Legacy - July 2015

Legacy

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eMagazine of Wild Game Fish Conservation International

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Cover: Camp is ready for 2015 season (Dave and Kim Egdorf's Western Alaska Sport Fishing)

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

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

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

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

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

Wild Game Fish Conservation International Founders

Bruce Treichler

Jim Wilcox

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

Contents Special Report: ____________________________________________________________________________________ 6  17 Ways the Government Is Helping Kill Wild Salmon ____________________________________________________ 6  Salmon feedlots: Illegal dumping in Galway Bay ________________________________________________________ 10

Conservationist Extraordinaire – Walking the Talk___________________________________________________ 13  Robert Vadas, Jr. _____________________________________________________________________________________ 13

Opinion-Editorial: _________________________________________________________________________________ 14  Grays Harbor oil terminal would threaten Quinault Indian identity ________________________________________ 14  The fossil-fuel industry’s campaign to mislead the American people _____________________________________ 16  COUNTERPOINT: Farmed salmon not fit for consumption _______________________________________________ 18

Fishing Photos and Funnies _______________________________________________________________________ 20  Phil Flanders with 143 pound halibut (Port Angeles, Washington) ________________________________________ 20  Congratulations Rhett Weber (Slammer) – Evening Magazine: The Best Northwest Escapes (Fishing Charter) _____________________________________________________________________________________________ 21

WGFCI Writes to Conserve Wild Fish and Those Who Rely on Them _________________________________ 23  Nancy Greene Raine __________________________________________________________________________________ 23  Fawn Sharp __________________________________________________________________________________________ 23  Christy Clark _________________________________________________________________________________________ 23

Seafood consumption: Public health risks and benefits______________________________________________ 24  Warning: Eating Farmed Salmon May Affect Your Baby _________________________________________________ 24  Enjoy seasonal wild salmon dinners at these fine restaurants:___________________________________________ 25

Community Activism, Education and Outreach ______________________________________________________ 26     

Stopping Farmed Salmon at the Cash Register _________________________________________________________ People vs Oil ________________________________________________________________________________________ Tribal Leaders in Pacific Northwest Take a Stand Against Coal Terminals ________________________________ Anti-oil forum warns of possible economic and environmental impacts of oil on the Harbor _______________ Make Canada GMO-Free: No to Monsanto ______________________________________________________________

26 27 28 30 33

      

Say No to GMO ______________________________________________________________________________________ Unist’ot’en Camp says No to All Pipelines______________________________________________________________ Tseil-Waututh Nation: Consent Denied: Trans Mountain Pipeline and Tanker Expansion ___________________ Do not renew BC’s ocean-based salmon feedlot licenses________________________________________________ Imperial Metals No More ______________________________________________________________________________ Wild Salmon Warrior Radio with Jay Peachy – Fridays at Noon __________________________________________ Olympia Trout Unlimited: Enhancing the Deschutes ____________________________________________________

34 35 35 36 37 38 39

Salmon and trout feedlots _________________________________________________________________________ 40  Alexandra Morton: Premier of BC stands alone in support of salmon farm expansion _____________________ 41  Thousands of salmon worth £240,000 escape from fish farm after storm _________________________________ 42  CLYDE SALMON ESCAPE 'COULD ENDANGER WILD FISH' _____________________________________________ 43  B.C. salmon-farm company tackles Federal Court order with appeal _____________________________________ 45  Scientists dispute findings of B.C. report that minimizes risk of aquaculture to wild salmon _______________ 46  Canadian Risk Assessment Finds GMO Salmon Susceptible to Disease __________________________________ 48  Petition: Divest Dirty Salmon __________________________________________________________________________ 50

Legacy – July 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots Energy Generation: Oil, Coal, Geothermal, Hydropower, Natural Gas, Solar, Tidal, Wind _______________ 53 Petroleum – Drilled, Refined, Tar Sands, Fracked _________________________________________________________ 56  Petropolis - Rape and pillage of Canada and Canadians for toxic bitumen ________________________________ 56  Local artist-activist confronts Shell Arctic drill rig off Vancouver Island __________________________________ 57  State of Emergency Declared: California Oil Spill Now Estimated at 105,000 Gallons ______________________ 61  State to require full environmental review of crude-heating facility _______________________________________ 67  Dahr Jamail | Oil Trains Don't Have to Derail or Explode to Be Hazardous, Doctors Warn __________________ 70  Scientists study impact of diluted bitumen spilled into ocean____________________________________________ 71  US says Gulf oil spill could last 100 years ______________________________________________________________ 74  Major oil spill could cost Vancouver economy $1.2 billion: city report ____________________________________ 76  Shell loses appeal of oil train project in Skagit County __________________________________________________ 78  TransCanada's Keystone Pipeline Network Under Investigation by Federal Regulators ____________________ 79 Coal ___________________________________________________________________________________________________ 85  Save the Chuitna _____________________________________________________________________________________  The oil boom in one slick infographic __________________________________________________________________ Hydropower / Water Retention ___________________________________________________________________________  Power from Site C dam ‘dramatically’ more costly than thought: expert __________________________________

85 85 86 87

 Ecology Plans to Install Six Gauges on Chehalis River Tributaries _______________________________________ Natural Gas ____________________________________________________________________________________________  Massive Texas blaze dying down following pipeline rupture _____________________________________________  Harper says LNG tankers too dangerous for East Coast, but OK for BC? _________________________________ Solar __________________________________________________________________________________________________  This solar powered floating farm can produce 20 tons of vegetables every day ___________________________

89 90 90 91 96 96

Corporate Greenwashing __________________________________________________________________________ 97    

Koch Brothers' Koch Industries Begins First National Ad Campaign _____________________________________ American Petroleum Industry: Energy Superpower is Red, White and Blue _______________________________ CPI JOINS WITH NORTHWEST RIVERPARTNERS FOR HYDROPOWER EDUCATION EFFORT______________ Washington’s private forest landowners: Working Forests Work for All of Us _____________________________

97 97 98 99

Wild Game Fish Management _____________________________________________________________________ 100  World's Appetite For Caviar Sends Poachers After Columbia River Sturgeon ______________________________________ 100  Feds Releasing Plan for Bull Trout Conservation in 5 States ____________________________________________ 108  Warm water expected to keep killing Willamette River salmon __________________________________________ 110  TAKE ACTION! Tell Congress to strengthen our ocean fisheries law ____________________________________ 112

Wildlife Artists: __________________________________________________________________________________ 113  Gary Haggquist Visual Artist _________________________________________________________________________ 114  Diane Michelin - Fly Fishing Fine Art: "Wading Deep" __________________________________________________ 115  Dan Wallace: Passion for Authenticity ________________________________________________________________ 116  Leanne Hodges: West Coast Wild ____________________________________________________________________ 117

Conservation-minded businesses – please support these fine businesses ___________________________ 118  Riverman Guide Service – since 1969 _________________________________________________________________ 118  Learn to fish: experienced, conservation-minded professional instructors_______________________________ 119  Cabo Sails __________________________________________________________________________________________ 120

Legacy – July 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots  Rhett Weber’s Charterboat “Slammer” ________________________________________________________________ 121  Fishmyster Sport Fishing Adventures ________________________________________________________________ 122  UWET "STAY-DRY" UNDERWATER TOURS ___________________________________________________________ 123  Dave and Kim Egdorf's Western Alaska Sport Fishing _________________________________________________ 124  Bryan Gregson Photography _________________________________________________________________________ 125  Kingfish West Coast Adventure Tours ________________________________________________________________ 126  Casa Mia Italian Restaurant __________________________________________________________________________ 127  Spirit Bear Coffee Company__________________________________________________________________________ 128  Hidden Paths - Slovenia _____________________________________________________________________________ 129  ProFishGuide: Coastal Fishing at its Best _____________________________________________________________ 130  Silversides Fishing Adventures ______________________________________________________________________ 131

Forward The July 2015 issue of “Legacy” marks forty five consecutive months of our complimentary eMagazine; the no-holds-barred, watchdog journal published by Wild Game Fish Conservation International.

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

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

Doing so will increase the VICTORIES for wild game fish as reported in this issue of “Legacy” Please read then share “Legacy” with others who care deeply about the future of wild game fish and all that rely on them.

Sincerely,

Bruce Treichler James E. Wilcox Wild Game Fish Conservation International

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

Special Report:

 17 Ways the Government Is Helping Kill Wild Salmon May 22, 2015

Legacy – July 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots In British Columbia, salmon are sacred. For centuries, they have nourished First Nations and settlers alike, and continue to sustain virtually all of the wildlife we cherish in B.C.: orcas, eagles, bears, seals and sea lions, wolves and even our forests. Wild salmon make life possible on the West Coast.

So why are our federal and provincial governments trying to kill them?

I do not speak of simple neglect. I mean actively working towards the destruction of wild salmon.

At first, the idea might sound far-fetched. But remember, we live in the age of climate change denial, Bill C-51 and robo-calls, where diabolical government plots have become an everyday fact of life.

Consider then, that salmon habitat extends all the way from the open ocean, tracing our coastlines and estuaries, into our many rivers and branching out into a network of spawning grounds that reaches almost every corner of the province.

That means that virtually every new resource development project -be it a tar sands pipeline, LNG port, fracking well, mine or coal port -impinges on wild salmon habitat.

To the resource extraction industry, wild salmon are nothing but an obstacle; a nuisance that cause increased costs and project delays, through environmental assessments and the like. And unfortunately for wild salmon, removing obstacles for the resource industry is what our federal and provincial governments do best these days.

But they aren't the only ones with something to gain from the disappearance of wild salmon. The Norwegian and Japanese salmon farming corporations operating along our coast would shed few tears over the elimination of their only competition (a healthier, better tasting one, at that). And it could hardly have escaped government notice that open-pen salmon feedlots represent one of the gravest threats to the health of our wild salmon populations. Is it any wonder then that ocean-based salmon farming is the darling industry of our Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO)?

Here's just some of the ways that our federal and provincial governments are orchestrating the demise of our wild salmon: 1. In 2012, Stephen Harper removed environmental protections from 99 per cent of our lakes and rivers. Among them, the Upper Fraser and Kitimat rivers, both critical salmon and steelhead habitat that just happen to lie in the path of the Northern Gateway pipeline.

2. Three years later, 74 of the 75 recommendations made by the 18-month, $26 million Cohen Commission Inquiry into the state of the Fraser River Sockeye have yet to be acted upon. In many cases, as noted below, the provincial and federal governments have actually done the opposite of the recommendations.

3. In 2012, Harper eliminated the requirement for environmental assessments for all but major resource projects. This includes run-of-the-river hydro projects, which can divert up to 95 per cent of a river's flow into a tunnel or pipeline and can critically impact salmon.

Legacy – July 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots 4. In every country where ocean-based, open-pen salmon farming has taken hold, wild salmon populations have collapsed. While the expansion of the aquaculture industry is a key priority of the DFO, protection of wild fish isn't even mentioned in their mission statement.

5. Although the Cohen Commission recommended a moratorium on new salmon feedlot tenures along salmon migration routes, the B.C. government is considering at least 10 new or expanded licenses, almost all directly in our wild salmons' pathways to the open sea, exposing them to the feedlots' disease and parasites.

6. Instead of the usual year-long licenses, the Harper government is now offering salmon feedlot operators extended nine year licenses that will leave our salmon at risk from foreign corporations long after the next federal election.

7. For decades, the Federal government has let foreign salmon farming corporations knowingly place salmon infected with viruses linked to deadly salmon diseases, in pens situated along the migration routes of wild salmon.

8. At the same time they permit salmon farmers to introduce new salmon viruses into our coastal waters, the DFO has muzzled its scientists when it comes to talking about wild salmon diseases.

9. When biologist Alexandra Morton and colleagues found the deadly ISA virus in wild B.C. salmon, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) confiscated her samples and publicly declared they were unable to repeat her results. A year later, they privately admitted they didn't actually test the samples.

10. The CFIA took a further step to prevent the detection of salmon viruses by stripping the certification of the laboratory that detected the ISA virus -- Canada's only certified laboratory.

11. The B.C. government recently permitted the use of hydrogen peroxide baths in salmon farms to try to control sea lice. Yet there is no research on what this chemical will do to the tiny migrating wild salmon forced to pass the farms.

12. In 2014, the Harper government blocked an inquiry by the environmental dispute body established under NAFTA to determine if it had failed to protect wild salmon from the dangers of salmon farms as required in Canada's Fisheries Act. 13. The federal government is now proposing a revolutionary change to the Fisheries Act that will grant foreign corporations like Mitsubishi the unprecedented privilege of owning fish that live in our ocean. This is a serious blow to the law of the commons, where the fish in our oceans are a resource shared among all the citizens of Canada.

14. The proposed changes to aquaculture regulations will also grant salmon feedlot operators the authority to kill wild salmon to "protect" their farmed fish from disease.

15. Still other changes to the aquaculture regulations will allow salmon feedlot operators to release "deleterious substances" -- antibiotics, pesticides, insecticides and other drugs directly into our coastal waters, directly in the path of migrating wild salmon.

Legacy – July 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots 16. The primary industry putting our wild salmon at risk receives massive government subsidies.

Salmon feedlot licenses, which cost about $1 million in Norway, are free in Canada. But diseased fish aren't -- the federal government buys them all from feedlot operators for up to $30 each. Taxpayers paid close to $50 million for dead, diseased farmed salmon in one year alone.

17. At the same time they are ramming tarsands pipelines down our throats, the federal government is closing coast guard bases that act as first responders when trouble hits.

Witness the bunker fuel spill in Vancouver last month or our Coast Guard's inability to save a stranded vessel off Haida Gwaii in January.

We cannot sit idly by while our most important, iconic species is sacrificed for the sake of corporate greed. So it is time for British Columbians everywhere to stand up for our wild salmon.

Tell B.C. Senator Nancy Greene Raine, a member of the Senate committee reviewing aquaculture regulations that you oppose the proposed changes to the aquaculture act and want salmon farms off our coast. Sign the petition to stop salmon feedlot expansion in BC. Join the farmed salmon boycott.

And support the work and research of Alexandra Morton, without whose tireless efforts, we may already have lost our most precious resource of all.

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

 Salmon feedlots: Illegal dumping in Galway Bay

Legacy – July 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots GALWAY BAY AGAINST SALMON CAGES PRESS RELEASE Galway Bay may now be infected with a deadly fish virus called Pancreas Disease (PD), due to the illegal and criminal dumping of farmed salmon carcasses on Spiddal beach last week and a number of other occasions in the recent past.

Galway Bay Against Salmon Cages (GBASC) were first notified about this illegal dumping on Tuesday 28th of April by a member of the public who was out walking on Spiddal beach on the previous Saturday, but when we went to investigate the carcasses had been washed away with the tides and eaten by crabs etc.

Then on Thursday evening 21st of May an Inshore fisherman contacted our PRO Brian Curran to say that he had seen a named individual again illegally dumping farmed salmon carcasses off Spiddal pier. The fisherman said he was extremely concerned as these carcasses may harbour harmful viruses such as Pancreas Disease or other non listed viruses that may have a detrimental affect on wild fish species in Galway Bay. Inshore fishermen are prohibited from using farm salmon carcasses in their lobster / crab pots as bait by regulation due to the dangers of disease transfer.

When Mr Curran went to investigate that evening, he found a large amount of carcasses, blue plastic wrapping and a plastic label which identified these carcasses as having originated from a Marine Harvest (MH) salmon farm. (See pictures supplied above) GBASC are concerned that this illegal dumping of these carcasses has occurred at a time when salmon smolts are migrating out to sea from the Co Galway Rivers and especially from the Boluisce River at Spiddal as Pancreas Disease is transmitted just as easily from dead fish as well as living fish.

We are told by the Marine Institute that ''they receive occasional samples of wild salmonids and as part of a comprehensive diagnostic screening, these samples are tested for the presence of Pancreas Disease, and that no positives have been detected.'' (Letter from Minister Coveneys office 22/5/2015) GBASC question these results as most competent Marine scientists will say that it is near impossible to detect PD in wild salmon, as when they are infected they become weak and are quickly eaten by predators especially salmon / sea trout smolts.

Marine Harvest have admitted in their Stock Market reports for 2014 and for the first quarter of 2015 that they have had outbreaks of the infectious Pancreas Disease on a number of their salmon farms in Ireland.

GBASC have tried under Access to Information on the Environment Regulations (AIE Regulations) Ref :A0051 to find out from the Marine Institute which MH salmon farms had this terrible disease. The Marine Institute said that they couldn't give us the information as they were advised by MH ''that site specific health and mortality information is commercially sensitive in situations where they share a water body with other competitors.'' This statement from MH says a lot for the Coordinated Local Aquaculture Management Systems (CLAMS) operated by BIM, where all stakeholders operating in a bay should cooperate with the local community.

The BIM Explanatory Handbook on C.L.A.M.S. states, ''As part of its commitment to the sustainable aquaculture industry, the C.L.A.M.S. process facilitates the gathering and analysis of data in relation to fish farming. This data is then made available to the local community.''

The people dumping these farmed salmon carcasses at Spiddal Pier and other locations around Connemara are breaking the Animal By-products Regulations and those responsible must be tracked down and prosecuted.

GBASC would like to see the following questions answered by the relevant authority dealing with this pollution of our marine environment: 

What salmon farm did these salmon come from?



Does that salmon farm have Pancreas Disease?



Where were these salmon processed?

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

Why were these salmon not transported to an approved disposal facility and rendered appropriately?

Mr Brian Curran is asking members of the public to be vigilant and to report sightings of illegal dumping of farmed salmon carcasses at or near piers to contact the Sea Fishery Protection Agency at Rossaveal, Tel No:091 572405 Billy Smyth, Chairman Galway Bay Against Salmon Cages 10 Colemans Rd, Shantalla, Galway Phone 0863511628

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

Conservationist Extraordinaire – Walking the Talk

 Robert Vadas, Jr.

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

Opinion-Editorial:

 Grays Harbor oil terminal would threaten Quinault Indian identity An oil-train mishap could cause an oil spill that would devastate threaten fishing rights.

June 2, 2015

By Junior Goodell Junior Goodell is a commercial fisherman and chair of two Quinault Indian Nation fishing committees.

THE cultural significance of the Chehalis River to the Quinault Indian Nation cannot be overstated.

Fishing is fundamental to our way of life and to our identity — as a consequence, the health and vitality of our river is a true and essential link to the health and vitality of the Quinault people.

I was born and raised fishing on that river. The Chehalis, as well as the time-honored fishing traditions that were passed down to me from my dad and grandpa, has allowed me to build my Quinault life around fishing and has helped to make me the person who I am today — a 26-year-old Quinault Indian.

So much of our culture and our way of life has been assimilated or eradicated by the U.S. government. However, because of — and giving thanks to — our all-mighty sacred treaty with the United States, fishing survives and remains a stronghold to our identity. Just as you cannot put a value on the air you breathe, we cannot place a monetary value on the fish, their habitat or our treaty rights.

Legacy – July 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots Those, however, are being put at risk by proposals for oil-train terminals at Grays Harbor. These terminals would ship tens of millions of gallons of Bakken crude oil from North Dakota and tar-sands oil from Canada.

The crude would come by train along the Chehalis River to be stored in massive shoreline tanks, then pumped onto oil tankers and barges, dramatically increasing large-vessel traffic in and out of the harbor.

Like me, my father is a commercial fisherman. For 32 seasons, he traveled in the summers to Alaska. He experienced the Exxon Valdez spill and saw the impact of that disaster. I grew up hearing horror stories, not just about what that spill did to the environment but about the economic impact to the fishermen and to the region as a whole.

The thought of a similar disaster occurring on the Chehalis River is horrifying. An oil spill could destroy our way of life and who we are as Quinault people.

At a meeting last year between the Quinault Indian Nation and the state Department of Ecology, department officials asked for information about the economic impacts of the proposed terminals in Grays Harbor.

The Quinault Indian Nation hired an economic analyst to conduct an independent study. The 150page analysis is sobering. It found that the long-term economic impact of an oil spill — whether from an oil train into the Chehalis River or from a ship in or just outside Grays Harbor — would be devastating.

More than 150 tribal commercial fishermen could lose their jobs, resulting in a direct loss of as much as $20 million in wages and up to $70 million in revenue for affected businesses.

These are just the monetary losses to the Quinault Indian Nation. The analysis doesn’t include the costs and losses from oil spills on private-property owners or non-Quinault businesses.

And, more important, the report does not — and cannot — put a monetary value on the cultural and spiritual importance of fishing and the Chehalis River to members of the Quinault Indian Nation.

The risks imposed on the Quinault Indian Nation and other nearby communities and residents are real, and frightening. Disasters caused by oil trains — oil spills and explosions — have been in the news with increasing frequency, each containing stories of incessant anguish and misery of disaster.

But even aside from those very real risks, these proposed terminals would impact us on a daily basis.

The increase in traffic along the river’s main channel would be extremely disruptive to our treaty fishing on the Chehalis. Fishing and oil shipping traffic cannot coexist simultaneously.

Fishing is who we are as a people. It provides more than sustenance, more than an economic lifeline.

It is our organic identity, our lifeblood.

The oil-train terminals proposed for Grays Harbor put that — and much, much more — in very real jeopardy.

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

The dome of the U.S. Capitol is seen behind the emissions, and a smokestack, from the coal-burning Capitol Power Plant

 The fossil-fuel industry’s campaign to mislead the American people May 29, 2015

By Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat, represents Rhode Island in the Senate.

Fossil fuel companies and their allies are funding a massive and sophisticated campaign to mislead the American people about the environmental harm caused by carbon pollution.

Their activities are often compared to those of Big Tobacco denying the health dangers of smoking.

Big Tobacco’s denial scheme was ultimately found by a federal judge to have amounted to a racketeering enterprise.

The Big Tobacco playbook looked something like this: (1) pay scientists to produce studies defending your product; (2) develop an intricate web of PR experts and front groups to spread doubt about the real science; (3) relentlessly attack your opponents.

Thankfully, the government had a playbook, too: the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO. In 1999, the Justice Department filed a civil RICO lawsuit against the major tobacco companies and their associated industry groups, alleging that the companies “engaged in and executed — and continue to engage in and execute — a massive 50-year scheme to defraud the public, including consumers of cigarettes, in violation of RICO.”

Legacy – July 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots Tobacco spent millions of dollars and years of litigation fighting the government. But finally, through the discovery process, government lawyers were able to peel back the layers of deceit and denial and see what the tobacco companies really knew all along about cigarettes.

In 2006, Judge Gladys Kessler of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia decided that the tobacco companies’ fraudulent campaign amounted to a racketeering enterprise. According to the court: “Defendants coordinated significant aspects of their public relations, scientific, legal, and marketing activity in furtherance of a shared objective — to . . . maximize industry profits by preserving and expanding the market for cigarettes through a scheme to deceive the public.”

The parallels between what the tobacco industry did and what the fossil fuel industry is doing now are striking.

In the case of fossil fuels, just as with tobacco, the industry joined together in a common enterprise and coordinated strategy. In 1998, the Clinton administration was building support for international climate action under the Kyoto Protocol. The fossil fuel industry, its trade associations and the conservative policy institutes that often do the industry’s dirty work met at the Washington office of the American Petroleum Institute. A memo from that meeting that was leaked to the New York Times documented their plans for a multimillion-dollar public relations campaign to undermine climate science and to raise “questions among those (e.g. Congress) who chart the future U.S. course on global climate change.”

The shape of the fossil fuel industry’s denial operation has been documented by, among others, Drexel University professor Robert Brulle. In a 2013 paper published in the journal Climatic Change, Brulle described a complex network of organizations and funding that appears designed to obscure the fossil fuel industry’s fingerprints. To quote directly from Brulle’s report, it was “a deliberate and organized effort to misdirect the public discussion and distort the public’s understanding of climate.”

That sounds a lot like Kessler’s findings in the tobacco racketeering case.

The coordinated tactics of the climate denial network, Brulle’s report states, “span a wide range of activities, including political lobbying, contributions to political candidates, and a large number of communication and media efforts that aim at undermining climate science.” Compare that again to the findings in the tobacco case.

The tobacco industry was proved to have conducted research that showed the direct opposite of what the industry stated publicly — namely, that tobacco use had serious health effects. Civil discovery would reveal whether and to what extent the fossil fuel industry has crossed this same line.

We do know that it has funded research that — to its benefit — directly contradicts the vast majority of peer-reviewed climate science. One scientist who consistently published papers downplaying the role of carbon emissions in climate change, Willie Soon, reportedly received more than half of his funding from oil and electric utility interests: more than $1.2 million.

To be clear: I don’t know whether the fossil fuel industry and its allies engaged in the same kind of racketeering activity as the tobacco industry. We don’t have enough information to make that conclusion. Perhaps it’s all smoke and no fire. But there’s an awful lot of smoke.

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

Lil MacPherson: “I truly believe that if you really did your homework, you might say ‘no, thank you’ to your next piece of farmed salmon.”

 COUNTERPOINT: Farmed salmon not fit for consumption

By Lil MacPherson June 3, 2015

Legacy – July 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots After reading the June 2 letter on farmed salmon by Jon Grant, NSERC-Cooke Industrial Research Chair in Sustainable Aquaculture at Dalhousie University, I had the feeling of being dismissed as: “What do I know, as I am not a scientist but only a mother?”

However, I am also a businesswoman and co-owner of two restaurants. After doing my own research, and a lot of it — yes, I can read — on farmed Atlantic salmon, my conclusion was not to feed farmed salmon to my dog, let alone my customers. And yes, I have read enough to realize the only thing Cooke Aquaculture is trying to sustain is its profits.

There is nothing good nor healthy about this practice, and we have been suckered.

We are paying a heavy price in the millions of dollars while polluting and putting at risk our beautiful shores, without care for all the employment that depends on us keeping our oceans pristine.

I truly believe that if you really did your homework, you might say “no, thank you” to your next piece of farmed salmon. I really miss the real salmon and wish our hard-earned tax dollars were not given to Cooke, but to our coastal communities to work on bringing our once world-class fresh Atlantic salmon back. I’d bet the bank that would create real, sustainable jobs. But what do I know?

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

Fishing Photos and Funnies

 Phil Flanders with 143 pound halibut (Port Angeles, Washington)

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

 Congratulations

Rhett Weber (Slammer) – Evening Magazine: The Best Northwest Escapes (Fishing Charter)

Rhett is the very best at what he does, always on the huge schools of fish and always producing Derby winning Fishes... In my Books, The Slammer is my Big Winner... ;) William W. ⋅ April 23, 2015

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

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

WGFCI Writes to Conserve Wild Fish and Those Who Rely on Them

 Nancy Greene Raine Senator, British Columbia, Canada Wild Game Fish Conservation International implores you and your colleagues to work toward a total ban on ocean-based salmon feedlots from from British Columbia's marine environment in order to protect and restore wild Pacific salmon and all that rely on them.

The sooner this ban on these weapons of mass destruction is implemented, the sooner British Columbia's beautiful, iconic species can be restored.

Thank you for your leadership on this internationally-important matter, Senator Greene Raine.

 Fawn Sharp President, Quinault Indian Nation Thank you so very much for your fact-based presentation during last night's public meeting in Hoquiam to discuss the very real cultural, economic and environmental risks associated with crude by rail export facilities proposed for Grays Harbor.

We continue to oppose this insane proposal for the very reasons you and other panel members presented.

 Christy Clark Premier, British Columbia, Canada You have a golden opportunity during your remaining time as British Columbia's premier to develop new and existing British Columbia's diverse and sustainable wild Pacific salmon-based industries.

Key to developing these industries is you not permitting expansion of Norwegian-owned, oceanbased salmon feedlots sited in marine waters utilized by British Columbia and America-origin, wild Pacific salmon.

As you can see in the recently tabled petition by Alexandra Morton, an independent marine biologist, in excess of 109,000 British Columbia citizens oppose expansion of ocean-based salmon feedlots in wild Pacific salmon migration routes. In fact, these same folks, given the many risks of ocean-based salmon feedlots to human health and the environment prefer a total ban on ocean-based salmon feedlots.

Lastly, businesses, organizations and non-Canadians oppose further expansion of ocean-based salmon feedlots given their many risks.

We at Wild Game Fish Conservation International urge you to not permit expansion of ocean based salmon feedlots in British Columbia.

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

Seafood consumption: Public health risks and benefits

 Warning: Eating Farmed Salmon May Affect Your Baby

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

 Enjoy seasonal wild salmon dinners at these fine restaurants:

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

Community Activism, Education and Outreach

 Stopping Farmed Salmon at the Cash Register

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

 People vs Oil Audrey Siegl

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

Otto Braided Hair of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe speaks at a gathering of leaders and members of nine Pacific Northwest tribes, on both sides of the U.S.–Canada border, asking the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to reject a coal-rail terminal at Cherry Point. They were also protesting rail transport of other fossil fuels, such as oil, especially from the carbon-footprint-enhancing Alberta oil sands in Canada.

 Tribal Leaders in Pacific Northwest Take a Stand Against Coal Terminals May 19, 2015 An alliance of tribal leaders and members from the Lower Elwha, Quinault, Tulalip, Spokane, Swinomish, Yakama, Northern Cheyenne and Tsleil-Waututh First Nation joined the Lummi Nation in Seattle last week to call on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to deny permits for the proposed Gateway Pacific Coal Terminal.

And in doing so, each leader highlighted how coal and oil developments, transportation and accidents such as spills and explosions, threaten their nation’s land, resources and people.

RELATED: Seattle Oil-Train Derailment Hits Close to Home for Quinault

Legacy – July 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots The Lummi formed the alliance by reaching out to each tribe to see if they would be willing to stand together, “understanding that each of the participating tribes had at some point in the past or present dealt with their own development issues,” Jaline Quinto of Pyramid Communications said in an email.

The coal export terminal proposed in northern Washington State near the Canadian border would export coal internationally. But the Lummi has a sacred connection to the proposed site, called Cherry Point.

They have fished off Cherry Point for thousands of years. It is part of their treaty protected fishing area, and the Lummi contend that the proposed terminal would result in irreparable harm to their crab and salmon fisheries. It’s also the site of their ancestral village.

The Lummi have fought the proposal for three years and have repeatedly called on the Corps to deny all permits associated with the proposed terminal in the tribe’s treaty-protected waters. The Corps gave SSA Marine a May 10 deadline to explain how the company would address tribes' concerns and mitigate treaty impacts. SSA missed that deadline.

“The Corps has a responsibility to deny the permit request and uphold our treaty,” said Tim Ballew II, Chair of the Lummi Indian Business Council, in a statement.

RELATED: Lummi Nation Asks Army Corps to Deny Permit for Coal Export Terminal The Corps denied permits for another proposed coal terminal to be built on the Columbia River, which the Yakama Nation had challenged on the basis that it would harm their treaty fishing areas.

RELATED: Yakama Fight to Protect Fishing Sites From Coal Train Terminals “In the Yakama language we have no word for ‘mitigation,’ no word to describe repairing lands and waters that have been degraded or destroyed,” said Yakama Nation Tribal Council Chair JoDe Goudy in a statement. “There is no price you can pay, no repair you can make, that would make our lands whole again once the coal companies have done their damage, collected their money and disappeared. We call on the U.S. Army Corps to honor the treaties.”

The participation of Chief Rueben George of the Tsleil-Waututh First Nation of British Columbia highlighted his nation’s protests of Kinder Morgan’s plans to transport oil from the Alberta tar sands via their TransMountain pipeline to the west coast.

RELATED: Coast Salish Nations Unite to Protect Salish Sea “We take our trust responsibility seriously and will ensure we make a determination with the most accurate, complete information,” Corps spokeswoman Patricia Graesser told Oregon Public Broadcasting’s EarthFix. “There is no deadline; however we are intent on a timely and deliberate process.”

Meetings followed between tribal and community leaders, as well as environmental nongovernmental organizations, to strategize in part on providing new opportunities for social and environmental justice, faith and local elected leaders to more deeply understand the Lummi Nation’s connection to Cherry Point, the Columbia River tribal nations’ connection to the Columbia River and the Quinault Nation’s connection to the Pacific Ocean, and become more invested in preventing the fossil fuel projects that threaten them.

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

 Anti-oil forum warns of possible economic and environmental impacts of oil on the Harbor Community members and local officials opposed to proposed oil storage facilities on Grays Harbor came together Wednesday night for a public forum that focused on the possible economic and environmental impacts of the storage and transportation of oil in the county.

“Coastal Washington, The Oil Industry’s Sacrifice Zone,” was held at the Little Theater at Hoquiam High School and put on by a coalition of local organizations rallying against the three proposed oil storage facilities at the Port of Grays Harbor and others along the Washington coast.

Legacy – July 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots The facilities, proposed by Westway Terminals, Imperium Renewables and U.S. Development, are currently undergoing environmental impact statements under supervision by the state Department of Ecology.

Eric de Place, of Seattle-based think tank Sightline Institute, moderated the forum. Quinault Indian Nation President Fawn Sharp, Ocean Shores Mayor Crystal Dingler and Washington Dungeness Crab Fisherman Association Vice President Larry Thevik all spoke at the event, while numerous other local officials were in attendance.

De Place first talked about the large number of proposed and active oil storage sites that have popped up in the Pacific Northwest since 2012, saying the amount of carbon in those projects is roughly equivalent to five and half Keystone XL Pipelines.

“This is not yet the Gulf Coast on the Pacific; that’s what the industry would like to see us become,” he said.

De Place estimated the three proposed terminals would result in 300 to 400 additional loaded oil vessels per year taking loaded crude oil out of the Harbor, with about 800 to 900 extra oil trains annually. He estimated this would be roughly two and half to three oil trains coming through Grays Harbor daily.

Showing PowerPoint pictures of rail accidents across the county, de Place warned the crowd of the possibility of a similar catastrophe occurring locally.

He said in 2013 the accident rate was almost four times as high on the Puget Sound & Pacific Railroad than large, class 1 railroads across the country, and about one-tenth higher than the rate of small railroads.

On top of the risk of derailment, he said, is the fact that most railways don’t have the insurance to cover the damages caused by a possible accident.

He said a federal estimate of what it would cost to recover from a worst-case scenario derailment is about $5 billion. He mentioned that the accident in Quebec in 2013 that killed 47 people cost $3 billion. He said local railways most likely have around $500 million in insurance at most.

“They are drastically underinsured against the threat of a derailment,” said de Place. “If there were an accident, the local community would be left to pick up the tab.”

Thevik, a commercial fisherman for 45 years, said the oil proposals could have severely damaging effects on the Grays Harbor economy.

He cited a recent report that said more than 2,000 jobs and more than $200 million in revenue come from commercial fishing activity in Westport, adding that a National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration study stated 67,000 jobs in Washington state were based on seafood-related activity.

In Grays Harbor County, he said, 31 percent of the local workforce depends on marine resources.

Thevik stated the amount of oil that would move through proposed Grays Harbor and Vancouver sites would equal half of the oil moved by rail throughout the entire country in 2014. He noted that the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989 spilled 11 million gallons of oil, affecting 1,300 miles of Alaskan coastline.

Legacy – July 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots On Grays Harbor, proposed oil transport would see tankers carrying upwards of 15 million gallons each. He said the risks outweighed the benefits.

“Plans in Washington state are still painfully inadequate for a major spill.

Our members have witnessed first-hand the difficult task of recovery of oil on water and on shorelines. Many have also witnessed the promise to pay for damages and the reality of payment,” he said, adding that Exxon was appealing judgments for payment 19 years after the Alaska spill. He said 25 years later, the company still owed $92 million.

Dingler talked about the “Nestucca” oil spill that occurred in 1988 on the Washington coast. She, too, talked of the severe economic effects a spill would have on the region’s economically.

Dingler said tourism numbers are up in Ocean Shores, and the possibility of oil on the coast would change that.

“We don’t have industry, per se; we have people who come and visit. Ocean Shores is known for our beach, and we’re vulnerable to anything that comes up to our beaches.”

Mark and Joyce Lloyd, who moved to Hoquiam a month ago, came to the meeting after hearing about it during a presentation at the library.

“In my opinion, they are very foolish to think they should do this in an area that is prone to tsunamis and earthquakes,” said Joyce of the proposed storage facilities.

Mark Lloyd, who took an anti-oil yard sign before exiting the theater, said oil on the Harbor is something he is strongly against.

“I care about what’s happening to the environment. I came to support these people because they’re trying to do something positive for the environment, the only place we have to live,” he said.

Editorial Comment: Fawn Sharp, president of the Quinault Indian Nation, presented economic and environmental risks associated with ongoing climate changes and the very real societal impacts of Bakken or Tar Sands crude oil spills in Grays Harbor.

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

 Make Canada GMO-Free: No to Monsanto

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

 Say No to GMO

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

 Unist’ot’en Camp says No to All Pipelines

 Tseil-Waututh Expansion

Nation: Consent Denied: Trans Mountain Pipeline and Tanker

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

 Do not renew BC’s ocean-based salmon feedlot licenses 108,000 signatures strong!

At the Legislature with 108,000+ signatures to Premier Christy Clark: NOT TO RENEW SALMON FARM LEASES in BC's pristine public wild salmon migratory waters!

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

 Imperial Metals No More

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

 Wild Salmon Warrior Radio with Jay Peachy – Fridays at Noon “Streaming like wild Pacific salmon” http://wildsalmonwarriorradio.org/

Wild Salmon Warrior Radio is happy to announce that we are moving to a new Friday onehour timeslot. The community radio program will now broadcast from Noon-1pm every Friday from the home station at Simon Fraser University on CJSF 90.1 FM. “Our new lunch time timeslot will allow us to continue the conversation around the protection of Wild Salmon and engage in outreach in the community for live remote broadcasts” states J Peachy, the show creator and host.

Wild Salmon Warrior Radio is a weekly community based radio program that focuses on topics related to Wild Salmon conservation, watershed habitat and ocean protection.

Salmon is a keystone species on the Pacific West Coast and to coastal regions around the world.

The one hour program intends to reach out and engage to all communities who depend on Wild Salmon as part of their livelihoods. The show is syndicated on community based radio networks CJMP Powell River 90.1 FM and Nuxalk Radio 91.1 Bella Coola.

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

 Olympia Trout Unlimited: Enhancing the Deschutes

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

Salmon and trout feedlots

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

 Alexandra

Morton: Premier of BC stands alone in support of salmon farm

expansion “This industry is too big to be pooping in our waters” Watch, listen, learn HERE

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

 Thousands of salmon worth £240,000 escape from fish farm after storm June 16, 2015 More than 16,000 salmon worth over £240,000 have escaped from a Scottish fish farm.

The salmon fled through a hole in a net at Marine Harvest’s Carradale fish farm on June 2.

The damage is believed to have been caused by a storm which hit the farm in Argyll earlier this month.

Steve Bracken, business support manager at Marine Harvest, said: “It’s a substantial loss, no doubt about it. Around 16,000 fish escaped each weighing around 10lbs. They were worth £240,000.

“However, loss of 16,000 fish only represents 0.08% from just under 20 million fish in our sea farms.

“We had a spell of very bad weather at the beginning of June with 50 to 70mph winds which picked up in the afternoon of June 2 and went on into the evening. When we went out in the morning we found a hole in the net.”

Marine Harvest said the fish, which were not sexually mature, pose little threat to local salmon populations.

Mr Bracken added: “Immature fish would tend to go out to sea. It’s unlikely they would head upstream to breed.”

The escape is believed to be the largest from a Scottish salmon farm since 2009, when 59,000 fish escaped from a farm at Strone Point.

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

 CLYDE SALMON ESCAPE 'COULD ENDANGER WILD FISH' June 19, 2015 AN escape of 16,000 farmed salmon at the beginning of June has been described by experts as "potentially massively serious" for wild salmon in the Firth of Clyde region.

The fish escaped in stormy conditions into the Kilbrannan Sound from a fish farming cage near Carradale on the eastern coastline of Kintyre.

Alan Sutherland, managing director of the site operator, Marine Harvest (Scotland) Ltd, said: "Overnight on June 1 we had an escape of 16,000 4.5kg (10lb) fish from our farm at Eilean Grianain, Carradale.

"The escape happened as the result of a tear in the net during the bad weather conditions."

Mr Sutherland added: "As the fish were immature they would have headed straight out to sea."

Others, however, expressed fears that the farmed salmon, might crossbreed with wild Atlantic salmon, weakening the genetic fitness of the species.

Dr Craig MacIntyre, manager of the Argyll Fisheries Trust, said: "We don't actually know where escaped salmon go.

Legacy – July 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots "There may be an urge to find a river, or they might hang around in the Firth of Clyde area for a while, or they may head to open sea. Nobody knows. And these were 10lb fish – ready for harvest."

The Argyll Fisheries Trust, a charity that looks after and monitors the rivers and waterways of Argyll, Bute and Arran - including local rivers such as the Ruel, Eachaig, Aray and Fyne - has notified local freshwater fisheries groups and angling clubs of the salmon escape.

Craig MacIntyre continued: "This single escape has probably doubled the number of salmon in the Firth of Clyde. It is potentially massively serious for wild stocks.

"These are domesticated Norwegian salmon. Any interbreeding is like crossing domesticated cattle with wildebeest. What you end up with is no longer wild – and it takes decades for the impacts to work their way through the system and become apparent."

Dawn Purchase, Senior Aquaculture Officer with the Marine Conservation Society, also expressed concern over the potential impact, saying: "I am not able to comment on specific, local impacts as many factors are at play.

"However, in general there are concerns about the impacts of escaped farmed salmon on wild population because of their ability to interbreed and make subsequent offspring less fit for survival."

Marine Scotland, the Scottish Government agency responsible for Scottish aquaculture, confirmed that all the necessary notification requirements had been followed by Marine Harvest following discovery of the incident.

Alan Sutherland said: "Marine Harvest has been working with the Scottish Government and partners in the industry to develop the Scottish Technical Standard for containment which aims to prevent fish escapes. Our aim as a company is to prevent fish escapes altogether and we very much regret this incident.

"We will continue to closely monitor all the equipment on our farms to ensure that fish escapes do not happen in the future."

A spokeswoman for Marine Scotland explained the follow-up action to be taken: "The Fish Health Inspectorate will undertake a site inspection and will publish the details of this in accordance with their strategy on the publication of case information."

More immediately, Argyll Fisheries Trust will begin a monitoring programme of wild river salmon stocks in response to the escape.

"We would hope to start taking genetic samples now, so that we have a baseline, if you like, before carrying out river surveys in late autumn, said Craig MacIntyre.

"In the meantime I would ask any anglers out there to let us know if they catch a fish that doesn't look right. The body shape of farmed salmon is more rounded than wild salmon, and the pectoral fins are shorter than their wild counterpart.

"Also, the fins in general are often in a poor condition, as they are frayed and eroded from the cages.

"If you come across these, take a photo and send it to me at the Argyll Fisheries Trust."

You can contact the trust via its Facebook page or website - www.argyllfisheriestrust.co.uk - or telephone 01499 302322.

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

 B.C. salmon-farm company tackles Federal Court order with appeal B.C. salmon-farm firm to dispute court ruling June 9, 2015 CAMPBELL RIVER, - A major British Columbia aquaculture company is appealing a Federal Court ruling that orders new measures to protect the ocean from the potential spread of disease by coastal fish farms.

Marine Harvest Canada (Norwegian-owned) disputes the ruling made last month that struck down a portion of the regulations governing the transfer of fish between aquaculture farms.

The Department of Fisheries has also appealed the decision, which deals with two sub-sections of one licence condition among about 140 conditions for marine aquaculture facilities.

Editorial Comment: Further evidence that Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans is ignoring their mandate to protect and restore Canada’s iconic wild salmon in lieu of multiple Federal Court rulings associated with ocean-based salmon feedlots to do otherwise.

The court heard samples of salmon smolts bred by the company tested positive for a virus linked to heart and muscle damage, but Marine Harvest argues the disease has never been detected in Canada.

The company adds the virus is known to be relatively common and benign and that it existed in B.C. before salmon farming.

Ecojustice lawyer Margot Venton, whose group launched the successful judicial review, says the Federal Court's direction was clear — the licence conditions were unlawful and not based on science.

The legal action stemmed from accusations by fish-farm opponent Alexandra Morton that Marine Harvest had trucked diseased salmon smolts from its hatchery to a coastal fish farm in the Broughton Archipelago.

The court ordered the department to draw up new regulations within four months.

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

 Scientists dispute findings of B.C. report that minimizes risk of aquaculture to wild salmon June 12, 2015

Legacy – July 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots A group of scientists has expressed “deep concerns” to the B.C. government about a provincial report that plays down the risks of aquaculture to wild Pacific salmon.

In a written critique, the scientists say the report by Gary Marty, a fish pathologist at the provincial Animal Health Centre in Abbotsford, “incorrectly represents the current science on the ecology of disease interactions between wild and farmed salmon.” It also contains “several errors of interpretation and a selective use of literature that we believe lead to a biased conclusion that farmed salmon pose minimal disease risks to wild salmon in B.C.,” they contend.

The eight scientists — academics from B.C., Alberta, and Ontario who specialize in salmon and infectious diseases — are concerned that the report could be used by the province to justify an expansion of salmon farming on the coast.

“A more complete and balanced assessment of the scientific literature reveals abundant evidence that salmon aquaculture does pose a disease risk to wild salmon, although there is ongoing debate about the extent of that risk,” the critique states.

Marty’s report, dated March 16, 2015, is entitled, Information Regarding Concerns about Farmed Salmon - Wild Salmon Interactions.

He concludes that diseases in B.C. farmed Atlantic salmon “pose no more than a minimal risk of serious harm to the health of migrating wild salmon” and that less than one per cent of Atlantic salmon die of diseases that might be infectious to wild Pacific salmon.

Among the other 99 per cent of farmed salmon, 90 per cent survive and nine per cent die of other causes.

Editorial Comment: Marty added that the escape of farmed salmon also poses minimal risks, noting there have Whether Atlantic salmon releases are deliberate been 170 deliberate releases of Atlantic or accidental, these invasive species pose salmon over the years in North American significant risks to wild Pacific salmon and waters in attempts to establish reproducing steelhead trout due to competition for food, space and habitat. populations, and all failed.

Four of the researchers who signed the critique are with Simon Fraser University: Lawrence Dill, professor emeritus, department of biological sciences; Brendan Connors, senior systems ecologist, ESSA Technologies, and adjunct professor, department of biological sciences; Richard Routledge, professor, department of statistics and actuarial science; and John Reynolds, professor and Tom Buell B.C. Leadership Chair in Aquatic Conservation, department of biological sciences.

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

 Canadian Risk Assessment Finds GMO Salmon Susceptible to Disease May 30, 2015 A never-before-seen draft environmental review of AquaBounty Technologies’ (ABTX) genetically engineered (GE) salmon reveals that Canadian government scientists disagree with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on key questions related to the safety and performance of what may be the first GE animal approved for human consumption. In light of these findings, Food & Water Watch, Center for Food Safety, Friends of the Earth and Consumers Union today called on the FDA to terminate its ongoing review of GE salmon. A never-before-seen draft environmental review of AquaBounty Technologies’ (ABTX) genetically engineered (GE) salmon reveals that Canadian government scientists disagree with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on key questions related to the safety and performance of what may be the first GE animal approved for human consumption.

In light of these findings, Food & Water Watch, Center for Food Safety, Friends of the Earth and Consumers Union today called on the FDA to terminate its ongoing review of GE salmon.

The partially redacted, 400-page draft risk assessment from the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans makes startling findings about the welfare and performance of GE salmon, including that GE salmon:

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

Are more susceptible to Aeromonas salmonicida, a type of disease-causing bacteria, than non-GE domesticated salmon, which indicates unique animal health problems and raises environmental and public health concerns that the FDA has never considered.



Are exhibiting dramatically diminished growth rates in AquaBounty’s commercial facilities, casting more doubt on the widely disputed claims about the accelerated growth rates of GE salmon.



Are displaying widely varied performance, including inconsistent growth rates, suggesting that the growth-hormone gene construct inserted in the fish is not operating in a predictable manner, raising questions about the durability, safety and commercial viability of GE salmon.

“The findings from the Canadian risk assessment show that FDA has based its assessment of this totally unnecessary technology on blind trust,” said Wenonah Hauter. “It’s clear that there are unique safety issues that FDA has failed to consider, which is why we are calling on the agency to terminate its review of GMO salmon.”

The contradictions found in the Canadian risk assessment follow a series of embarrassing missteps in the FDA’s ongoing regulatory review of GE salmon, including the FDA’s failure to document two major biosecurity lapses at AquaBounty, including a storm-related mechanical failure that involved “lost” salmon. Additionally, in 2014, it was discovered that AquaBounty’s production facility in Panama has been operating without legally required permits related to environmental safety.

“The modus operandi at FDA is to rubber stamp AquaBounty’s flawed and biased studies and then call its review process ‘science-based,’” said Jaydee Hanson, Senior Policy Analyst at the Center for Food Safety. “FDA’s inadequate risk assessment is at odds with reality, with science and with the public, which has long called on the agency to put consumers’ health and environmental safety ahead of the corporate interests of the biotechnology industry.”

The 2013 Canadian draft risk assessment recently became public through a legal battle over Canadian regulators’ approval of commercial GE salmon production, which several public-interests groups are challenging. No government anywhere in the world has ever approved GE salmon for consumption or declared it safe to eat, and commercial production has not yet begun. The FDA’s regulatory approval is still pending.

“Major grocery chains, consumers and salmon producers are all rejecting genetically engineered salmon,” said Dana Perls, food and technology campaigner for Friends of the Earth. “This new assessment adds to the body of science showing that this genetically engineered fish doesn’t offer any benefit to aquaculture, has unique health problems and presents environmental risks. Why is the FDA continuing to spend scarce tax-payer dollars reviewing this fish that offers all risk and no reward?”

The commercial salmon industry has long disputed AquaBounty’s claims that GE salmon can reach market weight in half the time as conventional salmon. A variety of sources, including new data found in the Canadian risk assessment, indicate that GE salmon probably grow slower than the highly domesticated Atlantic salmon currently in commercial production. The only benefit claim that AquaBounty submitted to the FDA for regulatory approval is fast growth.

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

 Petition: Divest Dirty Salmon

Legacy – July 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots Dear Norway, You divested from dirty oil and coal earlier this year. Thank you! Now it is time to divest from dirty salmon, your industry is too big now to be using our oceans as an open sewer. If you agree, please sign and share this letter: Canadians and Norwegians love wild salmon, but Norwegian salmon farms are one of the greatest threats to this magnificent fish in both our countries.

I am a Canadian biologist who studied whales until your salmon farming industry moved in: Marine Harvest, Cermaq and Grieg. Now I study sea lice and farmed salmon viruses.

As I follow your news on the escape of rainbow trout into Norway’s fjords, I see we have become mirror images of the same industrial disaster. Diseased American trout threaten Norway’s wild salmon, while diseased Atlantic farm salmon threaten Canada’s wild salmon. Why would we do this?

The world has noticed that salmon farming is a dirty industry. People are increasingly afraid to eat farmed salmon due to toxins. I described the salmon-farming nightmare on 60 Minutes. Bloomberg, the world’s leading business publication, reports on "Why You'll Never Want to Eat Farm-Raised Salmon."

The relationship between your salmon farmers and both our governments is disturbing. Norway, world champion for social responsibility, actually convinced the EU to permit 10xs more endosulfan in farmed salmon feed to increase profitability. This is one of the most dangerous pesticides banned in most parts of the world because of the horrific damage it does to babies! Is this really the same Norway, who chooses the Nobel Peace Prize laureates to reward the highest moral behavior?

Meanwhile, in Canada laws are being rewritten to legalize release of sea lice chemicals that kill wild fish, transfer of diseased farmed salmon into wild salmon habitat, ownership of salmon in Canadian waters, and 9-year licences. This is madness. Our countries are failing to live up to our standards.

Salmon farming was born in Norway, but they use Canada to satisfy their shareholders. Norway just divested from dirty oil, (thank you Norway) perhaps it is time to divest from dirty salmon?

Please tell your politicians salmon farms are feedlots, they belong on land. The salmon farmers need help learning how to grow up and behave responsibly. Wild salmon are a gift we will not be given twice. Will we rob our children of clean food? Please stop this industry before a devastating virus destroys the last wild salmon. Viral pollution is unforgiveable and our children will not understand why we did this to them.

Alexandra Morton Biologist Canada www.alexandramorton.ca

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

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

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

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

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

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

Petroleum – Drilled, Refined, Tar Sands, Fracked

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

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

 Local artist-activist confronts Shell Arctic drill rig off Vancouver Island Swimmers also occupy the waters and Greenpeace vessel attempts to intercepts the Shell oil rig off the west coast of Vancouver Island.

June 17, 2015 Shell Arctic Drill Rig Confronted at Sea by First Nations activists and Greenpeace Canada Dressed in the traditional regalia of the Musqueam people, Vancouver First Nations artist-activist Audrey Siegl took to the waters in an inflatable boat to confront Shell’s massive Arctic drilling platform as it passed the west coast of Vancouver Island Wednesday morning.

Siegl approached the 300-foot-tall Polar Pioneer drill rig on its way to the Alaskan Arctic to drill for oil, drumming and singing from the inflatable that was launched from the Greenpeace ship MY Esperanza, while Greenpeace swimmers spread out in the water behind her to put their bodies in the way of the rig heading to the Arctic to drill for oil.

The Polar Pioneer sped on towards them, refusing to slow down as it approached the swimmers, according to a Greenpeace press release.

Siegl stood at the front of the boat with her drum and feather out in front of her, signaling the Polar Pioneer to stop. Speaking from the action, she said:

Legacy – July 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots “Facing such a massive machine from a tiny boat is terrifying, but I believe that we all have a duty to do whatever we can to protect our sacred lands and waters.”

Siegl has been travelling with the Esperanza to connect Indigenous communities along the coast of British Columbia already opposing “extreme oil” from Canada’s tar sands.

“My message to Shell is that you may have money and massive machines, but the people united are more powerful,” added Siegl. “Together, we will stop Arctic drilling to defend our coast and our climate.”

The Esperanza also intercepted Shell’s Polar Pioneer drill rig as it headed to the Alaskan Arctic, where it plans to begin exploratory drilling early July.

Shell’s Arctic drilling plans have been the source of global controversy since they announced their intention to drill in Alaska’s icy waters more than three years ago. Since then, they have sunk more than $7 billion U.S. into this project, according to Greenpeace.

The plans to drill have already faced massive global opposition, including six Greenpeace activists who boarded and occupied the Polar Pioneer on April 6, and hundreds of ‘kayaktivists’ who gathered in Seattle to protest Shell’s Arctic drilling fleet during its arrival both in May and as the rig prepared to depart for the Arctic on Monday June 15.

Kayaktivists surround Shell oil rig in Seattle. Greenpeace photo Keith Stewart, head of Greenpeace Canada’s climate and energy campaign, stressed that the risk posed by Arctic drilling is simply too high. Research recently published in the science journal, Nature found that development of any oil and gas resources in the Arctic is incommensurate with efforts to limit average global warming to 2 °C. In addition to the global climate impacts, Arctic drilling would also mean increased oil tanker traffic along B.C.’s already threatened coast, he said.

“Shell is ignoring the voices of seven million people around the world who have said yes to Arctic protection and no to Arctic drilling,” said Stewart from onboard the Esperanza. “We won’t sit idly by while Shell ignores the scientific research showing that we can’t afford to burn Arctic oil if we hope to avoid extreme levels of global warming.”

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

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

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

 State

of Emergency Declared: California Oil Spill Now Estimated at 105,000 Gallons May 21, 2015

Tuesday afternoon, news spread of the latest oil-related tragedy to occur in the U.S.—an oil pipeline ruptured in Santa Barbara County in Central California, along the Refugio State Beach coastline.

Though the pipeline was on land, it was found to be leaking into a culvert that eventually emptied into the ocean. By the time the pipeline was shut off, oil had been spilling into the sea for at least three hours.

Oil from a broken pipeline coats miles of the Pacific Ocean and shoreline near Goleta, Calif., May 20, 2015, after a 24-inch underground pipeline broke May 19th and leaked into a culvert leading to the ocean. Houston-based Plains All American Pipeline said an thousands of gallons of oil were released before the pipeline was shut down.

Legacy – July 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots As of Tuesday evening, officials claimed that an estimated 21,000 gallons had spilled into the ocean in an oil slick that was four miles wide. Unfortunately, as of yesterday morning, the slick had spread to at least nine miles wide, as the winds and tides did what they do. And now, a new estimate says that up to 105,000 gallons of oil might have been spilled. Yesterday, California Gov. Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency due to the effects of the oil spill on Santa Barbara County.

Refugio State Beach has been closed indefinitely. The area is a sensitive and important place for all kinds of species, including migratory whales and rare seabirds—and wildlife has already been affected. Though there is no estimate of how much wildlife has been impacted so far, things don’t look good.

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

Legacy – July 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots The cleanup is painstaking work. There are several dozen workers outfitted in protective suits and helmets on the beach, shoveling up contaminated mud and rocks into plastic bags. It is made more arduous by having to take place both on shore and on the water, since the oil originated on land.

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

Greenpeace visited the site to survey the true damage, to share with the world the devastation to the Santa Barbara County coastline, and to communicate the dangers of fossil fuels so that we can transition to clean energy and prevent this from happening again.

Legacy – July 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots Plains All American Pipeline, the company that owns the ruptured pipeline, has a history of spills. The company has apologized, with the district manager saying, “We’re sorry this accident has happened, and we’re sorry for the inconvenience to the community.”

This spill has not occurred in a vacuum. We can now add it to the sad history of oil-related spills and accidents that have happened the world over in the past years—including one that happened very near to this area in 1969, which spilled 3 million gallons of oil into the ocean.

As Annie Leonard, executive director of Greenpeace, has said, “Oil spills are never accidents. They are the direct result of substandard oversight of fossil fuel companies who put their profits above human and environmental impacts.” Each time a spill, oil train explosion or some other disaster occurs, we look to our leaders to take responsibility to make change. So far they’ve demonstrated that they don’t have the courage to stand up to Big Oil. We all hope that this oil spill will quickly be contained and cleaned up. But are we willing to keep taking chances for future accidents to occur? I can’t help but think of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s research that shows that there’s a 75 percent chance of an oil spill occurring in the Arctic if drilling takes place there. Even with that scary fact, the Obama administration has decided to give Shell the conditional go-ahead to drill. Let’s demand better from our President and other leaders before it’s too late.

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

 State to require full environmental review of crude-heating facility May 21, 2015 ALBANY—After 18 months of pressure from environmental and community groups, state officials have reversed an earlier position, and will now require a full environmental review of a crude-heating facility that would allow tar sands oil to be shipped down the Hudson River.

On Thursday, the state Department of Environmental Conservation announced that it will conduct a full review of a proposal by Global Partners to install a crude-heating facility at the Port of Albany.

“Our review of Global’s application has focused on protecting the health of people living around the facility and the environment,” D.E.C. commissioner Joe Martens said in a statement. “This community has voiced its concerns and raised some serious issues. Through the environmental review process, DEC will continue to evaluate the project’s impacts.”

State officials had previously determined that the facility would not need an extensive environmental review, before declaring that the state would conduct an "interim" review that led to today's decision for a more comprehensive study.

The project has drawn the attention of environmental groups around the country. The decision is a major blow to the energy industry as its looks for new routes to ship heavy crude from Western Canada.

Legacy – July 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots When the project was first proposed in 2013, the D.E.C. issued a negative declaration for the project, which meant it did not require an extensive environmental review before final approval. Since then, community and environmental groups have hosted dozens of protests against the project, which they say could have opened up the Hudson River to a new level of risk. Tar sands crude is heavier than other crude oil, likely to sink in bodies of water and nearly impossible to clean up.

In recent days, senior D.E.C. officials met privately with Albany officials to tell them that it was legally difficult to challenge the project because they only had purview over the air permits. Some elected leaders pushed the D.E.C. risk a lawsuit, saying the project could have a major effect on a nearby public housing complex.

On Thursday, D.E.C. officials cited the housing complex as a reason for the comprehensive review.

“Because of the close proximity of the 137-unit Ezra Prentice Homes residential housing development to Global’s facility, the potential for these proposed changes to have significant adverse impacts on the environment must be fully analyzed,” D.E.C. officials wrote in a letter.

The decision could push back a final determination on the project for years and open it up to lawsuits from environmental groups.

Global has threatened lawsuits over delays in the project, and claimed the state could rescind its earlier declaration that the boiler didn't require a full environmental review. The company has 10 days to respond to the D.E.C.'s determination.

Global Partners Executive Vice President Edward Faneuil said the application had not been denied and portrayed the decision as a state request for more information.

"The DEC’s action will not affect Global’s day-to-day operations or activities at the Albany facility," he said. "As always, we are committed to fully complying with all applicable environmental, health and safety regulations."

After the proposed boiler project was first announced, environmental groups rallied around the effort to shut it down. Global and another oil transportation company, Buckeye Partners, have state permission to move 2.8 billion gallons of crude through Albany annually. Dozens of unit trains carrying more than 100 tankers of crude oil travel through New York each week. Much of their cargo is offloaded in the Albany port and shipped down the river by barge or ship.

Until now, that crude has largely been from the Bakken shale region of North Dakota. That crude is more likely to explode than tar sands crude, though a number of recent rail accidents involved tar sands crude exploding. If approved, the boiler project would turn New York into a virtual rail pipeline for one of North America's most productive oil fields.

Environmental groups hailed Thursday's decision as a major victory and thanked the Cuomo administration. The state and community need to thoroughly understand how the boiler would affect air, water, climate and public health, said Peter Iwanowicz, executive director of Environmental Advocates of New York.

“This proposal was never about one facility in one city, and the oil industry knows that,” he said.

“They tried to slip this one by but the citizens of Albany and in other Hudson River communities stood up and said no to Tar Sands.

Legacy – July 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots It is great that the DEC put the health of people and the health of New York’s environment first and will require that this proposal go through a full and comprehensive review.”

And while rail transport typically falls under federal purview, the decision by the Cuomo administration reflects an increasing state interest in rail cargo, as the number of oil trains has grown from 10,000 a year to more than 400,000 carloads transported last year.

“With so much emphasis on the preemptive power of federal railway laws Governor Cuomo is demonstrating that states can protect citizens from crude-by-rail dangers where federal regulators have failed them,” said Roger Downs, conservation director for the Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter.

The project has been a major source of concern for the Capital Region, said Assembly members Pat Fahy and John McDonald in a joint statement.

“We are pleased and appreciative of the decision by the Department of Environmental Conservation today in regards to the rescinding of negative declaration of the air permit to Global Companies,” they said. “Since the first day we have been in office in 2013, there has been tremendous concern and outreach from our constituents about the potential impact which has caused great consternation both in the affected community and beyond.”

On Thursday, D.E.C. officials said that a review of 19,000 public comments submitted on the proposal raised significant issues that met the standard to rescind the project's earlier negative declaration determination. In their announcement, the D.E.C. said Global did not provide adequate air emissions data needed to make a final determination on the projects permits. State officials said Global did not provide adequate data on how the boiler would meet ambient air quality standards for hydrogen sulfide.

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

There are no existing rail cars that could truly be considered safe for shipping crude oil

 Dahr

Jamail | Oil Trains Don't Have to Derail or Explode to Be Hazardous, Doctors Warn June 9, 2015

In May, hundreds of doctors, nurses and health-care professionals from Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) called on Washington Gov. Jay Inslee and Oregon Gov. Kate Brown to take a stronger position against proposed oil-by-rail shipping terminals in their respective states, in order to insure the health and physical security of families and communities there.

Read entire Truthout article HERE

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

 Scientists study impact of diluted bitumen spilled into ocean Cleanup would be 'tougher' than a regular oil spill, expert says May 21, 2015 Federal scientists at the Bedford Institute of Oceanography are studying the behaviour of diluted bitumen from the Alberta oil sands when it spills into the ocean.

They're finding it poses real challenges for any cleanup.

"It is to a certain degree tougher to work with than conventional oil," says Thomas King of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

Editorial Comment: In 2013 Ottawa launched an $8 million program to evaluate what happens when diluted bitumen spills into the ocean, how it can be treated and the impact it has on the environment.

We already know that the chemical cocktail referred to as diluted bitumen (dilbit) is:  persistent  impossible to clean up in water; fresh or marine.  deadly to marine life

Legacy – July 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots Industry wants to move more oil sands petroleum by tanker, pipeline and rail, but little was known about its behaviour in a spill.

"There is no literature on it, no reports," says King Research so far shows a bitumen spill is treatable — with booming and skimming, even burning in situ -— provided there is a rapid response.

Diluted bitumen weathers quickly, meaning it gets heavy.

Chemical dispersants have been found to be less effective on diluted bitumen than conventional oil.

The dilutant — light oil used to make it fluid — evaporates leaving behind tar balls that sink.

"When it begins to sink it becomes more troublesome. We have to figure out ways to track, monitor and remediate sinking oil," King says.

DFO is expanding its research to examine effects in brackish and fresh water. Right now a $720,000 upgrade of the BIO wave tank facility is underway.

International Interest Fresh-water research will address issues raised when an Enbridge pipeline carrying diluted bitumen ruptured into a lake in Michigan in 2010.

It floated for several days and then sank. The cleanup required dredging the lake.

King has presented some of his findings to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

China is collaborating on the research "There is a vast interest in the international science world," King said.

International scientists peer reviewing the research have rejected attempts by dutiful Canadian scientists to brand the pollutant as oil balls, says King.

Instead he says they are still referred to as tar balls.

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

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

 US says Gulf oil spill could last 100 years May 17, 2015 WASHINGTON -- A decade-old oil leak from where an offshore platform toppled during a hurricane could continue spilling crude into the Gulf of Mexico for a century or more if left unchecked, according to government estimates obtained by The Associated Press that provide new details about the scope of the problem.

Taylor Energy Company, which owned the platform and a cluster of oil wells, has played down the extent and environmental impact of the leak. The company also maintains that nothing can be done to completely eliminate the chronic oil slicks that often stretch for miles off the coast of Louisiana.

Taylor has tried to broker a deal with the government to resolve its financial obligations for the leak, but authorities have rebuffed those overtures and have ordered additional work by the company, according to Justice Department officials who were not authorized to comment publicly by name and spoke only on condition of anonymity.

"There is still more that can be done by Taylor to control and contain the oil that is discharging" from the site, says an Interior Department fact sheet obtained by AP. Federal regulators suspect oil is still leaking from at least one of 25 wells that remain buried under mounds of sediment from an underwater mudslide triggered by waves whipped up by Hurricane Ivan in 2004.

A Taylor contractor drilled new wells to intercept and plug nine wells deemed capable of leaking oil.

But a company official has asserted that experts agree the "best course of action … is to not take any affirmative action" due to the risks of additional drilling.

An AP investigation last month revealed evidence the leak is far worse than Taylor, or the government, has publicly reported during a secretive response to the slow-motion spill.

The AP's review of more than 2,300 Coast Guard pollution reports since 2008 showed a dramatic spike in sheen sizes and oil volumes since Sept. 1, 2014. That reported increase came just after federal regulators held a workshop last August to improve the accuracy of Taylor's slick estimates and started sending government observers on a Taylor contractor's daily flights over the site.

Presented with AP's findings, the Coast Guard provided a new leak estimate that is about 20 times greater than one recently touted by the company. In a February 2015 court filing, Taylor cited a yearold estimate that oil was leaking at a rate of less than 4 gallons per day.

Legacy – July 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots A Coast Guard fact sheet says sheens as large as 1.5 miles wide and 14 miles long have been spotted by Taylor since the workshop. Since last September, the estimated daily volume of oil discharged from the site has ranged from roughly 42 gallons to 2,329 gallons, with a daily average of more than 84 gallons.

Some experts have given far greater estimates of the leak's extent. Based on satellite imagery and pollution reports, the watchdog group SkyTruth estimates between 300,000 and 1.4 million gallons have spilled from the site since 2004, with an annual average daily leak rate between 37 and 900 gallons.

Ken Arnold, an industry consultant, said natural oil seeps from cracks in the seabed can last for thousands of years. But he has never heard of another commercial oil spill lasting more than a decade, let alone a century.

"This is a very unusual set of circumstances," he said.

In 2008, Taylor set aside hundreds of millions of dollars to pay for leak-related work as part of a trust agreement with the Interior Department. The company says it has spent tens of millions of dollars on its efforts to contain and halt the leak, but it hasn't publicly disclosed how much money is left in the trust. The company sold all its offshore leases and oil and gas interests in 2008, four years after founder Patrick Taylor died, and is down to only one full-time employee.

Justice Department officials say the company approached the government concerning the trust fund, but they declined to discuss the terms of its proposal. Federal agencies responded that more work needed to be done, including installing a more effective containment dome system, and that the company remained responsible for doing that work, the officials said.

One official said the company's proposed resolutions involved trying to recoup money that was still in the trust, but those overtures were rejected. Federal officials declined to comment on the status of any negotiations.

A spokesman for the company declined to comment Friday.

Only the broad outlines of the company's response work are known. The government has agreed to keep many details under wraps in the name of protecting the company's trade secrets.

In response to AP's investigation, U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson last month called on federal officials to disclose technical data and other information about the leak. A spokesman for the Florida Democrat said Nelson had confirmed with the Interior Department that Taylor "was formally asking to be excused from any further cleanup costs."

"This case illustrates how hurricanes and oil rigs don't mix," Nelson said in a statement. "And I'm going to keep doing everything I can to make sure the Interior Department holds this company accountable."

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

The terminus of the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline is the Westridge Marine Terminal in Burnaby. A major oil spill caused by Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain pipeline expansion could cost Vancouver's economy up to $1.2 billion, according to a new report released by the city

 Major oil spill could cost Vancouver economy $1.2 billion: city report May 22, 2015 VANCOUVER -- A major oil spill in Burrard Inlet would devastate Vancouver's marine and shorebased economy resulting in losses amounting to $1.2 billion, according to a University of B.C. study commissioned by the city.

The study was completed by UBC's Fisheries Economics Research Unit, which was asked to "quantify the potential economic costs of a major oil spill (16 million litres) into Burrard Inlet," said a press release issued Friday.

The worst-case scenario of $1.2 billion in losses doesn't include the cost of clean up, response and recovery costs or "loss of (the city's Greenest City) brand reputation and property value," said the report.

Legacy – July 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots "The risk is massive. Those numbers are quite substantial," said city councillor Andrea Reimer.

"And that's just if an oil spill occurs. The idea of being a major oil port has economic impact as well.

Our economy . . . is very dependent on the image of Vancouver as a liberal city, a green city."

The city plans to present the report to the National Energy Board on May 27.

The board is considering an application by Kinder Morgan Canada for its proposed Trans Mountain Expansion Project, which would twin the existing pipeline bringing oil from Alberta to Burnaby, increasing capacity to 890,000 from 300,000 barrels per day.

Kinder Morgan's proposal would increase oil tanker traffic in Burrard Inlet seven fold from five tankers a month to 34 — something the city opposes as it increases the likelihood of a major spill.

The study said Vancouver's ocean-dependent industries directly employ four per cent of the city's population and have five key components: commercial fishing, port activities (shipping and cruises), inner harbour transportation, tourism (marine recreation, waterfront events, visiting beaches and the seawall), and recreation.

The report found that these activities contribute more than $3 billion in gross domestic product to Vancouver's economy every year.

"Ocean-dependent economic activities in Vancouver encompass only a portion of the local economy that could experience losses from a hydrocarbon spill in the Burrard Inlet. Still, the potential impacts of an oil spill run into hundreds of million dollars," the report said.

The study found that economic loss to the city from a major spill at either the First or Second Narrows Bridges would vary from $380 million, if it happened in October when the tourist season was ending, to $1.2 billion if it occurred in May when the season was about to begin.

It said Vancouver's beaches attract over three million users a year, waterfront parks attract five million users, while 2.7 million persons use the seawall, all of which provides $145 million to $170 million a year to the local economy.

In total, Vancouver's ocean-based activities contribute up to $6.7 billion a year to the city's economy and provide up to 36,680 person years of employment.

The report concludes "that the projected losses from an oil spill in Burrard Inlet would be substantial and cost the city hundreds of millions of dollars in lost economic opportunities."

Trans Mountain spokeswoman Ali Hounsell said it's important to remember that the scenario painted in the city's report would be covered by Canada's Marine Liability Act, which ensures approximately $1.3 billion is available to cover liability.

"Reports such as the one released today are expected and will be reviewing it as we prepare our responses to submit to the NEB," she said in a statement Friday.

The city also released a separate modelling animation showing the movement of oil following a hypothetical 16-million-litre spill near the Second Narrows Bridge on the city's east side.

Time-lapse animation showed multiple black specks, each representing 2,000 litres of oil, spreading toward West Vancouver before flowing back toward Coal Harbour and clinging to the shoreline around Burrard Inlet.

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

WILD SALMON VICTORY  Shell loses appeal of oil train project in Skagit County Skagit County Superior Court agrees that environmental and public health risks of dangerous oil rail project should be assessed May 21, 2015 Mount Vernon, WA – Today, Skagit County Superior Court dismissed Shell Oil Refinery’s appeal of a decision that required an environmental impact statement for their proposed oil-by-rail expansion.

This decision follows the Skagit County Hearing Examiner’s February 2015 ruling that Shell’s proposed project posed a significant risk of harm to people, water and wildlife.

“It’s time to stop suing each other and get down to work,” said Jan Hasselman of Earthjustice. “The community deserves an honest conversation about this project and the court has said we are entitled to one.”

The proposed expansion would route six more mile-long oil trains per week through Washington, adding at least one hour a day of more traffic in Skagit County. Increased oil train traffic already puts Puget Sound, Padilla Bay, the Skagit River and communities at risk. More oil spilled from trains in 2014 than in the last four decades combined.

“This is a victory for Skagitonians,” said Tom Glade of Evergreen Islands. “They refused to let this project move forward without a full review of the impacts. And now, we will get one.”

In Skagit County, the oil trains pass right through the downtowns of Burlington and Mount Vernon.

The oil trains also cross the old Burlington/Mount Vernon bridge spanning the Skagit River immediately above the Anacortes Water Treatment Plant and the old swing bridge spanning the Swinomish Channel directly adjacent to the Padilla Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve.

This decision comes as Shell faces increasing public resistance to their plan to harbor their Arctic drilling rigs in the Port of Seattle.

“The oil industry needs to realize that Northwesterners value our health and environment more than their expansion plans,” said Rebecca Ponzio of Washington Environmental Council and the Stand Up to Oil Campaign. “We’re not just going to let them risk our health, water and safety. We are pushing back hard. And I think that’s starting to get through.”

RE Sources for Sustainable Communities, Friends of the San Juans, ForestEthics, Washington Environmental Council, Friends of the Earth, and Evergreen Islands filed the Shell appeal, represented by Kristen Boyles and Jan Hasselman of Earthjustice.

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

 TransCanada's

Keystone Pipeline Network Under Investigation by Federal

Regulators May 21, 2015 A month after revealing that TransCanada is under a compliance review for the Keystone 1 Pipeline, the Pipeline Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) disclosed it is also investigating the operations of Keystone XL's southern route, renamed the Gulf Coast Pipeline when the project was split in half.

The results of these investigations could play a part in President Obama's final decision on the Keystone XL permit that TransCanada needs to complete its Keystone pipeline network. According to the State Department’s website, one of the factors the KXL presidential permit review process focuses on is compliance with relevant federal regulations.

Legacy – July 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots At TransCanada's latest shareholder meeting in Calgary, Evan Vokes, a former employee turned whistleblower, asked CEO Russ Girling why the company had not disclosed the ongoing investigations in its current annual report. Girling acknowledged that the company is under review, but assured shareholders that pipeline safety remains the company's top priority.

After informing stockholders that another whistleblower recently disclosed documents showing that TransCanada had broken the same rules that Vokes exposed in 2010, he asked Girling what TransCanada had done to change things since Vokes worked for the company.

“To the extent that they [the regulators] find any issues with our corporation, we will change to evolve but at the current time there has been nothing put forward that we need to respond to,” Girling said.

“Across 70,000 kilometers of pipeline and 64 billion dollars of rotating equipment, there are things we have to address everyday,” Girling said, without citing anything specific.

Vokes alleges TransCanada's “culture of noncompliance” has not changed. Mounting pipeline failures, including the Suffield Lateral line in Alberta, Canada that failed on May 11, help validate his claim.

“Shareholders believe they have safe mom-and-pops blue chip shares,” Vokes told DeSmog. “But the stock has a larger liability than stockholders imagine.”

Vokes likened holding stock in TransCanada to “roulette table investing.”

Multiple noncompliance issues alleged by PHMSA raise questions about the integrity of the completed segments in TransCanada’s Keystone pipeline network. The network is made up of the Keystone1 Pipeline, the Cushing Gulf Coast Extension, and the Gulf Coast Pipeline. The northern route of the Keystone XL, if built, will complete the network.

Marking on the Gulf Coast Pipeline at an anomaly excavation site.

Legacy – July 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots The Keystone 1 line starts in Hardisty, Alberta, and connects to the Cushing Gulf Coast Extension pipeline in Steele City, Nebraska. The Cushing Gulf Coast Extension pipeline ends in Cushing, Oklahoma, where it connects to the Gulf Coast pipeline, which ends up at refineries on the Gulf Coast of Texas. The northern route of the Keystone XL, if built, would run from Hardisty to Cushing, where it would connect to the Gulf Coast pipeline.

The Keystone 1 pipeline had over a dozen spills in its first two years of operation. And TransCanada temporarily shut down the pipeline when areas of extreme external corrosion were detected in Oct. 2012.

Cathodic protection is used to prevent pipelines' external walls from corroding. When DeSmog asked TransCanada if the Keystone 1 pipelines' cathodic protection failed, the company did not reply; however, a spokesperson for the company told Politico that the problems were linked to “low-voltage electric currents from Keystone and a nearby pipeline interfering with one another.”

“That explanation describes a failure in the cathodic protection,” Vokes told DeSmogBlog, “If the code of construction was followed, the corrosion would not have happened.”

TransCanada's internal report on lessons learned from the building of the Cushing Extension recommends, “addressing noncompliance issues.”

PHMSA's final inspection report on the Gulf Coast pipeline noted instances of TransCanada's failure to adhere to the code. The company got unsatisfactory marks on welding procedures and installation practices related to the pipeline’s cathodic protection.

Warning letters sent by the agency to TransCanada reprimanded the company for hiring unqualified welders and not protecting the pipeline's coating during installation.

TransCanada sent a letter in response, claiming the company had remedied all of the issues that had PHMSA concerned. It also assured the agency that all the anomalies (defects in a pipeline) identified by a mandatory pressure test were inspected and repaired.

Public Citizen, an advocacy group, and the Tar Sands Blockade, a grassroots activist organization, conducted their own investigation of the repair work done on the Gulf Coast pipeline. They remain skeptical of the pipeline's integrity because the same contractors whose non-compliant work led to the problems were tasked to fix them.

Both groups, along with concerned landowners on whose land the pipeline was built, asked that PHSMA require TransCanada to do a new pressure test to check the integrity of the repair work done, including segments of the pipeline that were replaced.

PHMSA has the power to require an additional pressure test — or shut a pipeline down — if the agency “feels there is a serious risk,” PHMSA spokesman Damon Hill told DeSmog.

The agency did not require an additional pressure test of the Gulf Coast line, but Hill said, “we aren't shy about using the full force of our enforcement authority when we need to.”

While no fines were issued when the final inspection report was completed, Hill said the agency reserves the right to fine TransCanada at the conclusion of its review of the pipeline’s operations.

Legacy – July 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots Vokes thinks it was irresponsible for PHSMA not to demand a new pressure test after Public Citizen reported observers found 125 excavation sites of possible anomalies in a 250-mile stretch of the Gulf Coast line. DeSmog asked TransCanada for the final count of the repairs done to the pipeline, but the company never cited a figure.

“The lack of accountability with regulators is appalling,” Vokes said. PHSMA and the National Energy Board of Canada have done nothing more then scold TransCanada.

Compliance issues related to other aspects connected to the Keystone XL pipeline have also arisen. An environmental impact study in Texas was not completed before President Obama fasttracked the Gulf Coast Pipeline. Though the Sierra Club lost a case to get a temporary injunction to stop the pipeline from being built, alleging the National Environment Protection Act requires an environmental impact study, Michael Bishop, a landowner in Douglas, Texas, is challenging the government with a similar lawsuit.

Furthermore, President Obama has failed to nominate a new head of PHSMA in the required time allotted for him to do so.

PHSMA has been without a leader for more than 425 days.

FBI SPYING ON PIPELINE ACTIVISTS The FBI's monitoring of the Tar Sands Blockade's activities “breached its own internal rules,” according a report by the Guardian, by “failing to get approval before it cultivated informants and opened files on individuals protesting against the construction of the pipeline in Texas.”

Member of the Tar Sands Blockade during a tree sit in the path of the Gulf Coast Pipeline in Winnsboro, Texas.

Legacy – July 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots Documents obtained by The Guardian and Earth Island Journal for the report revealed that the “FBI’s Houston office said it would share with TransCanada “any pertinent intelligence regarding any threats” to the company in advance of a forthcoming protest.” Also that “one FBI investigation, run from its Houston field office, amounted to “substantial non-compliance” of Department of Justice rules that govern how the agency should handle sensitive matters.”

“There is a raft of criminal behavior on the part of TransCanada that doesn't raise the eyebrows of the FBI the way that a group of peaceful protesters engaging in civil disobedience did,” Tar Sands Blockade member Ramsey Sprague told DeSmog. “You have landowners who accused TransCanada of racketeering and eminent domain land theft issues,” he said. “TransCanada’s failure to restore condemned land, leaving property like Julia Trigg Crawford's in ruins, offers further proof the company ignores its contractual obligations.”

Julia Trigg Crawford, a Texas landowner who fought against TransCanada's right to condemn her land, and other Texas landowners including Eleanor Fairchild and Michael Bishop who resisted TransCanada before ultimately signing agreements with the company, each told DeSmogBlog that their land has not been restored to its original condition.

Efforts to control erosion that began after the installation of the Gulf Coast Pipeline on Eleanor Fairchild’s land in Winnsboro Texas have failed. According to Fairchild her land has yet to be restored to its original condition.

Legacy – July 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots Sprague is also concerned about TransCanada's “shoddy construction.” The Tar Sands Blockade and Public Citizen documented questionable practices during the construction and repair of the Gulf Coast pipeline that show damaged coating of the pipeline and holes in a weld that light could shine through.

President Obama's decision to grant TransCanada the needed permit allowing the pipeline to cross international borders could come at any time. Eight federal agencies have all completed reviews they were requested to do.

Issuing a permit for the northern route of the Keystone XL before PHMSA's investigations are completed would be contrary to the State Department's own guidelines.

But who follows the rules these days?

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

Coal

 Save the Chuitna

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

Hydropower / Water Retention

Sam Mace (Save Our Wild Salmon): Don't hold back. It's time we come together for our wild salmon, our orcas, our communities and our future. It's time to remove the four #deadbeatdams on the lower Snake River.

A phone call from you to Washington Senators Cantwell (206-220-6400) and Murray (206-5535545) is the most powerful thing you can do to help. Tell your senators, "Don't hold back on jobs, salmon, recreation, orcas, savings and clean energy. Let's take down the dams on the lower Snake River."

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

 Power from Site C dam ‘dramatically’ more costly than thought: expert May 26, 2015 Just weeks before BC Hydro plans to begin construction of the $8.8-billion Site C project, a new report says the Crown corporation has dramatically understated the cost of producing power from the hydroelectric dam.

The Peace Valley Landowners Association (PVLA), which is opposed to the project because of the flooding from creating an 83-kilometre reservoir on the Peace River, commissioned a leading U.S. energy economist, Robert McCullough, to look at the business case for what will be the province’s most expensive public infrastructure project.

The B.C. government approved the project last December, saying it is the most cost-effective option to meet the province’s future electricity needs. But the province has steadfastly rejected calls for an independent review of the cost estimates for Site C, saying the costs have been rigorously scrutinized and verified by independent contractors, the Ministry of Finance and an outside accounting firm.

Mr. McCullough, in his report, said it appears the Crown corporation BC Hydro had its thumbs on the scale to make its mega project look better than the private-sector alternatives.

“Using industry standard assumptions, Site C is more than three times as costly as the least expensive option,” Mr. McCullough concluded. “While the cost and choice of options deserve further analysis, the simple conclusion is that Site C is more expensive – dramatically so – than the renewable [and] natural gas portfolios elsewhere in the U.S. and Canada.”

The report challenges a number of assumptions that led the government to conclude that Site C is the cheapest option. Mr. McCullough noted that the province adopted accounting changes last fall that reduced the cost of power generated by Site C. He said those changes are illusory and the costs will eventually have to be paid either by Hydro ratepayers, or provincial taxpayers.

Mr. McCullough, a leading expert on power utilities in the Pacific Northwest, also disputes the rate that BC Hydro used to compare the long-term borrowing cost of capital for Site C against other projects, noting that other major utilities in North America use higher rates for such projects because they are considered risky investments. The so-called discount rate is critical to the overall cost projections, and he said the paper trail on how the Crown arrived at its figure “can only be described as sketchy and inadequate.”

The report, obtained by The Globe and Mail, will be released on Tuesday by the PVLA.

Legacy – July 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots The group will call on Premier Christy Clark to delay construction to allow time for a review by Auditor-General Carol Bellringer.

Ken Boon, president of the association, said the government needs to put the project on hold because it has approved the project based on poor advice.

“I find it frustrating,” he said in an interview.

“How come it is left to us to do the due diligence that the government should be doing?”

The Site C project is facing a series of court challenges by the PVLA and local First Nations organizations. Mr. Boon said his group intends to seek an injunction to delay construction if the Premier will not agree to put the project on hold.

Independent power producers have argued they can meet B.C.’s growing need for electricity at a competitive cost, but they say the province tilted the playing field last fall when it changed the way it collects dividends from BC Hydro and reduced water-rental charges for the Crown corporation.

As a result of those accounting changes, the cost per megawatt hour of Site C electricity decreased by one-third, from $83 a megawatt hour down to somewhere between $58 and $61 a megawatt hour. BC Hydro says it would cost $96 a megawatt hour for alternative energy.

The government has exempted the project from a regulatory review by the B.C. Utilities Commission.

However the environmental review panel that studied Site C said an independent review on BC Hydro’s cost estimates, energy demand forecasts and conservation plan should be conducted before allowing the project to move forward.

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

 Ecology Plans to Install Six Gauges on Chehalis River Tributaries May 30, 2015 Six currently unmeasured tributaries of the Chehalis River will soon be providing readings as gauges are planned to be installed.

The Department of Ecology’s gages will measure streamflow and water quality, filling data gaps to evaluate the effects of the proposed dam on the Chehalis River.

The six new stream gauges are proposed to be located at: • South Fork Chehalis River at state Route 6 • Bunker Creek at Ceres Hill Road

Editorial Comment: While WGFCI opposes the proposed Chehalis River dam as it would provide a false sense of security at best, we applaud efforts to notify property owners within the Chehalis River basin who are in potential danger of rising water levels of Chehalis River tributaries.

• Stearns Creek at Twin Oaks Road • Dillenbaugh Creek at Riverside Drive • Salzer Creek at Airport Road • Black River at U.S. Highway 12 The gauges will provide real-time measurements that will be available online.

Their readings will also be included in the Chehalis River Basin Flood Authority’s early warning system, Ron Averill, Flood Authority member, said at a Centralia Council meeting on Tuesday.

The Department of Ecology is beginning work on permitting and permission for all locations, according to information provided to the Flood Authority.

Funding for the project appears likely as it has been approved by both the state Senate and House, Averill said.

The majority of gauges in the Chehalis River Basin belong to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Messages left with Dustin Bilhimer with the Department of Ecology, who is listed as a contact for the project, were not returned.

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

Natural Gas

 Massive Texas blaze dying down following pipeline rupture June 15, 2015 A blaze from a ruptured gas pipeline near Cuero in Texas is being allowed to slowly burn out. A local sheriff said he expects this to happen by Monday morning. A huge column of fire was visible for over 20 miles after the pipeline caught fire.

No injuries have been reported so far, according to Raul Diaz, a deputy with the DeWitt County Sheriff's Office, as cited by My San Antonio online news.

“If we were going to have a fire from a ruptured pipeline, I don’t think we could have picked a better location, as there were so few homes around there,” said Joel Zavesky. He added the Sheriff’s Office doesn’t have any idea what caused the blaze.

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

 Harper says LNG tankers too dangerous for East Coast, but OK for BC? June 19, 2015

Legacy – July 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots I live on Howe Sound in lovely Lions Bay. I have lived my entire life in British Columbia, growing up in Vancouver and spending much of my boyhood on this lovely fjord.

Howe Sound belongs to all of us. It had been all but destroyed by industry until 20 years ago when rehabilitation was started with the closing of mills and Britannia Mines. Thanks to the work of citizen/volunteers it was enormously successful. We now have the salmon runs dramatically increased, herring runs back to where they used to be, and killer whales, which were so prevalent when I was a boy but had all but disappeared, now going past my house regularly.

The Fraser River estuary scarcely needs any introduction. Suffice it to say that this glorious river is the number one salmon habitat in the world and nowhere are these marvelous fish more vulnerable than in the estuary. The governments have all but approved 200 more or less tankers and barges carrying LNG into and out of this estuary. They intend to skip an environmental assessment altogether, yet, thanks to citizen efforts, have been inundated with demands for a proper public hearing.

They don’t really care about us It is indeed bad enough that the National Energy Board has issued export licences for tankers travelling these routes, as ever-ignorant of British Columbia is fully in favour, but as you’ll see from the Wilderness Committee’s report which follows, the feds took exactly the opposite position on the east coast!

Suspicions confirmed! Ottawa does discriminate against BC. Because of this unbelievable turn of events, I wrote a letter to John Weston, our Tory MP. First, here is a statement from the Wilderness Committee on its report: The Wilderness Committee is calling attention to the federal government’s double standards regarding the safety of LNG shipments along Canada’s coastline.

The federal government has actively fought against the construction of an American LNG terminal known as the “Downeast LNG Project.” If constructed, this project would see LNG carrier ships pass through New Brunswick’s Head Harbour Passage.

Canadian Ambassador to the United States Gary Doer has outlined Canada’s “strong concerns” around Downeast LNG in two letters to US regulators, pointing to the serious environmental, navigational and safety risks of the project.

Contrarily in BC, American company WesPac Midstream was granted an export licence by Canada’s National Energy Board (NEB) on May 7th for its proposed LNG terminal on the Fraser River – a river that is home to one of the largest salmon runs in the world. The Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency (CEAA) is currently considering the need for an Environmental Assessment (EA) of the project.

To date, no federal government representative has expressed concerns with sending up to 120 LNG tanker vessels annually into highly populated areas of Richmond and Delta, BC.

Legacy – July 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots “Our federal government is treating us west coasters like second-class citizens,” said Eoin Madden, the Wilderness Committee’s Climate Campaigner. “This kind of LNG project was considered unacceptable for New Brunswick, but it doesn’t seem to pose a problem for the government when it will sit on the banks of the world’s greatest salmon river.”

The Wilderness Committee has produced a map detailing the public safety risk associated the WesPac project, identifying industry-defined LNG tanker “hazard zones” that would impact communities if a tanker on the route were to be ignited. There are three hazard zones – zone one posing the biggest threat to human life.

“The federal government opposed Downeast LNG to protect what they called a ‘unique and highly productive marine ecosystem’ off the New Brunswick coast,” said Madden. “If they want to see a unique and productive ecosystem, they should come on over and check out the Fraser River.” The Wilderness Committee will continue to work to protect the Fraser River from all fossil fuel shipments.

The organization will be calling on the federal government to conduct a cumulative impact assessment of the combined effects of coal, LNG, tar sands and aviation fuel projects proposed for this vital salmon river.

Rafe calls out Howe Sound MP Now, here is the letter I sent to John Weston both at his parliamentary address and personal address 10 days ago. I have not received a reply.

Dear Mr. Weston, Below you will find a release from the Wilderness Committee stating unequivocally that your government has banned LNG tankers on the East Coast while permitting them, indeed encouraging them, on the West Coast. They are banned on the Atlantic coast because they pose a serious danger. Evidently Mr. Harper doesn’t believe they pose the same danger on our coast.

This is of particular interest to residents of your constituency. It is not a new story, having been broken originally by Eoin Finn and I have dealt with it in columns myself. It is now, however, of immediate importance, since your government and the provincial government are bent on approving the Woodfibre LNG plant with consequent LNG tanker traffic down Howe Sound and have approved similar traffic on the Fraser River, one of the world’s most bountiful salmon rivers.

It is my intention to write an article, for publication, a week tomorrow, stating categorically that the Conservative government, your government, actively and dangerously discriminates against the West Coast generally and the Howe Sound and Fraser River areas specifically. I don’t wish to do this without giving you the opportunity of refuting the obvious inference that this is accurate.

I would be pleased to hear from you as soon as possible.

Yours very truly, Rafe Mair

Legacy – July 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots Try standing up for your constituents Let’s look at what we are asking Mr. Weston to do.

He’s been our Member of Parliament for eight years. His record in standing up for his constituents has been appalling. On the particular issue of Woodfibre LNG, Weston did not seek the opinions of his constituents – quite the opposite. He made it clear from the beginning that he couldn’t care less what we thought but that he was in favour of development, so was the prime minister, and that was that. Moreover he tried to throw his weight around and get the West Vancouver Council to change their minds from opposing this proposition to supporting it. He got a unanimous second prize from that doughty Council on that argument.

Weston’s constituency includes the western part of West Vancouver, the Sea-to-Sky area, and the Sunshine Coast. The opposition to Woodfibre LNG is a very strong indeed. In fact, it’s difficult to find anyone who favours it other than the deceitful shills for Woodfibre LNG called Resource Works and so far as I can determine from reading their bumph and speeches, they’ve not told the truth on any material fact yet. (See previous columns).

Woodfibre’s PR flacks hit the spin cycle In yet another propaganda email recently issued to his followers, Resource Works’ spokesman Stewart Muir, amongst other things, called our group “well-funded”; whereas we’re a group of volunteers, spending our own time and money, with only the occasional help from fundraisers. I tell you this because this billion dollar enterprise, with its high-priced lackeys in Resource Works, not only “money whips” us but has the nerve to denigrate honest, decent, concerned citizens spending their own time and money standing against a huge company and two governments hand-in-glove with the corporate world. Incidentally, Muir was once a Vancouver Sun editor which to me, at any rate, explains a lot.

Why do British Columbians deserve less?

Let’s return to Mr. Weston.

All we have asked our Member of Parliament to do is threefold: 

First, take all our concerns about Woodfibre LNG to the prime minister and the Government of Canada and let them know that there are thousands of decent British Columbians who want this project stopped. ask the PM why he is dealing with a crook, a tax evader and despoiler of tropical forests nonpareil. Ask the PM to google Woodfibre owner Sukanto Tanoto and follow the links to the Guardian Newspaper and thereon and tell us why he is to be our partner.



Secondly, ask Mr. Harper why he is uncaring about residents in allowing LNG tanker traffic through Howe Sound and the Fraser River where irrefutable scientific evidence makes it clear that both are far too dangerous. Both the Wilderness Committee and ourselves can provide charts.

In the case of Howe Sound, in transit to the ocean, LNG tankers from Squamish would pass within unsafe distances from the populations of West Vancouver Lions Bay and Bowen Island.

All 6 Municipal Councils around the Sound have passed motions objecting to the Woodfibre LNG proposal.

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

Thirdly, now that the government has essentially made its decision, we have asked Mr. Weston to explain to us, on behalf of the government of Canada, why there is one rule for Atlantic Canada and another one for British Columbia.

Surely, being an MP is more than chasing down missing pension checks or seeing that constituents have a tour of Parliament when visiting Ottawa.

In essence, Weston is receiving some $175,000 per year not to consult his constituents, not take their concerns to the prime minister and cabinet to demand answers on our behalf, not to support the municipal councils in his riding, and not to give a damn about anything except his own reelection.

To put it bluntly, Woodfibre LNG affects every person living in his constituency. We have, on clear scientific evidence, excellent reason to worry about the lives and safety of our families. Surely to God, what I have said above, which I believe would be endorsed by a large majority of Weston’s constituents, is not too much to ask of a man highly paid to be the liaison between the peasants their political masters.

John Weston will, in my opinion, be slaughtered in the next election, but of what consolation is that if the pall of impending disaster remains?

As I have written here recently, our path to safety for our families and communities is civil disobedience and that is what the uncaring bastards will have

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

Solar

-++

 This solar powered floating farm can produce 20 tons of vegetables every day March 19, 2015 From design practice, Forward Thinking Architecture, come a set of modular floating farms that harvest sunlight and rainwater, as well as desalinate saltwater and grow thousands of tons of vegetables ever year.

Inspired by Chinese floating fish farms, these rectangular units measure 200x350 meters and can connect with other modules via walkways. The usage of waterways is a great compliment to the farming industry because it makes farming available in so many more locations. It reduces the need to import food by localizing growth and incorporates rivers and lakes as viable "farmland."

Each unit is comprised of three levels. The bottom floor focuses on aquaculture and water desalination, the first floor on hydroponic crop cultivation, and the roof is adorned with solar panels, skylights and rainwater collectors.

Each module is anticipated to make 8,152 tons of vegetables every year and bring in 1,703 tons of fish. The modules, then, connect into a grid and can scale up into huge farms, producing local food for entire cities.

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

Corporate Greenwashing

 Koch Brothers' Koch Industries Begins First National Ad Campaign “Koch: From the Heart” – Watch Here

 American Petroleum Industry: Energy Superpower is Red, White and Blue Watch Here

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

 CPI

JOINS WITH NORTHWEST RIVERPARTNERS FOR HYDROPOWER EDUCATION EFFORT Watch Here

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

 Washington’s private forest landowners: Working Forests Work for All of Us Watch Here

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

Wild Game Fish Management

Enforcement officers pose with a sturgeon illegally caught by poachers. The officers' faces are obscured because they were working undercover on a sting that was code-named Operation Broodstock.

 World's Appetite For Caviar Sends Poachers After Columbia River Sturgeon May 21, 2015 There’s no good reason for a live, 8-foot sturgeon to be tied by the tail and tethered to the shore of the Columbia River.

Wildlife cops have found this is how poachers steal these giant fish: They keep the sturgeon alive and hidden underwater while they look for black market buyers.

The cops say the high value of caviar is driving poachers to these inventive tactics. They’ve also found also found sturgeon carcasses floating in the river with their bellies slit open after poachers harvested their eggs.

Legacy – July 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots It’s hard to catch the culprits, they say. It often requires night patrols and undercover stings.

“Sturgeon poaching is not something that’s done in the middle of the day when it’s sunny,” said Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife Sgt. Jeff Wickersham. “You’re going to have people that … don’t want to be seen. So, it’s very hard to detect.”

Detecting those poachers has become a bigger part of wildlife police work in Washington and Oregon. Global sturgeon populations are collapsing – most notably in Russia, where caviar is known as black gold. That’s fueling a market for illegal caviar and driving poachers to the Columbia River.

“The hottest commodity from an oversize fish is not the flesh, though that has a market value for sure. It’s the caviar,” said Mike Cenci, deputy chief of enforcement for WDFW. “We know as long as that resource is around, it’s going to attract poachers and traffickers.”

Fishing rules restrict people from taking sturgeon over 5 feet long to protect the breeding fish, which are few and far between. It takes female sturgeon about 20 years to start producing eggs, making them crucial to the species’ future. But their eggs are also a delicacy, prized as some of the world’s finest caviar.

Sturgeon are the largest freshwater fish in North America.

Legacy – July 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots Top-shelf sturgeon caviar can sell for up to $200 an ounce in stores and restaurants. The biggest female sturgeon can carry up to 100 pounds of eggs. That means the eggs from one sturgeon could be ultimately be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

‘Like an old-growth tree’ For the last several years, managers have canceled sturgeon fishing seasons below the Columbia River’s Bonneville Dam because sturgeon numbers are so low. But it’s unclear how much sturgeon poaching is to blame. Sturgeon have been hampered by dams and now they’re on the menu for the Columbia’s growing number of sea lions.

Sturgeon have been around 200 million years — before dinosaurs roamed the earth. They even look like dinosaurs. Their sides and back are armored with rows of spikes biologists call scutes.

“They’re the coolest-looking fish that swims in the river,” said Tucker Jones, biologist with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. “They look prehistoric. They’ve probably been in the Columbia River as long as there’s been a Columbia River.”

Tucker Jones counts sturgeon on the Columbia River.

Legacy – July 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots Sturgeon can live 100 years and grow to more than 20 feet long, but they’re slow-growing. According to Jones, only 1 percent of sturgeon survive the 15-25 years it takes for them to start reproducing.

“Once they reach maturity, those fish are really important because you have a fish that’s capable of sustaining a population for a long time,” he said. “The older they get, the more eggs they can produce.”

WDFW officer Dan Bolton said poachers make up a small percentage of the people fishing for sturgeon. But they have the potential to do a lot of damage.

“Sturgeon to me are like an old-growth tree,” he said. “They’re not just a fish that, well, you take one and you can grow another one. I mean these sturgeon are slow, slow-growing and need to be valued.”

‘We’re missing something’ Wickersham said officers on patrol in the Columbia are noticing that people simply aren’t catching as many sturgeon as they used to.

“We see people saying, ‘Hey, we’re not seeing fish anymore. We used to catch fish here all the time.

All we’re finding is shakers or the undersized. We’re not seeing oversized fish anymore,’” Wickersham said.

But how could the cops be missing people poaching sturgeon that are more than 5 feet long?

Watch: How 1 Sturgeon can be worth $300,000 Catching the culprits On his patrol boat, Mitch Hicks, chief of enforcement for the Columbia River Intertribal Fish Commission, points out a stretch of the river where he’s found oversize sturgeon tied to the shore.

“So, we have a high cliff here,” he explains. “We have some deep water. It’s secluded. There’s really no street lights. There’s no neighbors or residential areas or anything.”

Hicks said he and his officers routinely run their patrol boat close to the shore, looking for lines, cables anything that would look out of place and have tension on it.

“Lift the line out of the water and sometimes, you know, you find a fish,” he said.

Operation Broodstock Officers have also tried another tactic to catch sturgeon poachers: Going undercover and pretending to be their customers.

Special Report

There’s More In Our Series About Poachers, Traffickers, And The Fight To Stop Their Crimes Against Nature.

Legacy – July 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots In the mid-1990s, a poaching ring based in Vancouver, Washington, was caught after harvesting 1.65 tons for caviar from around 2,000 Columbia River sturgeon. The estimated value of the caviar was $2 million. Another ring with ties to the Columbia was busted in 2003.

Officials suspected the collapse of the sturgeon population in the Caspian Sea had made the Columbia a bigger target for poachers. So, in 2006 and 2007 wildlife enforcement officials with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Oregon State Police and WDFW organized a sting to catch poachers and traffickers on the Columbia.

Many oversize fish seized in Operation Broodstock were cut into pieces. The ziplock bag contains sturgeon roe.

They called it Operation Broodstock because it was designed to catch people poaching breeding fish for their eggs. Undercover officers bought illegal fish from 33 suspects altogether. Seventeen out of 19 of their attempts were successful.

“In my mind, that’s high odds that trafficking is out of control on the Columbia River,” Cenci said.

“What we learned is that sturgeon poaching was alive and well. The market was already established.”

Legacy – July 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots Officers found people selling sturgeon that were both bigger and smaller than the legal size. Many of the suspects were tribal fishers.

Officers with Operation Broodstock pose with an illegal sturgeon.

“On the harvesting end, we had tribal members involved, but we had an Eastern European marketplace that was providing the incentive to poach,” Cenci said. “Regardless of the culture, the incentive is the same, and it’s money. It’s all about money.”

Tribal Leaders Left Out Of The Operation Officials spent more than a year working undercover in Operation Broodstock. While many of their suspects were tribal fishers, tribal leaders were left out of the operation.

Paul Lumley, executive director of the Columbia River Intertribal Fish Commission, said it was wrong to leave the tribes out of the sting.

“They continued to gather information and used it as a way to try to embarrass the tribes or make their enforcement programs look like they’re not doing a good job,” he said. “So, I told them to their face I thought their behavior was really quite disgusting because if they really cared about the natural resources, they would have come and talked to us. We work very, very hard to restore these fish runs.”

Lumley said state enforcement officials have a history of harassing tribal fishers, and he thinks they unfairly target the tribes – maybe because they want more authority over tribal fisheries and maybe because of “institutional racism that still exists over there.”

Legacy – July 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots Cenci said his agency is not out to get the tribes or get in the way of their treaty right to fish.

“The states do have to overcome a less-than-stellar history with respect to the treaty right,” he said.

“To characterize our dedication in protecting natural resources as institutional racism, that’s offensive to me. Our officers are very respectful of the treaty right, and we provide a lot of training to our officers so they understand the history, they understand the sensitivities, they understand how emotionally charged that all this can be.”

A high-stakes indulgence

Sturgeon caviar is measured on a gram scale at Kachka in Portland.

At the Russian restaurant Kachka in Portland, customers pay $84 for just half an ounce of the best sturgeon caviar on the menu. It comes from farms to protect wild stocks. Owner Bonnie Morales uses a scale in the middle of the restaurant to serve it, so customers can watch as she measures out a small spoonful of these tiny black eggs.

“We want to be very transparent with making sure people know they’re getting exactly what they’re paying for,” she said. “Every little egg matters.”

Morales said there’s something inherently indulgent about sturgeon caviar – regardless of the price.

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

Sturgeon caviar is luxury item often featured at Russian celebrations.

“It’s rich. It’s buttery. When it’s really fresh it has a nice brininess to it rather than a fishiness,” she said. “It’s a really delicious and complex flavor.”

She said she can see why people would be poaching the white sturgeon found in the Columbia River.

“White sturgeon is becoming more and more of a premium item, and so there’s a lot of respect for it now,” she said. “And they’re really easy to catch. They’re like big submarines.”

Biologists say the sturgeon populations aren’t in dire straits, and their numbers could still rebound to healthy levels. But Cenci said the stakes are high for enforcement officials trying to stop sturgeon poaching.

“For a species to make it 200 million years only to be poached to alarmingly low levels would be a crying shame,” he said. “We’re going to do our level best to try to protect that resource. I think that’s something everybody wants.”

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

 Feds Releasing Plan for Bull Trout Conservation in 5 States June 2, 2015 Federal officials are releasing a plan Thursday to recover struggling bull trout populations in five Western states with the goal of lifting Endangered Species Act protections for the fish.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposes lifting protections individually in six recovery units spread over Idaho, western Montana, Washington, Oregon and a tiny portion of northern Nevada when specific requirements are met. The agency said the areas contain distinct populations of bull trout with unique characteristics.

"We think the approach is tactical and appropriate," said Steve Duke, bull trout recovery planning coordinator for the agency. "We think it focuses on what still needs to be done, and it lets local agencies and those with managerial oversight focus on those areas without having to look at the larger distribution of bull trout."

Bull trout are a cold water species listed as threatened in the Lower 48 states in 1999. Experts say cold, clean water is essential for the fish.

The plan doesn't dictate actions but looks at ways to keep water in streams habitable for bull trout. It considers warming waters due to climate change that force some populations into upper regions of river systems, Duke said.

"We expect that to continue into the future," he said.

The draft plan stems from the agency's settlement last year of a lawsuit by two environmental groups — the Alliance for the Wild Rockies and Friends of the Wild Swan.

Michael Garrity of Alliance for the Wild Rockies said he's concerned the agency is looking to define bull trout differently in different regions so federal protections could be removed in some areas while fish are still in trouble in other areas. He said his organization would be against that plan.

"We're optimistic they'll listen to us," Garrity said. "But we're optimistic because we've sued them on bull trout about a dozen times and won each time. If they don't follow the best available science, we won't hesitate to sue again."

Besides warming waters, the bull trout's survival is threatened by non-native brook trout. If the species mate, it creates a hybrid fish.

Bull trout occupy about 60 percent of their former range, which has remained steady since the fish received federal protection in 1999, Duke said.

Their presence is often a sign of a healthy river system because of the high water quality the fish requires, Duke said. Water quality can decline for various reasons, including logging, he said.

Legacy – July 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots The agency doesn't believe logging is still occurring in a way that harms bull trout habitat, Duke said.

But the plan identifies some areas harmed long ago by logging when it was done with little regard for stream health.

Public comments will be taken through July 20, which the agency plans to use to prepare a final plan

by Sept. 30.

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

Boats crowd the Willamette River between Gladstone and Willamette Falls during spring chinook salmon season. Warm water temperatures are killing fish in the river before they have a chance to spawn.

 Warm water expected to keep killing Willamette River salmon June 18, 2015 Oregon's worsening drought has taken its first official victims.

Abnormally warm water temperatures in the Willamette River are killing spring Chinook as they swim upstream to spawn.

Anglers on Wednesday began reporting dead salmon floating downstream and washing ashore near Willamette Falls, casualties of water too warm for their survival.

Temperatures in the lower Willamette have spiked amid the recent heat wave, rising well above 70 degrees, said Rick Hargrave, a spokesman for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.

"The Willamette gets warm, but we wouldn't normally be seeing temperatures like this until July," Hargrave said.

The highest temperature was recorded near Newberg, where the water reached 75 degrees.

Legacy – July 2015 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2015 – Removing Ocean-based Salmon Feedlots That's well into the danger zone for salmon, which prefer water in the 50s and become stressed once the mercury tops 60 degrees. Each degree of additional warmth increases their likelihood of death.

It's also a sharp increase from this time last year, when a thermometer at the Willamette Falls fish counting station registered 63-degree waters.

"Just a couple of degrees can make a big difference in the aquatic world," said Rick Swart, a northwest regional spokesman for ODFW. State fish biologists were on the Willamette and Clackamas rivers Thursday surveying the die-off.

During an hour of preliminary investigation Wednesday night, a biologist counted more than 50 carcasses.

A poster on the website ifish.net reported seeing at least 30 of the dead fishfloating down the river or lying on the banks Wednesday evening near Oregon City's Clackamette Park, located at the confluence of the two rivers.

"I've never seen this many before," the poster wrote. Other commenters on the online forum echoed the author's concerns.

This is Oregon's first temperature-related fish kill of 2015, but more are likely as Oregon's drought continues to affect waterways.

With virtually no snowpack left in most Oregon mountain ranges, stream flows across the state are far below normal. The shallow, slower-moving waters warm quickly to create treacherous conditions for fish.

In addition to creating dangerously warm conditions, low water levels can leave fish stranded in deep pools with flows too low to permit their escape.

Already, the drought's impact on waterways has forced ODFW to alter its management practices.

The agency announced earlier this month that it would release trophy trout from the Nehalem Hatchery months earlier than planned. Flows at the hatchery are too low to raise the fish to full-size, they reasoned.

Then, last week, the agency decided to let anglers fish from boats on a section of the Sandy River where fishermen are normally confined to the riverbank. The reason: The lowest flows in more than 20 years have restricted fish movement, making it difficult to for anglers to catch anything from the banks.

Swart said district biologists throughout the state have been asked to identify drought-related issues that could arise in their districts and detail their response plans.

"If the warm water conditions persist, there will be more," Swart said. "Today we're talking about the Willamette, tomorrow we might be talking about the Rogue."

Fortunately, he said, this week's die-off has made only a small dent in an otherwise successful spring Chinook run. More than 51,000 fish have crossed at Willamette Falls, well above the 50-year average of 41,000 fish.

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

 TAKE ACTION! Tell Congress to strengthen our ocean fisheries law A major threat to our nation’s fish stocks is growing as Congress begins the process of reauthorizing the Magnuson-Stevens Fisheries Conservation and Management Act. This Act, the principal law governing U.S. fisheries management, has helped 37 fish populations rebound from overfishing since 2000—bringing sustainable jobs to coastal communities.

Sadly, not everyone likes effective regulations. Many industrial fishing companies and some recreational fishing businesses would prefer to go back to a “flexible” application of the law—policies that existed in the 1980s and ’90s, when many important fish stocks collapsed.

The House Natural Resources Committee recently passed a bill, H.R. 1335, sponsored by Representative Don Young (R-AK), that undermines the conservation and recovery of our fisheries.

We call H.R. 1335 the “Empty Oceans Act.” The Empty Oceans Act would: 

Allow overfishing of depleted fish populations



Cripple the rebuilding of overfished stocks by creating loopholes and excuses for inaction



Exempt potentially hundreds of species from annual catch limits



Exempt fisheries management from broader environmental review



Limit the public’s access to fishery data (even data collected using taxpayer dollars)



Undermine other environmental laws like the Endangered Species Act, the Antiquities Act and the National Marine Sanctuaries Act

The Magnuson-Stevens Act plays a vital role in Earthjustice’s efforts to protect and rebuild the ocean ecosystem. We’ve been fighting to enforce the Act to end rampant overfishing of cod in New England, to protect tuna stocks in the mid-Pacific and Gulf of Mexico, and to safeguard forage fish like anchovy, sardine, herring, and menhaden that form the base of a healthy ocean food web—we can’t let it be weakened.

Speak up today - tell Congress that America’s ocean fisheries law is working!

Reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Act should build on our successes, not create loopholes for special interests.

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

Wildlife Artists:

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

 Gary Haggquist Visual Artist “Crossing” Acrylic on panel 12’’ X 24”

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

 Diane Michelin - Fly Fishing Fine Art: "Wading Deep" Original watercolor 11" x 15"

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

 Dan Wallace: Passion for Authenticity

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

 Leanne Hodges: West Coast Wild “Choices: A Personal Journey”

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

Conservation-minded businesses – please support these fine businesses

 Riverman Guide Service – since 1969 Kim Malcom – Owner, Operator Licensed and Insured Guide Quality Float Trips – Western Washington Rivers – Steelhead, Salmon, Trout

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

 Learn to fish: experienced, conservation-minded professional instructors View our six-panel, information brochure HERE

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

 Cabo Sails

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

 Rhett Weber’s Charterboat “Slammer” Reserve your 2015 Pacific Ocean fishing adventures on Slammer through Deep Sea Charters – Westport, Washington

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

 Fishmyster Sport Fishing Adventures

Contact us for up-to-date information by calling 250-724-4204 or 250-720-5118 or emailing fishmyster@shaw.ca.

Your Adventures Fishing BC Start Here!

Fishmyster Sport Fishing Adventures, now in its 25th year of operation Fishing Vancouver Island.

Owner and operator Ken Myers is committed to providing quality fishing charters for a wide variety of fishing thrills.

Excursions FISHING BC and the Vancouver Island area.

Ucluelet, Long Beach, Tofino, Barclay Sound and the surrounding area are located in heart of the Pacific Rim National Park on Vancouver Island. This region is famous for its world class Sport Fishing and abundance of wildlife. Whales, Sea lions, Seals, Bears, Eagles and many other marine specific critters are sighted regularly during our Ucluelet fishing charters.

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

 UWET "STAY-DRY" UNDERWATER TOURS UWET "STAY-DRY" UNDERWATER TOURS

THE WORLD'S ULTIMATE ECO-TOUR UNDERWATER EXPLORATIONS of

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Anyone can become a UWET Explorer!

 Individuals (ages 6/up) seeking interactive small group experiences...

UWET Tours are very small group (4 Explorers maximum per tour)!

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UWET Tours are 100% "Stay-Dry" underwater investigations (explorers do not even get their feet wet)!

 Everyday People who fantasize about being a "real" explorer sharing the excitement

and glory of discovery with others...

UWET Discovery Tours transform ordinary people into Genuine Underwater Eco-Explorers who have a DVD of their discoveries to share with others!

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

 Dave and Kim Egdorf's Western Alaska Sport Fishing Booking Now Montana: (406) 665-3489 Alaska: (907) 842-5480

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

 Bryan Gregson Photography

“As a traveling photographer my life is carried in my pack. The world is my studio, nature is my subject, adventure and exploration are my motivation.

To me, life is about experiencing those moments first hand.”

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

 Kingfish West Coast Adventure Tours

Trophy Salmon and Steelhead fishing on the Kitimat River with driftboat, riverraft or pontoonboat, we offer as well remote streamside wading. We are specialized in fly-fishing and conventional fishing techniques for silver chrome aggressive steelhead and salmon. We give our clients the opportunity to fish our headwaters, tributaries and mainstream Kitimat River. The lower section of the Kitimat River we target with the jet boat and is considered tidal and can offer phenomenal fishing for salmon as they migrate upriver.

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

 Casa Mia Italian Restaurant

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

 Spirit Bear Coffee Company

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

 Hidden Paths - Slovenia

We guide on Slovenia’s rivers for Rainbow Trout, Brown Trout, Marble Trout, Grayling and Danubian Salmon.

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

 ProFishGuide: Coastal Fishing at its Best

I focus on Tillamook Bay and its surrounding areas because its known for huge Salmon and acrobatic Steelhead. All of the bait, tackle and rods are top quality so when you hook a trophy it won't be out of reach. All you need to bring is your fishing license, rain gear and camera. Lunches can be provided at extra cost and come highly recommended. Not only will I ensure a great trip, it is also highly educational and fun for the whole family.

I currently guide in Oregon & Alaska for Salmon & Steelhead. I also have experience guiding in Idaho for trout as well as teaching Fly fishing & Fly casting. My certifications include US Coast Guard Certified license, CPR/1st aide, I also hold an Oregon & Alaska guide license, and I am fully insured.

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

 Silversides Fishing Adventures

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