. If and when any of them vote in favor of coal shipments you will be ready to submit your recall petitions.

Port Morrow requires 483 signatures to recall a Port Commissioner.

Port of St. Helens/Port of Westward requires 2,794 signatures to recall a Port Commissioner.

Port of Coos Bay Commissioners are appointed. Governor Kitzhaber's office is looking into the procedure for dismissal or recall of Port of Coos Bay Commissioners.

Be Prepared To Act Strategies and tactics are being planned throughout the Pacific Northwest that will include your support and participation. Pay attention. Watch for calls to action in the near future and then join in and act. Contacting every elected official and candidate you can vote for and telling them you want them to help you stop BIG COAL from polluting our air, water, politics and government is a good place to start.

Washington State

ď ś Deadly Virus Makes First Appearance in Washington Salmon Farm May 25, 2012

A virus deadly to farmed Atlantic salmon has been detected among fish at an aquaculture operation on Puget Sound's Bainbridge Island.

SEATTLE — A deadly virus that caused salmon farmers in British Columbia to kill 560,000 fish has shown up for the first time in a Washington state fish farm.

The Orchard Rocks salmon farm on Puget Sound’s Bainbridge Island is killing off its stock after fish were diagnosed with the IHN virus.

Infectious Hematopoietic Necrosis virus occurs naturally in wild salmon and does not cause massive die-offs, but farmed Atlantic salmon are very vulnerable to the disease.

The infected fish are safe for people to eat, so the farm is butchering and selling the ones that are market-size.

Icicle Seafoods - the company that owns the farm - says the nets will be sanitized and the area will be left fallow for three months.

Scientists think that when fish are kept in confined conditions, viruses can mutate and become more virulent.

That has wild fish advocates raising concerns about possible risks to the juvenile salmon that are migrating out of Washington rivers right now.

There are over 120 pens of farmed salmon in Washington.

Correction: May 24, 2012: This story originally mischaracterized the historical significance of the recent discovery of a virus among farmed salmon in Puget Sound. It is the first time the virus has been detected in a fish farm in Washington state, but not the first time it has appeared in Washington waters.

ď ś Salmon from infected pens sold for compost and, possibly, food May 29, 2012

Washington State fish managers say American Beauty Seafood Company informed them the company intends to harvest at least some of the Atlantic salmon from their virus-infected pens for human consumption.

Company officials told KING 5 to expect a statement about the infected salmon Tuesday afternoon.

By 5:00 p.m. it had not arrived. The company has confirmed it is destroying all the fish in the infected pens, approximately 1.3 million pounds of Atlantic salmon, but it did not mention any plans to sell some to stores or restaurants.

State Fish Health Manager John Kerwin told King 5, the company informed him it did plan to harvest some for human consumption. Kerwin noted scientific studies have found the HIN virus, which causes deadly flu-like symptoms in fish, does not affect people.

Kerwin and others with the State Department of Fish and Wildlife are concerned the virus could spread from the pens to wild salmon migrating nearby.

Keriwn said the company is taking the proper precautions by voluntarily destroying the fish, removing the nets and sterilizing them. The company has reportedly said it will not be able to raise fish for four months.

Meanwhile the Oly Mountain Fish Compost Company is getting regular deliveries of the salmon. It is paying for the opportunity to turn it into rich compost, which is in high demand by gardeners. The company said the ground fish is heated to 140 degrees during the composting process, which kills all viruses.

 IHN virus detected in Atlantic salmon farm near Bainbridge Island May 30th, 2012

Infectious hematopoietic necrosis (IHN) virus has been detected in three privately-owned Atlantic salmon marine pen complexes in Rich Passage near Bainbridge Island.

American Gold Seafoods, which owns the Orchard Rocks, Fort Ward and Clam Bay complexes, is taking action to depopulate the infected net pens. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife is responsible for ensuring this happens as quickly as possible. The virus was confirmed May 8, and American Gold Seafoods expects to harvest or destroy at least 400,000 fish from the three sites by mid-June. Consuming affected fish is not harmful to humans.

IHN is not new to Puget Sound. It is found each year at some level in sockeye returning to spawn.

However, this is the first reported detection of IHN virus in Atlantic salmon in marine net pens in Washington. Researchers have found that Atlantic salmon, an exotic species in these waters, are more susceptible to IHN than native Pacific salmon. The virus likely was picked up from infected fish in marine waters, possibly from out-migrating sockeye smolts from the Baker, Cedar and Ozette watersheds, where IHN was detected during the past year.

“We are concerned about the virus amplification that is occurring from the affected pens, and the length of time the amplifying event is occurring over,” said Bruce Stewart, fish health program manager for the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission. “American Gold reported increased mortalities starting in April. We now are at end of May and infected fish are still in those pens shedding virus.”

Tribal fisheries managers are concerned that native salmon will be infected as they migrate through the area. NWIFC is working with the Suquamish Tribe to beach seine chinook, chum and pink salmon in Rich Passage and test them for the virus.

“We do not know what effect, if any, virus exposure will have on these fish,” Stewart said.

Another concern is the risk to captive broodstock from endangered runs being reared at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Manchester facility.

“Several tribes are rearing salmon at Manchester as part of recovery programs,” Stewart said.

“Manchester’s saltwater intake is very close to the Clam Bay net pen site where the virus has been found.”

Although the salt water at Manchester is passed through a sand filter and then is disinfected with ultra-violet light, any breach in the system could result in the virus infecting one of those broodstock programs and jeopardize egg or fish transfers off site, Stewart added.



Proposed site for Chehalis River dam near Pe Ell

Approximate reservoir level resulting from the proposed Hydropower / water retention dam (without fish passage)

“Those who have seen the scalped mountains of the upper Chehalis watershed do not have to look far to see cave-ins already occurring. It is an unstable area which will only be made worse through damming. Not only would damming the river block off salmon passage and destroy needed fish and wildlife habitat, it would be the last straw in the area which would cause far more massive destabilization and cave-ins. I remember well what happened at Deer Creek on the Stillaguamish years ago when the mountain was logged and half of it caved in, causing massive mudslides and massive sediment flow that changed the river system forever. Believe me, the people of Pe Ell and other downriver communities do not want to experience that. It has the potential of dwarfing the impact of the flooding they have experienced in the past. Yet, that is precisely what they are inviting if they go ahead with the construction of a dam, not to mention the generations of impact they would cause to the ecosystem they depend upon.

Damming the river is the wrong approach. Stabilizing the mountain slopes through habitat restoration, such as replanting trees, restoring wetlands and recruiting absorbing duff, wood mass, etc., is far more sensible and it would create far more jobs. In the history of western stewardship• people have always sought the easy fix when they messed things up in the environment. More often than not, they’ve been wrong in their approach. It’s time to realize that if we just open our eyes, Mother Nature shows us the way, and the artificial fixes we devise simply don’t cut muster. Remember, too, that some flooding is a completely natural and healthy process of Nature. We need to adapt to it, not try to overcome it.”

Steve Robinson

The reservoir behind the proposed dam (300’ high x 2,000’ long) in the headwaters of the Chehalis River 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.

 Irresponsible logging practices directly responsible for repeated catastrophic flood related damage in the Chehalis River Basin

Editorial Comment: For more than two years, conservation organizations have recommended a moratorium on steep slope clear cut logging throughout the Chehalis River basin as a means to reduce flood-related property damage, personal harm and death.

For more than two years, elected and appointed officials at all levels have intentionally ignored this common sense, cost effective approach given the “Big Timber” political influence throughout the Chehalis River basin

Photo courtesy of Natural Settings and LightHawk

“Cheap” steep slope clearcut logging without reforestation:

          

Increased stormwater runoff Increased pollution in rivers and tributaries Increased water temperatures Low flows in summer - high flows fall, winter, spring Increased CO2 Reduced habitat for fish and wildlife Increased mass wasting Increased flood-related property and infrastructure damage and loss of life Reduced recreation opportunities Economic loss Much more

 Our Views: Data Support Dam to Control Chehalis River Flooding June 12, 2012

By The Chronicle This week will mark a major milestone in the long, winding effort to reduce damage from flooding on the Chehalis River.

As officials and researchers gather for two days in Grand Mound, they have data before them that clearly show the value of building a dam upstream from Pe Ell in the headwaters of the unruly river.

It’s worth keeping a few numbers in mind. One is 4.5 feet, which is the reduction in the peak water level of a December 2007-type flood in the neighborhood around Mellen and Yew streets in Centralia if the dam is built, according to data presented last month by WEST Consultants to the Chehalis River Basin Flood Authority.

Parts of Chehalis would see a reduction of 2 or more feet. The area around Fort Borst Park would see a reduction of more than 3 feet.

Upstream, the parts of Doty and Dryad that were slammed with unprecedented water levels would see a reduction of 12 feet during a 2007-type flood.

Of the many flood control proposals on the table, a dam is the only one that makes flooding better everywhere without making it worse somewhere else.

The WEST Consultants presentation notes that other proposals — higher levees around the Chehalis-Centralia Airport, for example, or widening the Mellen Street chokepoint — all help in a few spots but make flooding worse elsewhere.

Take the long-discussed and now dismissed proposal by the Army Corps of Engineers to raise levees around the Twin Cities. If that plan had been enacted and in place before the December 2007 flood, the water level actually would have been worse in 19 of the 21 areas studied. In parts of Centralia the water level would have been three feet higher. Areas from the city of Chehalis to the mouth of the river in Cosmopolis would have seen an increase in water levels during a December 2007-type event.

It’s time to get serious about cutting back on the annual risk of devastating flooding, a threat that hangs like a sword over the people and economy of the entire area.

Only a dam up on the upper river would not only take a big bite out of downstream flooding, but would include habitat enhancements creating a net increase in the number of salmon on the river.

These are important issues, with difficult decisions required. We’re glad that the process has been taken seriously. During this week’s two-day gathering, with all the data on the table, we urge careful and decisive consideration of the only comprehensive solution available — a headwaters dam on the Chehalis River.

Editorial Comment: The proposal for a hydropower / water retention dam on the upper Chehalis River is irresponsible and full of faulty assumptions and outright lies.

No way will this dam ever be constructed given its ever-increasing costs and highly questionable benefits, the negative impacts it will have on the region's highly prized fish and wildlife and due to the fact that the December 2007 flood was such an abnormal situation.

You'll recall that this Pacific storm roared in from the southwest powered by heavy winds and loaded with massive amounts of warm water (Pineapple Express). These warm rains that were driven by strong winds stalled over the Willapa Hills where they melted snow on the higher slopes. The deluge of rain and snowmelt led to mass wasting of thousands of recently cut logs along with logging debris and soil loosened during recent steep slope logging activity.

This mix of logs, debris, soil, rocks and water soon clogged many streams and rivers, including the upper Chehalis River.

The proposed dam would capture a small percentage of the water from a similar storm given the number of streams and rivers downstream from it, including the South Fork of the Chehalis River, Newaukum, Skookumchuck and many others.

Of course, the vast majority of our flood-causing storms do not stall over the Willapa Hills as the 2007 one did. In these cases, this proposed dam would be totally ineffective leading to catastrophic damages and closing Interstate 5 (again).

Those who support construction of this proposed dam are attempting to sell state and federal taxpayers a "Bill of Goods" that makes no economic sense.

 A burning question: Should Northwest be coal-export hub?

June 6, 2012 The Pacific Northwest could be on its way to becoming the nation’s No. 1 coal-export region, a prospect that raises several serious questions that must be answered sooner, rather than later.

Asia, including China and India, are hungry for cheap coal to fuel coal-fired power plants to provide increased electricity supplies for their growing economies.

The coal industry officials see this as an opportunity to bolster sales overseas to make up for dwindling demand for coal in the United States. They have formed alliances with maritime and rail shipping interests to propose at least a half-dozen coal export terminals from Cherry Point in Whatcom County to Coos Bay, Ore. Coal used to be the fuel source for more than half of the electricity produced in the U.S. Today, that figure is down to 40 percent and likely to drop even lower due to increased regulation of air emissions from coal-fired power plants, everything from mercury to carbon dioxide. An abundance of cheaper and cleaner-burning natural gas has stifled coal consumption in the U.S. as well.

Burning coal releases greenhouse gases into the environment, contributing to climate change. Coal has a hard time fitting into the cleaner energy future that is needed to reduce global warning.

The irony associated with regional coal exports can’t be ignored. On one hand, the U.S. has embarked on a concerted effort to reduce reliance on coal to produce energy. On the other hand, this country is considering a major expansion of coal exports to Asia. If all six of the coal export terminals are built in the Pacific Northwest, they would have the capacity to receive more than 150 million tons of coal per year mined in Wyoming and Montana, then ship it overseas.

At the very least, the environmental impacts of these shipments and exports should be reviewed not just as individual projects, but for their accumulative effects. What is needed is some sort of programmatic environmental impact statement that takes into account this major shift in coal export policy.

It’s incumbent upon the federal government to take the lead in this effort. Maybe the National Environmental Policy Act can’t be used to address the impacts of burning U.S. coal overseas. But clearly there needs to be that type of over-arching review.

Even before a federal review, this state, led by the governor’s office, should undergo its own assessment of whether this state wants to play a major role in coal exports. On the surface, it seems counter to other efforts to phase out coal-burning power plants in this state.

Officials also need answers to another policy question. If we are going to be involved in coal exports, what is the best option? Where should this new capacity be developed and how many coal export terminals can we support without clogging up railways with too many more-than-a-mile-long coal trains?

In a strongly worded letter to the secretary of interior and secretary of the Army, Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber summed up the fundamental question the coal export terminal boom raises: “If the United States is going to embark on large-scale export of coal to Asia, it is imperative that we ask – and answer – the question of how such actions fit with the larger strategy of moving to a lower carbon future.”

It’s a question that can’t be ignored.

 Wash. Gubernatorial Hopefuls Weigh In On Coal June 12, 2012

Editorial Comment: Both candidates fail to recognize the global impacts of burning additional American coal in China – specifically, ocean acidification, climate change, acid rain and more – the health and environmental concerns are much more than just the impacts along the train tracks.

Both of Washington’s major gubernatorial candidates used Tuesday’s debate to call for a comprehensive review of Washington’s three proposed coal export terminals.

And while neither Democrat Jay Inslee or Republican Rob McKenna gave bottom line positions on the issue, each used their first debate together to hint at where they might come down if forced to choose.

It’s an issue that’s increasingly rising to the top tier of environmental concern, as well as economic possibility, for the region. The coal-export question’s role in the debate in Spokane underscores the way coal isn’t just being debated by the communities being considered for an export terminal.

Politicians, too, are grappling with the issue.

McKenna hammered the economic opportunities of exporting coal.

“We’re talking about hundreds and hundreds of permanent high-paying jobs,” said McKenna, the Washington attorney general. “If they can meet our state’s high environmental health and safety standards then why would they be discriminated against as opposed to some other economic development project?”

Inslee was a bit more tentative.

“My view is we need to evaluate all of the jobs prospects, both plus or minus, before we make a decision, said Inslee, a member of Congress. “But let me suggest that this is a moment of truth for the state of Washington and it is a question of whether or not we will embrace a future that can embrace the new systems of energy.”

The two agreed that study of the proposed terminals should be within the context of larger regional impacts — like increased rail traffic and human and environmental health effects along the rail routes.

There are six ports in the Northwest considering building export facilities to bring coal from Wyoming and Montana to Asian markets. Half of those ports are in Washington.

 Coal trains through Washington: few benefits, much to fear Washingtonians need to take note of the increasing number of open-bed coal cars passing through their communities, with coal dust and global pollution at the forefront of concern as the shipments make their way to China, writes guest columnist Liz Talley.

COMMUNITIES across our state are looking at train tracks as a threat to the environment as an ever-growing number of open-bed coal cars pass by.

From Spokane, along the Columbia River, and up our pristine coast, through the Sodo area, by our sports stadiums, through Interbay and Golden Gardens Park, trains with four or five engines are increasingly pulling 125-plus cars full of coal, as they transport this product from Wyoming to Canada for shipment to China.

As China demands more coal, new shipping ports are being planned, including one in the Bellingham area at Cherry Point. An increase of approximately 18 trains a day — approximately 1,000 to 1,500 open-bed cars filled with coal — is being proposed to pass through our communities daily as part of these coal shipments to China.

As I look at the railroad tracks in Ballard and reflect on why it's so great to live along Puget Sound, and as frustration mounts from watching coal being shipped from Wyoming across our community to create dirty energy far away on our planet, I feel that it is important to share information about this with my neighbors and see if others are also concerned about what we are about to give up if this challenge goes unmet.

There are many things to think about when looking at the proposed increase in coal trains in our community, but three of the big issues to me are these: • Coal dust is toxic, unhealthy, possibly linked to lung cancer and asthma, and is a byproduct of shipping coal in open-bed trains;

READ ENTIRE SEATTLE TIMES ARTICLE HERE

Wyoming

 Wyoming delegation says China coal forum worth the trip May 27, 2012 By this time next week, a handful of Wyomingites including Gov. Matt Mead and his family will be on the other side of the world in China.

Two years after a similar conference in Laramie, the coal-rich central Chinese province of Shaanxi will host a four-day forum to discuss coal mining and regulations, talk about ways to limit and store emissions from burning coal, and examine systems to convert coal into motor fuels and other chemicals.

Those attending from Wyoming, a delegation that includes top state officials, and University of Wyoming scientists and students, say the topics are near and dear to the state’s economic heart and worth the nearly $100,000 the journey will cost the state.

“We need to develop Wyoming relationships with China as a potential consumer of our coal and our products,” said state Sen. Phil Nicholas, R-Laramie, the Senate’s vice president and a forum delegate.

“The effort to collaborate and build developing clean coal technology is extremely important,” he said.

“As we watch our revenues fluctuate, we simply can’t stand still.”

‘An excellent opportunity’ For those going to the forum, which was first held in Australia in 2008, it’s a chance to build relationships with people in a Chinese province which, although home to tens of millions, is similar to Wyoming in size and bounty of natural resources.

A dozen University of Wyoming students will stop in Beijing and visit with Chinese students before traveling to the Third International Advanced Coal Technologies Conference in Xi’an, the capital of the province of Shaanxi, from June 3-7. According to University of Wyoming School of Energy Resources, the trip will cost the state $93,800.

“This is an excellent opportunity for our students to see, firsthand, what’s happening in the coal industry internationally,” Mark Northam, director of the UW School of Energy Resources, said in a media release.

Also attending the forum will be scientists from the United States, China and Australia and business representatives from General Electric and other firms developing coal-to-gas technology and the fields of emission reduction and storage.

Bob Kelly, executive chairman of Houston-based DKRW Advanced Fuels, will also attend the conference. DKRW is pressing forward with plans to build a coal-to-gasoline plant near Elk Mountain and has asked for county support and financial help from the state Legislature.

In an emailed response to questions, Kelly said DKRW considered the conference important and a chance to discuss the company’s plan to capture carbon emitted from its Wyoming plant and provide it for use pushing oil out of low-producing fields

READ ENTIRE TRIB ARTICLE HERE

Featured Fishing Adventure: Washington’s coastal waters - ling cod and sea bass A day on the Pacific Ocean on Charterboat Slammer fishing for ling cod and black sea bass with Rhett Weber (owner/operator) and deckhands, Andy and Charlene.

Jim Wilcox (center) recently fished with Rhett Weber (far left) on Rhett’s Westport, Washingtonbased Charterboat Slammer (above) for ling cod (center) and black sea bass (far right). Everyone went home with a limit (10) of bass. About half of the anglers also caught lings. Both are fun-to-catch, excellent eating, wild game fish. Two early season, hatchery-reared chinook (king salmon) were also caught and kept. The last fish to the boat for this trip was a 40 pound halibut that was out of season so it was responsibly released. Book your 2012 reservations to fish with Rhett and his crew at Deep Sea Charters. You and your guests will have a great time!

Conservation Video Library – “Why we’re involved” Salmon Wars: Salmon Farms, Wild Fish and the Future of Communities (6.07) New Tar Sands: Oil Industry Above the Law? (1:42) New SPOIL – Protecting BC’s Great Bear Rainforest from oil tanker spills (44:00) New 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