Legacy - August 2012

Issue 10

August 2012

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

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

Special Feature: Tar Sands Bitumen (The world’s dirtiest oil)

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

LEGACY – The Journal of Wild Game Fish Conservation: Complimentary, no-nonsense, monthly publication by conservationists for conservationists LEGACY, the WGFCI Facebook page and the WGFCI website are utilized to better equip fellow conservationists, elected officials, business owners and others regarding wild game fish, their contributions to society and the varied and complex issues impacting them and those who rely on their sustainability.

LEGACY features wild game fish conservation projects, fishing adventures, accommodations, equipment and more. Your photos and articles featuring wild game fish from around planet earth are welcome for possible inclusion in an upcoming issue of LEGACY. Your “Letters to the Editor” are welcome.

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

Wild Game Fish Conservation International founders: Bruce Treichler

Co-editor “Legacy”

Jim Wilcox

Publisher and co-editor “Legacy”

Legacy The Journal of Wild Game Fish Conservation

By Wild Game Fish Conservation International Celebrating Ten Consecutive Months of Wild Game Fish News

SalmonAreSacred.org

Legacy

Contents Featured Topic: Tar Sands Bitumen, World’s Dirtiest Oil 7                 

Why Tar Sands Oil Isn't Worth the Trouble ................................................................................................................. 7 Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline Project .............................................................................................................. 7 Alarm raised about potential tar sands pipeline ....................................................................................................... 12 Tar Sands Giants’ Sneaky New Playbook Revealed ................................................................................................. 14 More BS than Bitumen Flowing From Alberta After Third Recent Spill.................................................................. 17 Enbridge pipeline handled like "Keystone Cops" in massive 2010 U.S. oil spill ................................................... 19 $800 million tar sands oil spill Michigan blamed corporate neglect and “weak federal regulations” ................ 21 Dysfunction at Enbridge goes far beyond Kalamazoo tar sands pipeline spill ..................................................... 22 Vancouver Sun Editorial: The Enbridge lesson: Major projects need public support .......................................... 25 Minister says scathing U.S. report won’t change mind on Northern Gateway pipeline ....................................... 27 Enbridge president defends pipeline industry in wake of U.S. report .................................................................... 28 Here we go again: TransCanada applies again for Keystone XL tar sands pipeline ............................................ 29 Keystone XL Route Still Crosses Fragile, Sandy Soil Areas, Nebraska Regulators Say...................................... 31 Tar Sands Pipelines Are Even Worse Than You Think............................................................................................. 32 In Canada's Tar Sands, a Dante's Hell Threatens People Nearby and Across the Globe ..................................... 33 Will tar sands oil flow through Vermont? .................................................................................................................. 34 Texas Planning Commission Joins Fight Against Tar Sands Pipeline................................................................... 37

Planet Earth

38

Canada

53

Scotland

82

Spain

87

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Cost of saving world’s fisheries? $292 billion .......................................................................................................... 39 The Hidden Costs of Farmed Salmon ........................................................................................................................ 40 12 Fish You Should Never Eat ..................................................................................................................................... 42 How coal trains could choke NW's economic engines ............................................................................................ 43 Family eats HEB salmon covered in worms .............................................................................................................. 44 Do you know what your dinner ate for breakfast? .................................................................................................... 45 CTV News Investigation: COSTCO Sales of Infected pen-raised salmon .............................................................. 46 Wild No More: Farm-Raised Fish Labeled As “Wild Caught” .................................................................................. 47 A Fishy Tale (movie) – Coming Fall 2012 ................................................................................................................... 49 Enjoy wild Pacific salmon dinners at these restaurants: ......................................................................................... 50 Say NO to Farmed Salmon .......................................................................................................................................... 51 “Pants on Fire” Recognition: BC Provincial fish pathologist Dr. Gary Marty ........................................................ 52

 Use of Genomics to Control Infectious Salmon Anemia Virus (ISAv) .................................................................... 53  Three B.C. scientists attack changes to Fisheries Act ............................................................................................. 55  Harper Wasting No Time Slashing DFO Habitat Jobs as Notices go out to Staff .................................................. 56  Canada's PM Stephen Harper faces revolt by scientists ......................................................................................... 57 British Columbia ........................................................................................................................................................................ 58  Virus discovered in Cultus Lake sport fish ............................................................................................................... 58  Highly Contagious Salmon Disease Surveillance Underway in British Columbia ................................................ 59  DFO to Decide on Clayoquot Sound Fish Farm Expansion, Even Disease Outbreaks Go Viral .......................... 60  First detection of Salmon Alphavirus in BC - farmed steelhead ............................................................................. 61  Lethal Virus Found in Farmed Salmon ....................................................................................................................... 63  Mining Threatens One of BC’s Largest Sockeye Salmon Runs .............................................................................. 64  Heavy Metals, Acid Mine Drainage a Threat to Pacific Salmon Watersheds ......................................................... 66  Former BC Hydro chairman facing charges under Fisheries Act ........................................................................... 68 Newfoundland and Labrador .................................................................................................................................................... 70  Salmon Farming Operation Quarantined ................................................................................................................... 70  Salmon virus confirmed on Newfoundland's south coast ....................................................................................... 71  Delay destroying infected salmon questioned .......................................................................................................... 73  Infected salmon will not be eaten by humans ........................................................................................................... 74 Nova Scotia ................................................................................................................................................................................ 75  Another suspected salmon infection probed at Cooke Aquaculture ...................................................................... 75  Aquaculture opponents worried by Cooke approval ................................................................................................ 77  Marine scientist says environmental trouble brewing in Shelburne Harbour ....................................................... 78  Infected Atlantic salmon for dinner anyone? ............................................................................................................ 80  Voice of the People ...................................................................................................................................................... 81  Keeping salmon farming problems secret ................................................................................................................. 82  FishyLeaks: Scotland’s Secrets Exposed! - Leaked Report Reveals ‘Data Cleansing’ of Diseased Salmon Farming .......................................................................................................................................................................... 84  Yank our salmon off your shelves .............................................................................................................................. 86

USA

 Spain: Of Sun, Siestas — and Salmon? ..................................................................................................................... 87

88

 A look back to 2010: Testimony to NOAA regarding Ocean Aquaculture .............................................................. 88 Alaska ......................................................................................................................................................................................... 89  Big Red: The Season for Bristol Bay Sockeye Salmon Is Here ............................................................................... 89  Alaska governor seeks disaster aid for weak salmon runs ..................................................................................... 90  Fish Factor: Buoys measure ocean acidification ...................................................................................................... 91 California .................................................................................................................................................................................... 93  10 years after Klamath Fish Kill a County and Tribe Fight to Avoid Another Disaster ......................................... 93 Washington State ...................................................................................................................................................................... 95  Fish return to undammed Elwha River ....................................................................................................................... 95  Chehalis River Basin Flood Authority approves two levee projects opposed by Quinault Indian Nation ......... 97  Hatcheries Are Needed Tools...................................................................................................................................... 98  Murray and Dicks introduce Wild Olympics bill ........................................................................................................ 99  Steelhead returning to upper White Salmon River following Condit Dam removal (October 2011) .................. 101  Our Views: Steep-Slope Logging Debate Needs Best Inclusive Science ............................................................. 102  Western Washington Tribes Say Tribal Fishing Rights at Risk ............................................................................. 104  Derailed coal train fuels critics of increased Northwest shipping ........................................................................ 106

Youth Conservation: 2012 NW Youth Conservation and Fly Fishing Academy Community Outreach: 36th Annual Elders Gathering at Abbotsford, BC 108 Free seminar: Fishing Deschutes River - Olympia, Washington 109 Featured Artist: Christopher Hawes 110 Featured Fishing Adventure: Westport Washington – Chinook and coho 111 Conservation Video Library – “Why we’re involved” 113 Attention Conservation-minded Business Owners114 WGFCI endorsed conservation organizations: 114

107

Legacy Forward

The August 2012 issue of Legacy features articles and photos associated with the Alberta, Canada tar sands fields and the international efforts to transport this source of oil through pipelines across North America to ports where it will be loaded onto tankers bound for foreign markets.

The objective of publishing Legacy each month is to share current and planned actions that directly impact the future of wild game fish and their ecosystems around planet earth with our on-line audience. Alberta’s tar sands facility, and its infrastructure including pipelines and associated shipping) is but one of the issues addressed in the August 2012 issue. Please feel free to share this publication with others.

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

It’s exciting that a growing number of recreational anglers and conservationists around planet earth are passionate about conserving wild game fish and their continued availability for this and future generations to enjoy and appreciate. Just as exciting is that growing numbers of consumers are paying close attention to the impacts each of us have on global resources through our daily purchases.

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

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

Publishing “Legacy” each month is our self imposed responsibility to help ensure the future of these precious gifts that have been entrusted to our generation.

Bruce Treichler

James E. Wilcox Wild Game Fish Conservation International

Featured Topic: Tar Sands Bitumen, World’s Dirtiest Oil  Why Tar Sands Oil Isn't Worth the Trouble June 18, 2012 If the Keystone XL was going to pipe regular old oil from Canada to the U.S., it would be controversial enough. But it would be bringing tar sands, "the dirtiest kind of oil on Earth," 2000 miles south to the Gulf of Mexico. For a good explanation of why that would be a nightmare, check out this short video from the Sierra Club:

http://youtu.be/DCq015rc_lk

 Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline Project Guest submission by Ralf Kroning Vice President Steelhead Society of British Columbia

Editorial Comment: We at Wild Game Fish Conservation International truly appreciate the extraordinary conservation efforts by Steelhead Society of British Columbia members and their associates to protect and restore wild salmon and trout and their fragile ecosystems.

The following SSBC briefing regarding the Northern Gateway pipeline project proposed by Enbridge is important for each of us to fully understand and act upon, no matter where on planet earth we live.

Background Information This is one of several pipeline project proposals by different companies planned in the northern part of British Columbia. For example, the Pacific Trail Pipelines project is a natural gas pipeline that 15 First Nations band councils have already signed on to a combined 30 percent stake that could realise projected cash flows of more than $500 million over the 25 year life of the deal for the bands. This project will run west to Kitimat from Summit Lake near Prince George. Enbridge is looking at this project closely, potentially sharing the right of way from near Burns Lake west to Kitimat.

Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline Project The Enbridge Northern Gateway project consists of two parallel pipelines between an inland terminal at Bruderheim, Alberta and a marine terminal near Kitimat, BC, each with a length of 1,177 kilometers (731 mi). Diluted bitumen (dilbit) produced from oil sands, would be transported from Bruderheim to Kitimat, while natural gas condensate would move in the opposite direction in a smaller pipeline.

- A statistic from the Energy Resources Conservation Board (ERCB) states: ‘’ It should also be noted that pipelines in Alberta have never been safer. In 2009, Alberta posted a record-low pipeline failure rate of 1.7 pipeline failures per 1,000 km of pipeline (considering all substances), bettering the previous record-low of 2.1 set in both 2008 and 2007.’’ Source What is diluted bitumen or dilbit?

- Bitumen in its undiluted state is very viscous and dense. To create a fluid capable of transportation by pipeline, bitumen must be mixed with a diluent that has much lower viscosity and will keep bitumen from precipitating out of the mixture. Natural gas condensate would be used for this purpose. The blend ratio may consist of 25 to 55% diluent by volume, depending on characteristics of the bitumen and diluent, pipeline specifications, operating conditions, and refinery requirements. Condensate is the most often used diluent in transporting crude oil in western Canada. Dilbit is an industry term referring to diluted bitumen. MSDS Sheet

What is Natural Gas Condensate?

- As natural gas comes to the surface, in a gas well, pressure is released and temperatures are lowered, and some of the gas content naturally condenses into light oil called condensate. This naturally occurring hydrocarbon primarily consists of pentane, hexane, heptane, octane, as well as more complex impurities, including benzene, toluene, xylene, ethylbenzene and hydrogen sulfide.

This condensate is sometimes referred to as naptha or “natural gasoline”. Condensate is considered a dangerous good, and is classified as a highly toxic substance by the federal government. It is highly flammable, and under certain conditions, explosive. It is toxic in its liquid form, and vapours are extremely toxic also. Source About 520 kilometers (320 mi) of pipeline would run in Alberta and 657 kilometers (408 mi) in British Columbia. It will cross the headwaters of some of British Columbia’s most important salmon and steelhead producing watersheds; the Fraser, Skeena and Kitimat. It will cross more than 785 rivers and streams, many of which are important fish bearing habitat, including: Kinuseo Creek, Murray River, Parsnip River, Wicheedo River, Crooked River, Muskeg River, Salmon River, Stuart River, Endako River, Morice River and Thautil River.

- The crude oil pipeline would have a diameter of 36 inches (910 mm) and an average capacity of 525,000 to a maximum of 1,000,000 barrels per day. The condensate pipeline would have a diameter of 20 inches (510 mm) with an average capacity of 193,000 barrels per day - Enbridge expects these pipelines to be completed by 2015 at a cost of at least C$5.5 billion.

- The proposed Kitimat Marine terminal complex would include an oil and condensate tank farm, a pump station and comprise of two marine oil tanker berth platforms. One of the platforms would service ‘’Very Large Crude Carriers’’. Typically VLCCs carry 2.1 million barrels of oil, the largest, however, can carry approximately 3.1 million barrels and are between 150,000 and 320,000 dead weight tonnes. These ships are up to 340 m long (1000’+). The other platform would service Suezmax-type condensate tankers, typically between 120,000 and 200,000 DWT and carry 1 million barrels and are up to 274 m long.

- The expected average number of tanker trips transiting coastal waters would be 220 per year.

Tankers would use one of three main routes to navigate inland coastal waters to reach open ocean: 1. The Northern Approach (for tankers arriving from or departing to Asian ports). 158 nautical miles, via Haida Gwaii through Dixon Entrance, Hecate Strait, Browning Entrance, Principe Channel, Nepean Sound, Otter Channel, Squally Channel, Lewis Passage, Wright Sound and Douglas Channel.

2. The Southern Approach (for tankers arriving from or departing to west coast ports south of Kitimat) 98 miles, via Queen Charlotte Sound, Hecate Strait, Caamano Sound, Campania Sound, Squally Channel, Lewis Passage, Wright Sound and Douglas Channel.

3. The Southern Approach (via Principe Channel, in weather conditions where Caamano Sound cannot be used) 133 miles. This route goes via Hecate Strait, Browning Entrance, Principe Channel, Nepean Sound, Otter Channel, Squally Channel, Lewis Passage, Wright Sound and Douglas Channel

Something to Compare - The commonly accepted number for the Exxon Valdez spill, in 1989, was around 260,000 barrels, though some estimates were as high as 750,000 barrels. The standard barrel (bbl) is 42 US Gallons approximately 35 Imperial gallons, or approximately 159 litres. Less than 10% of the spilled oil was ever recovered from the 2100 km of coastline and 28,000 square km of ocean that was contaminated.

Litigation concerning compensation over the Exxon Valdes spill is still before the courts more than 20 years after the fact.

There has been an informal moratorium on large tanker traffic in Dixon Entrance, Hecate Strait and Queen Charlotte Sound since 1972. Since then, the federal and provincial governments have commissioned periodic studies to reassess whether to lift the tanker moratorium. Each study has concluded that the risk of tanker spills is too high. In 2003–2004, the federal government initiated a threepart review process, including a scientific review by the Royal Society of Canada (the RSC report), a First Nations engagement process (the Brooks Report), and a public review process (the Priddle Panel).

The RSC report concluded that "the present restriction on tanker traffic along the West Coast of British Columbia should be maintained for the time being.’’

In 2009, the Harper government's position was that there is no moratorium on tanker traffic on the coast of British Columbia. However, on December 7, 2010, Canada's environmental watchdog said that "Canada isn't ready to respond to a major oil spill emanating from a tanker or other vessel.”

Some of the specific issues concerning SSBC: This project with 785 significant waterway crossings is transporting materials that are considered dangerous and hazardous through unstable terrain that is prone to landslides: - ‘’The proposed corridor crosses three distinct physiographic units: the Nechako Plateau, the Hazelton Mountains, and the Kitimat Ranges. These units are distinct topographically as reflected in present day landforms, erosion, and landslides, and thus present different hazards to a pipeline. The Nechako Plateau appears relatively benign; however, large landslides have occurred in volcanic rock overlying other older volcanic and sedimentary rock. Active bedrock spread is occurring to the east of Parrott Creek, possibly foreshadowing further movement along the northwest-southeast trending ridges running between Houston and Francois Lake. Along the Morice River, advance-phase glaciolacustrine sediments have historically experienced landslides.

Road construction and wildfires have reactivated these landslides. The proposed pipeline corridor crosses an historic earth flow west of Owen Creek, glaciolacustrine sediment along Owen Creek, and probably buried advance-phase glaciolacustrine sediments near Owen Creek, Fenton Creek and Lamprey Creek. The pipeline corridor follows the Crystal forest access road up Gosnell Creek.

Shifting channels on active alluvial fans pose road maintenance challenges along a 10 km section of the road. Pipelines will likely present similar challenges crossing these fans. There is considerable lateral bank instability at the proposed Crystal Creek and Gosnell Creek crossing’’... “...The volcanic bedrock of the Hazelton Mountains is inherently unstable as evident in many prehistoric landslides. Three documented large landslides within the Bulkley Range of the Hazelton Mountains have severed the natural gas pipeline since its construction in the early 1970s; large landslides have also impacted forest roads and highways...”

“Landslides travel long distances and damage linear infrastructure such as pipelines. Six large rock slides occurred in west central B.C. since 1978, five of these since 1999, and four since 2002. Three of the six rock slides severed the natural gas pipeline (Howson landslides in 1978 and 1999, and Zymoetz landslide in 2002). Damage to linear infrastructure commonly occurs in run out zones many kilometres from the initial landslide. This has occurred with recent landslides in west central B.C.; the longest traveled in excess of 4 km along a slope of 9°. Therefore, the potential for damage to pipelines extends to unstable terrain and potential landslides that start well outside the construction corridor” Source Valuations of the Skeena watershed fisheries that are imperiled by this project: - Based on the report ‘’Wild Salmon Economy of the Skeena River Watershed,’’ prepared by IBM Business Consulting (2006), estimates that the wild Salmon economy of the Skeena River can be valued at approximately $109,987,000 based on a 2004 base year and 4-year average revenue or revenue equivalents. Source The proposed pipelines cross waterways that are British Columbia’s most important salmon and steelhead producing rivers. Some of which are considered to be the most prolific steelhead and salmon producing rivers in the world. The July 25 2010 pipeline failure near Kalamazoo, Michigan, that spilled 819,000 gallons (20,000 bbl) of diluted bitumen is an example of what could happen here in BC. “..The spill involved diluted bitumen... Also known as tar sands oil, diluted bitumen has posed a unique challenge to cleanup crews. The Enbridge spill was the first in-land, diluted bitumen spill in the United States. The composition of the oil caused its heavier parts to sink to the bottom of the riverbed, creating a phenomenon known as submerged oil. The EPA has said the spill is "writing the book" on how to clean up the oil. Connolly said this same unfamiliarity to this type of oil applies for human health effects. A tar sands spill of this nature in a community like this has never happened before, she said. Besides from not knowing how to clean it up, no one knows the long-term effects ...”

Source An Enbridge Case Study in Construction Impacts “ In early 2009, Enbridge Energy Limited Partnership was found liable for environmental damages incurred during the construction of two parallel pipelines in Wisconsin known as the Southern Access Expansion. The state lawsuit was settled after Enbridge paid $1.1 million in damages over violations of the conditions of their wetland and waterway protection permit. The Civil Complaint was filed by the Wisconsin Department of Justice and documented over 500 violations, including 282 wetland violations (soil mixing, rutting, unauthorized clearing, improper restoration), and 176 land disturbance and erosion control violations near navigable waters and wetlands. All of the violations were documented by independent environmental monitors hired by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.”

Information from Wisconsin Department of Justice, “Enbridge Energy Settles State Lawsuit Over Environmental Violations For $1,100,000,” media release, January 2, 2009. Source ‘’ The potential for significant environmental harm from pipelines is high. Federal and provincial regulations and law have failed to prevent pipeline spills and leaks in Canada: Between 1990 and 2005 an average of 803 pipeline failures occurred every year in Alberta. Source As Enbridge’s own experience shows, promises of advanced technology can’t prevent spills from happening, and can’t protect the environment and livelihood of downstream communities in the event of a spill.

Letter of Comment – Public comment period extended to August 31, 2012 SSBC is asking you to write a letter expressing your concern regarding the potential effects of this pipeline project on these highly valuable steelhead and salmon producing waterways. Please note: Nothing has been mentioned in this information package regarding First Nations issues, downstream water user issues, marine transportation issues or any of the other many potential issues that this project will have. The focus has been deliberately kept to within the realm of SSBC and that is regarding some of the potential impacts on anadromous salmon and steelhead and the rivers they inhabit.

You can communicate your views about the Project to the Panel by submitting a letter of comment. A letter of comment is a written statement that expresses your knowledge, views or concerns on the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway Project. A letter of comment should include any information that will help explain or support your comments as well as the nature of your interest in this proposed project.

Send your contact information and Letters of Comment by August 31, 2012 to: Secretary to the Joint Review Panel Enbridge Northern Gateway Project 444 Seventh Avenue S.W. Calgary, AB T2P 0X8 Letters of comment MUST include personal contact information such as full name and mailing address. Panel members will read and consider all letters of comment throughout the joint review process. Once submitted, letters of comment become public documents. Your contact information and the letter of comment will be available on this website in the Public Registry. Letters may be submitted in hardcopy or electronically. Deadline for submitting a letter of comment is August 31, 2012. 13 March 2012.

SSBC recommends that letters are hand-written because they informally carry more weight in the review process. Please feel free to paraphrase our sample letter.

 Alarm raised about potential tar sands pipeline June 19, 2012 MONTPELIER, Vt. — Environmental groups in Maine and Vermont are raising an alarm about the potential for tar sands oil to be piped across northern New England.

The groups say the Canadian energy firm Enbridge Inc. is eyeing an existing oil pipeline that carries oil from Portland to Montreal with the idea of reversing the flow and sending Canadian tar sands oil, a type of petroleum deposit, through Portland.

The National Wildlife Federation, Natural Resources Defense Council and organizations in Maine and Vermont say they'll fight the plan.

Enbridge spokesman Graham White says the company dropped a plan for the pipeline reversal in 2009 after determining it wasn't commercially viable.

A plan to move Canadian tar sands oil through a pipeline extending through the Great Plains to the Gulf Coast has generated debate.

 Tar Sands Giants’ Sneaky New Playbook Revealed July 7, 2012

by Tony Iallonardo, via National Wildlife Federation Polluters seem to have drawn the wrong lesson from the Keystone XL controversy. Rather than temper the headlong rush to exploit tar sands, they’re getting sneakier.

The tactics: Gut environmental and public review while breaking up their grandiose proposals into smaller pieces to avoid detection. If they succeed, Americans will be stuck with a massive infrastructure of spill-prone pipelines delivering the dirtiest oil ever around the globe.

Deny Deny Deny Big Oil has long employed deceptive tactics, but reeling from some recent setbacks, we are watching their new game plan come to light. With more than a million gallons of spilled tar sands crude still fouling Michigan’s Kalamazoo River since a spill nearly two years ago, the company behind that pipeline, Enbridge Energy Partners is now denying a plan to ship tar sands oil through New England.

Their departing CEO, Patrick Daniel, showed no remorse and gave no apologies for one of the biggest fossil fuel disasters in North America in history. Instead he sounded frustrated last week, saying he wishes the tar sands pipeline business hadn’t become so controversial. Good riddance Mr. Daniel.

Last spring, his company announced a plan to reverse the direction of a pipeline called line 9, so that it could carry crude east rather than west. No big deal, right? What Enbridge didn’t do was show all it’s cards. The real plan is to send dirty tar sands oil across several Great Lakes and New England states to Portland, Maine, for transfer by ship to refineries or for export. The project, called Trailbreaker, was floated two years ago, and then abandoned when the recession set in.

When local groups in New England announced opposition a few weeks back to piping tar sands near precious rivers in the area, Enbridge reached up its sleeve for the denial card. A spokesman for Enbridge told the Associated Press, “We have been absolutely clear on the fact that the company is not pursuing the Trailbreaker Project.”

That’s not credible. As NWFs Curtis Fisher retorted in the AP article, Enbridge denied it was looking at reversing line 9, until they went ahead and announced they wanted to reverse line 9. In fact, the company is salivating at the prospect of moving (BY THEIR 2008 ESTIMATE) 150,000 barrels of tar sludge a day to Portland, Maine.

“We’re pretty excited about [Trailbreaker],” an oil executive said in a 2008 presentation, ”because it provides capacity on an as-needed basis, and it involves existing assets so it can be completed at low cost and on a quick turnaround.”

So what’s the truth? Enbridge appears to be playing a dangerous game of denial, putting the pieces in place for a tar sands route to New England, while denying the once and future Trailbreaker (or something by a different name) is happening. Elephant in the room, what elephant?

Divide and Conquer Meanwhile, another pipeline giant, TransCanada, has split the 2,000 mile Keystone XL into two, in an attempt to move the project piecemeal and shrink the scope of the State Department’s environmental review. Wildlife Promise recently referred to this as “divide and conquer.”

[A]after Keystone XL was rejected the first time, TransCanada decided to split off the “Gulf Coast segment” of the pipeline, which stretches through Oklahoma and Texas, as a stand-alone project.

Because this route doesn’t cross the US border, it avoided the need for the Presidential Permit and the review it entails.

That particular tactic paid off for TransCanada last month, as the Army Corps of engineers gave a green light to construction of XL in Oklahoma and Texas. The oil execs at TransCanada probably had some high-fives last month as well when the State Department announced its new environmental review will ignore the southern segment of Keystone XL.

Click here to take action and stop latest attempt to resurrect Keystone XL.

Must History Repeat?

In the summer of 2010, over a million gallons of tar sands oil spilled when an Enbridge pipeline ruptured near Marshall, Michigan, contaminating the Kalamazoo River. Families were driven from their homes and wildlife suffered and died. Responding to the spill, Michigan Congressman Fred Upton said, “Each and every one of us is all too familiar with the devastation wrought by the BP Gulf disaster and now we have a nightmare here in our own backyard. The mistakes and missteps that sabotaged the response and cleanup in the Gulf cannot happen here in southwest Michigan.”

A wonderful sentiment to ride out the news cycle, but Mr. Upton went on to champion Keystone XL, even as the mess persisted in his back yard.

The Environmental Protection Agency ordered Enbridge to clean up the mess, but it is still not cleaned up. Workers are still struggling to remove residual crude oil and are increasingly resigned to the possibility that it may never be cleaned. According EPA’s website, after the spill, 39 miles of the river system were closed to public access. By April 17, 2012, three miles – three — had been reopened. Other segments may reopen this year, says EPA, if it is safe.

Accidents in the Trailbreaker pipeline may be more likely because it’s so old. One section is 52 years old, dating from 1950, and other large section dates to 1975. A spill from this pipeline could sully rivers, lakes and bays. At risk would be cherished places like Lake Ontario, the Saint Lawrence River, the Connecticut River, the Androscoggin River, Sebago Lake and Casco Bay. Can We Afford to Trust Enbridge?

Enbridge, like most fossil fuel giants, may know how to maximize profit, but they have failed at safety.

Given the Michigan debacle, and a history of spills in Canada, many New Englanders are asking, how we can trust Enbridge’s new tar sands scheme?

Just recently, we learned from media reports that Enbridge has under-estimated the risk of a tar sands spill along its Northern Gateway Project across western Canada, basically ignoring their dismal record in Michigan.

A former insurance CEO, Robyn Allan, concluded that Enbridge does not have “adequate insurance coverage or the corporate structure to cover a multi-billion dollar spill . . . .,” reported Andrew Nikiforuk in The Tyee. “ ‘There is no reason to believe Enbridge would be directly responsible for the cost of any spill based on the limited partnership structure. This structure allows profits to flow to Enbridge, but from what I have seen in the documents, not spill liabilities,’ explains Allan,” Nikiforuk wrote. Allan also suggested that Enbridge only minimally understands how the heavy crude oil behaves. It usually sinks to the bottom of a river and is harder to clean up than other fuels.

Allan added that the “company suffers from a corporate culture that places growth as priority above operational safety.” That offers little reassurance to New Englanders. That was made evident when media recently reported that even as the Kalamazoo spill was happening, Enbridge employees, hundreds of miles away had one priority. Get the oil flowing. Rather than check for a spill, they attempted to restart the pipeline, not once, but twice.

If Enbridge’s misadventures weren’t so heartbreaking it would be hilarious. Maybe we should call it “Heartbreaker,” not “Trailbreaker.”

ď ś More BS than Bitumen Flowing From Alberta After Third Recent Spill June 21, 2012

Enbridge’s burst pipeline near Kalamazoo River in Michigan, 2010 A story in yesterday's Edmonton Journal on the latest pipeline spill in Alberta, this one near Elk Point, was more full of crap than the province's rivers and farms are full of oil these days.

This spill, from Enbridge's 541-kilometre Athabasca Pipeline - which officials are pegging at 230,000 litres of diluted bitumen - comes on the heels of two others in less than a month, including the Plains Midstream spill just last week near Sundre and Pace Oil and Gas' well leak near Rainbow Lake in late May. Of course, that was Plains Midstream's second disaster since April, when its Rainbow pipeline produced the province's largest leak in 36 years.

In other words, it's been a bad couple of months for an industry trying to win over public opinion for two major bitumen pipelines proposed to traverse British Columbia (Enbridge and Kinder Morgan).

This dizzying succession of spills has seriously complicated what was a tough sell to begin with.

But you wouldn't know it from the stream of public relations bs flowing from Alberta politicians and industry reps in yesterday's Journal story.

Here's Darin Barter, spokesman for the Energy Resources Conservation Board: Having the incidents so close together is unusual and “not indicative of Alberta’s level of safety,” Barter said.

“Given the enormous amount of oil and gas infrastructure in this province, it’s a very safe system.”

He said the recent spills are “very different incidents.”

Phew! One's a well leak, another a burst pipeline, this one a leaky pump station. So the sheer variety of ways these things can screw up is reassuring, if I understand you correctly, Darin?

Or how about Enbridge's official comment on the subject, from spokesman Graham White via email Wednesday: “The vast majority of the spill is on the site and there is no impact to waterways or wildlife.” No impact to waterways...really? That's right. Because, you see, “The area affected is our pump station site, some area along the pipeline right-of-way that is also (owned by) Enbridge and part of a local field.” (A field not owned by Enbridge, incidentally).

And fields don't have water tables beneath them, which in turn don't connect with nearby rivers and streams. So Mr. White must be right. Nothing to see here folks.

Then again, we should not be surprised by Mr. White's attitude. His company has, after all, been quite up front about the fact they do spill a lot of oil and will continue right on doing so.

Mike Diesling, press secretary for Alberta Energy Minister Ken Hughes, feels the same way.

According to him, Alberta has a “good” pipeline system. “The problem is we have 400,000 kilometres of pipeline and occasionally, we will have a spill,” Deising said.

According to the Journal, the province's premier isn't too concerned either: Premier Alison Redford said pipeline spills “happen sometimes” and are part of balancing social and economic factors.

“I think people have a pretty good appreciation of the fact that there does need to be a balance and it is unfortunate when these things happen,” Redford said.

Yes, we do understand that it is terribly unfortunate when these things happen, Madame Premier, but what "balance"? Balance between oil spilling and not spilling?

So, if I have this straight, when you have a whole lot of pipelines carrying a whole lot of oil, you are bound to get spills. Check. And when these spills happen, they're not a big problem, because...well, spills happen.

The message from Alberta's oil intelligentsia is, then: "Oil spills happen, but don't worry, because oil spills happen."

Are we clear? About as clear as the black sludge the keep spilling all over the place.

ď ś Enbridge pipeline handled like "Keystone Cops" in massive 2010 U.S. oil spill July 10, 2012 The total cost of the spill has now exceeded more than $800 million US, or more than five times the previous record for most costly spill on U.S. land.

Crews clean up oil from a ruptured pipeline on the Kalamazoo River in Ceresco, Mich., on July 30, 2010. U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Chairman Debbie Hersman said Tuesday Enbridge Inc. managers handled the massive 2010 crude oil spill in Michigan like the "Keystone Cops."

OTTAWA - National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Debbie Hersman said Tuesday Enbridge Inc.'s handling of a massive 2010 crude oil spill in Michigan resembled the "Keystone Cops."

Hersman also asked if that catastrophic spill, combined with a deadly 2010 pipeline explosion in California, raised questions about the inevitability of future pipeline disasters.

She made the comments while revealing the NTSB's findings on the probable cause of a massive bitumen crude spill in Michigan in 2010 involving a pipeline owned by Calgary-based Enbridge Inc., the proponent of the Northern Gateway oilsands pipeline from Alberta to the B.C. coast.

She disclosed that the total cost of the spill has now exceeded more than $800 million US, or more than five times the previous record for most costly spill on U.S. land.

"When we were examining Enbridge's poor handling to their response to this rupture you can't help but think about the Keystone Cops," Hersman said, referring to the fictional incompetent policemen in silent film comedies of the early 20th century.

"Why didn't they recognize what was happening and what took so long?"

She also asked if the 2010 Enbridge spill, as well as a 2010 Pacific Gas & Electric pipeline explosion in California that killed eight people and left another 58 injured, raised questions about the entire industry.

"In both cases we found problems with integrity management programs, control centres, public awareness programs and emergency response," she said.

"While our findings raise red flags about the safety of these two companies, they should also force us to ask hard questions of this vital industry.

"With more than 2.5 million miles of pipeline running through this country — enough to circle the earth one hundred times — we have to ask, 'Are these companies representative of others'" If the answer is yes, we can expect to be back here again discussing the same issues with a different company. The only unknowns are when? Where? And, how much damage?"

Enbridge Chief Executive Officer Pat Daniel was in the audience as Hersman delivered her scathing comments on the company's handling of the spill.

Hersman noted that the company took 17 hours after the initial alarm before taking action, and she added that the company failed to take action despite knowing for years that the pipeline suffered from corrosion dating back to 2004.

The NTSB will also propose safety recommendations stemming from the spill near the municipality of Marshall, which has so far caused more than $800 million US in damage and prompted earlier this month a proposed $3.7 million fine from the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Enbridge has said the rupture resulted in the release of 843,444 gallons of diluted bitumen crude, though the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says on its website that 1,148,230 gallons of oil has already been collected in and near Michigan's Kalamazoo River.

The incident has fired up international opposition to two major Canadian oilsands pipeline projects Enbridge's Northern Gateway proposal to Kitimat, and TransCanada Corp.'s Keystone XL project to the U.S. Gulf Coast that has been delayed by U.S. President Barack Obama.

Significant attention has focused on the "human error" aspect of the 2010 spill, since the company didn't start taking action until 17 hours after the first alarm warned of problems in Michigan.

The crude was released in a wetland area near Marshall, Michigan, a "high consequence area within a mostly rural, wet and low-lying region," according to the NTSB. "The released oil pooled into a marshy area over the rupture site before flowing 700 feet south into Talmadge Creek, which ultimately carried it into the Kalamazoo River."

The U.S. Department of Transportation, in its justification for the $3.7 million fine that Enbridge has the right to challenge, also noted in its findings that Enbridge did not deal with "corrosion anomalies" on the Michigan line dating back to 2004.

 $800

million tar sands oil spill Michigan blamed corporate neglect and “weak federal regulations” July 11, 2012

“The cost of the spill has reached $800 million and is rising, the NTSB said, making the pipeline rupture the most expensive on-shore oil spill in U.S. history.”

The National Transportation Safety Board blamed multiple corrosion cracks and “pervasive organizational failures” at the Calgary-based Enbridge pipeline company for a more-than-20,000barrel oil spill two years ago near Michigan’s Kalamazoo River. [Washington Post] The cost of the spill has reached $800 million and is rising, the NTSB said, making the pipeline rupture the most expensive on-shore oil spill in U.S. history. The pipeline’s contents — heavy crude oil from Canada’s oil sands — have made the spill a closely watched case with implications for other pipelines carrying such crude.

The NTSB also blamed “weak federal regulations” by the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration for the accident, which spilled at least 843,444 gallons of oil into a tributary of the Kalamazoo in Marshall, Mich. The oil spread into a 40-mile stretch of the Kalamazoo and a nearby wetlands area.

 Dysfunction at Enbridge goes far beyond Kalamazoo tar sands pipeline spill July 13, 2012 The National Transportation Safety Board’s (NTSB) searing indictment of Enbridge has implications that go well beyond that controversial Canadian pipeline company’s responsibility for the $800 million Kalamazoo River tar sands spill. Investigators found that Enbridge’s missteps constituted “an organizational accident,” or the result of multiple errors which have often been commitment by the Canadian pipeline company. In addition to citing a prevalence of recurring poor safety practices throughout Enbridge’s organization, investigators found that the Kalamazoo spill manifested errors observed in previous Enbridge accidents that the company has failed to learn from. NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman has likened Enbridge’s systematic poor performance to the Keystone Kops for its systematic poor performance – an alarming prospect given that Enbridge is proposing to build half a dozen new tar sands pipelines in highly sensitive regions of Canada and the United States.

“It’s evident that this accident did not just occur because of corrosion in a pipeline. What this investigation has shown is that this accident was the result of corrosion throughout many vital safety aspects of the Enbridge organization.” Robert Sumwalt, NTSB Board Member Enbridge’s failures are even more striking when put in context with the company’s many other spills, painting a picture of a company systematically incapable of learning from its past mistakes. A 2007 government investigation of a similar spill in the Canadian section of Enbridge’s pipeline paints a picture of a company unable to learn from its past mistakes. On a single pipeline, the Canadian report shows nine spills due to stress corrosion cracking and metal fatigue from cyclic stress on seam welds – the same problems that Enbridge ignored for five years on Line 6B before it ruptured and spilled into the Kalamazoo River.

Figure 1: Enbridge’s Canadian pipeline: A 2008 government investigation of Enbridge’s pipeline paints the picture of a pipeline unable to learn from its spills.

Enbridge now claims that Line 6B is safe and that it’s taken appropriate actions to deal with its safety lapses. This would be more convincing if Enbridge hadn’t previously claimed to have appropriately dealt with many of the same issues years ago. Following Canada’s Transportation Safety Board’s investigation in 2008, Enbridge claimed that it was establishing a more conservative model for allowable crack depth from inline inspection data, modifying its crack repair criteria, changing its field inspection and repair activities and improving pressure cycle monitoring activities.

NTSB’s findings following the Kalamazoo tar sands spill suggest that Enbridge’s announced changes were superficial at best. Enbridge ignored the interaction of corrosion and stress cracking, despite the fact that these problems had caused numerous spills on the company’s tar sands pipeline system.

The company also used an inadequate safety margin for stress corrosion cracking on its pipeline, raising questions about the “more conservative model for allowable crack depth” announced by the company in 2008. Moreover, Enbridge continued to ignore cracks on Line 6B for years after announcing changes to its crack repair criteria. Given the lack of response to a known problem, it is not surprising that Enbridge has been responsible for over 160 accidents in the last decade in the United States alone, spilling millions of gallons of crude.

“There have been a lot of opportunities for Enbridge to learn lessons over the years that stem from, specifically, accident investigations here in the U.S. and in Canada, and what we saw in this accident investigation was that they had not learned those lessons well.” Deborah Hersman, NTSB Chairman In addition to Enbridge’s poor record of operating pipelines, some of the company’s most recent construction projects in the United States have been characterized by accidents and sloppy practices. During the construction a pipeline through Wisconsin, Enbridge spilled 176,000 gallons of crude, contaminating the local water supply. Ultimately, Enbridge paid $1.1 million to settle a lawsuit brought against it by the state of Wisconsin for 545 environmental violations in the construction of that pipeline.

“Enbridge’s] incidents of violation were numerous and widespread, and resulted in impacts to the streams and wetlands throughout the various watersheds.” Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, 2009, regarding Enbridge’s pipeline construction in Wisconsin These findings put Enbridge’s ambitious pipeline expansion plans in a new light. Enbridge is asking the public to double down on a company with a demonstrated record of sloppy construction practices, pipeline failures and botched cleanup efforts. Government regulators, permitting bodies and the general public should seriously consider whether they want a company like Enbridge building high capacity tar sands pipelines across thousands of miles of sensitive waterways throughout the United States and Canada. Here are just a couple of major proposals that Enbridge is pushing: Northern Gateway: Enbridge has proposed to build this controversial pipeline to move more than half a million barrels of tar sands through Alberta and British Columbia over 1,000 kilometers of mountainous terrain, salmon rivers, coastal rainforests, and sensitive marine waters. Many Canadians recognize the problems with this project – the proposed route for Northern Gateway crosses many remote but sensitive regions where spills would be potentially catastrophic. First Nations along the pipeline route have vigorously opposed this tar sands pipeline and the majority of British Columbians oppose the project. Opposition to the project has intensified following NTSB’s scathing report showing Enbridge as a repeated bad actor. British Columbia’s Premier Christy Clark recently condemned Enbridge for its handling of Kalamazoo – adding yet another nail in the coffin of this troubled proposal.

“I think the company should be deeply embarrassed about what unfolded, we saw that in the report. If they think they’re going to operate like that in British Columbia – forget it.” Christy Clark, British Columbia Premier

Trailbreaker Pipeline: Enbridge is simultaneously proposing a major expansion of its ailing Lakehead pipeline system to move tar sands across Canada, the Midwest and New England. This means an expansion of many of Enbridge’s pipelines, including the section of its pipeline which led to the Kalamazoo tar sands spill. Allowing Enbridge, an operator with a demonstrated record of preventable catastrophic pipeline failures, to move greater volumes of more hazardous tar sands on an already spill prone system the definition of a bad idea.

Enbridge hasn’t proven capable of safely constructing, maintaining or operating its existing pipeline infrastructure. Rewarding a company with a history of spills, poor safety programs and an inability to adhere to minimum safety standards with higher capacity and more hazardous tar sands pipelines gives the pipeline industry the wrong message – that pipeline safety is a matter of public relations rather than critical component of business operations.

ď ś Vancouver

Sun Editorial: The Enbridge lesson: Major projects need public

support July 14, 2012

A photograph of a mock-up model of part of the Enbridge Northern Gateway Project While not addressing it directly, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board has delivered what may be a damaging blow to Enbridge’s proposed Northern Gateway pipeline.

The damning report undermines a crucial element of Enbridge’s application to build a 1,000-kilometre pipeline across northern B.C. — the need for British Columbians to trust Enbridge’s assurances that it can operate the line with minimal risk of a catastrophic spill.

The NTSB’s report on a 2010 pipeline breach into the Kalamazoo River in Michigan that resulted in the most expensive pipeline spill in U.S. history found pervasive organizational failures and likened Enbridge’s response to the Keystone Kops.

While the language may have been over the top and aimed at a domestic political audience, the details are still damning. The company was aware of the potential for a spill for five years and took no action, and when the corroded pipe finally split, Enbridge continued to pump oil through the breach for 17 hours despite seeing alarms that there was a problem.

This is not the narrative we would expect from a company that is asking British Columbians to trust it to protect our fragile northern wilderness.

While the hearings that will lead to a regulatory verdict on the project are continuing, politically in this province Northern Gateway has become a difficult project to back.

Polls show that even before the U.S. NTSB report, a majority of British Columbians were persuaded that the projected benefits of the multibillion-dollar project are not worth the risk, especially since most of the benefits are accrued elsewhere and the risks are here.

Opposition to the pipeline transcends the core group of preservationists who are against any development. It includes first nations, municipalities and the opposition New Democrats, who will be in government before construction can begin if Premier Christy Clark can’t end her own losing streak.

And most critically it includes significant numbers of people who understand the importance of access to energy and the need for economic development, but don’t believe that Enbridge has done what would be needed to make the case for this project at this time.

Although we’re not sure how, that could change, of course. If it does, it won’t be because British Columbians become persuaded that Enbridge or the federal government knows better than they do what is good for them. That thinking led to the HST fiasco, which is still top of mind.

The failure to date by Enbridge to secure public support for its proposal to ship oil through northern B.C. and by tanker out of Kitimat should be considered a case study for Kinder Morgan if it hopes to be able to proceed with its expansion of the existing Trans Mountain pipeline to Vancouver.

The lessons from Enbridge should start with the realization that for a pipeline to be accepted, it will have to have a significant local ownership. That doesn’t necessarily mean an equity stake, but a sense that the people who will be affected and who must absorb some risk, no matter how minimal, will also reap proportional benefits.

B.C.’s economic future does not depend on the success or failure of any individual project, no matter how large. But we do need economic development. We need jobs. We need government revenues.

We need energy. We can’t afford to take an entirely selfish approach to projects that are in the national interest even though it is always reasonable to ask what is in it for us.

We also need enlightened corporations that understand that public support that includes first nations will always be needed for major projects in this province and can never be assumed just because senior levels of government are on side.

 Minister

says scathing U.S. report won’t change mind on Northern Gateway

pipeline July 18, 2012 Comment 5

Federal minister Peter Kent announces new national wastewater regulations during a press conference in Delta.

VANCOUVER — The federal environment minister says a scathing report out of the United States about Enbridge’s response to a pipeline spill in Michigan won’t change his government’s position on the Northern Gateway project.

A report by U.S. investigators released last week criticized Enbridge for a spill along Michigan’s Kalamazoo River, comparing the company’s response to the “Keystone Kops” and identifying a long list of failings.

Critics of Enbridge’s proposed Northern Gateway pipeline between Alberta and the B.C. coast have used the report to urge governments to reject the project, but federal Environment Minister Peter Kent says he hasn’t changed his mind.

Kent says he hasn’t read the U.S. report in full, but he notes the Michigan spill involved an older pipeline that used different technology than would be found on new projects.

He says such spills underscore the need for better practices in the industry, but also argues pipelines are the safest way to transport oil and he doesn’t expect the report to sway his opinion.

B.C. Premier Christy Clark has said the report means Enbridge will have to answer some serious questions before winning her government’s support, though she has yet to say whether the province will support the project.

 Enbridge president defends pipeline industry in wake of U.S. report July 11, 2012

Al Monaco, president of Enbridge, speaks to the media after giving the keynote speech at the TD Conference lunch at the Hyatt Regency hotel in Calgary.

Calgary - One day after his company was slammed by a U.S. federal agency for its handling of a 2010 Michigan oil spill, Enbridge Inc. president Al Monaco defended a pipeline industry he said faces “unrelenting opposition to energy projects.”

Monaco, who gave the keynote address at the 2012 TD Calgary Energy Conference on Wednesday, told reporters his company has made significant improvements in safety procedures since the 2010 spill, which resulted in more than 20,000 barrels of crude being leaked into a tributary of the Kalamazoo River.

On Tuesday, the chair of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board suggested Canada ensure Enbridge has learned its lesson before letting it build the proposed $5.5-billion Northern Gateway oilsands pipeline to the B.C. coast and likened the company’s handling of the 2010 situation to the bumbling of the “Keystone Kops.”

Monaco declined to comment on “the subjective nature of that moniker,” but said the company has conducted more than 200 in-line pipe inspections since the 2010 incident.

READ ENTIRE CALGARY HERALD ARTICLE HERE

 Here we go again: TransCanada applies again for Keystone XL tar sands pipeline June 18, 2012 TransCanada is back at it again. They have re-applied to the U.S. State Department for a Presidential Permit to build the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline but this time for an approximately 1200mile segment that will take tar sands from Alberta to Steele City, Nebraska. What was true in January when President Obama rejected the Keystone XL pipeline is still true today. The Keystone XL tar sands pipeline still introduces significant risk of a tar sands oil spill to America’s heartland, is designed to export tar sands out of United States, and will increase gas prices. The Obama administration should reject this pipeline soundly because it is clearly not in America’s national interest. But since the Canadian company TransCanada has offered up a new application it is imperative that the State Department take a completely fresh look at this project, including the impact on climate change, which got short shrift in the go-round on the previous proposal.

In its announcement on Friday, the State Department said it would conduct a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement. What this means is that the State Department intends to rely on the environmental impact statement (EIS) that was issued by the State Department for the original pipeline scheme in August 2011. The problem is that the environmental analysis conducted by the State Department 10 months ago was sorely deficient in a number of respects. The detailed studies needed to fully demonstrate the need for and evaluate risks of this tar sands pipeline have not been completed. In fact, the EIS conducted by the State Department in 2011 points more to how the pipeline will cause increased air pollution, greater greenhouse gas emissions and a higher potential for oil spills threatening drinking water resources. Ultimately, completing a Supplemental EIS for the newest application doesn’t make a lot of sense when the original effort was so deficient.

Here are just a few reasons why we need a completely new environmental review for this project.

Tar sands pipelines pose much greater safety risks than conventional oil pipelines. This is especially critical given there were 12 leaks in the first 12 months from TransCanada’s first Keystone tar sands pipeline. The Keystone XL pipeline will carry tar sands, a uniquely corrosive and acidic mixture, more risky than most of the pipelines across the country. This blend of tar sands bitumen makes pipes more susceptible to corrosion, bringing a higher chance of oil spills that are more difficult to clean up once they happen. In fact, the largest tar sands spill in U.S. history near Marshall, Michigan is still being cleaned up almost two years after the spill because tar sands is a much more difficult substance to clean up than conventional oil. Between 2007 and 2010, pipelines transporting tar sands oil in the northern Midwest have spilled three times more per mile than the U.S. national average for conventional crude.

There is no need for this pipeline which is being built to export tar sands oil outside the United States. What the tar sands industry doesn’t want Americans to know is that Keystone XL will not bring additional oil into the United States. Keystone XL is an export pipeline through the United States, not to it. Existing crude pipelines from Canada are half empty right now meaning another tar sands pipeline isn’t needed. Even if Canadian tar sands oil production increases at the highly aggressive pace that its oil industry predicts—reaching 3.7 million bpd by 2025—

it would take more than 15 years to fill the existing pipelines to the United States. The real story is Keystone XL would skip over refineries and U.S. consumers in the Midwest, allowing tar sands producers to send Canadian crude to Gulf Coast refineries from where it can be exported anywhere in the world.

Building this tar sands pipeline would hinder progress to combating global warming. According to a recent report by the Congressional Research Service, building Keystone XL would be the equivalent of adding at least 4 million new cars to the road. The EPA estimates that Keystone XL will increase carbon pollution by the equivalent of several coal-fired power plants operating continuously. Keystone XL would expand dirty tar sands mining practices and lure the U.S. into a long-term commitment to an energy infrastructure that relies on extra-dirty oil. For example, building Keystone XL would wipe out the benefits of new standards that would have cut greenhouse gas emissions from medium to heavy duty trucks announced by the Obama administration.

Keystone XL tar sands pipeline will increase U.S. gas prices. This is one of the most misunderstood issues surrounding the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. A recent NRDC study finds that Keystone XL is likely to both reduce the amount of gasoline produced in U.S. refineries for domestic markets and increase the cost of producing it, leading to even higher prices at the pump. Because the Keystone XL pipeline will divert crude oil from the Midwest, it will reduce the amount of gasoline available to U.S. consumer by about 1.2 billion gallons a year. The State Department should look at this issue in depth as part of its determination whether the pipeline is in the national interest, a requirement for permitting.

These are just a few issues that deserve a completely fresh and in depth review by the State Department. And there are many more. Fully understanding the risks of the pipeline to our water supply and climate, how the pipeline undermines our energy security, and the impact to gas prices are nothing to gloss over. The agency will be conducting a scoping period over the next six weeks soliciting comments through July 30 on what issues they should evaluate. NRDC and many other organizations will be asking the State Department to set up a process that is thorough, comprehensive, and fully engages the public. The evidence continues to mount that this pipeline isn’t in the national interest and the State Department must look closely at all of the issues.

ď ś Keystone

XL Route Still Crosses Fragile, Sandy Soil Areas, Nebraska Regulators Say July 18, 2012

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Nebraska environmental regulators say a new proposed corridor for TransCanada Corp.'s Keystone XL pipeline still crosses areas of fragile, sandy soil, even though it avoids what they defined as the Sandhills.

A report released Tuesday says the 2,000-foot-wide corridor runs through land that could erode, and passes near unconfined aquifers that supply drinking water to residents and livestock. Officials say most of the aquifers lie near the town of Stuart.

Regulators say pipeline developer TransCanada should carefully consider a route that avoids the aquifers, and document what safety precautions the company takes if doing so is not possible.

The pipeline is expected to carry Canadian crude oil through Nebraska on its way to Texas refineries.

The report is part of an effort to find a route that avoids environmentally sensitive areas.

ď ś Tar Sands Pipelines Are Even Worse Than You Think June 27, 2012 The irony is sharp enough to hurt. Americans are driving less and using less gas when we do drive.

U.S. carbon pollution is down. Just about every car dealership in America is offering affordable, practical high gas mileage or zero gas mileage cars. Automakers are making them and the sales numbers show that Americans are buying them. Meanwhile, the Obama administration and automakers are poised to do even better with new standards that will double mileage again and slash pollution from our cars and trucks.

America is on the road to moving beyond oil, but the oil industry hasn't gotten the message, and there's no better evidence than its obsession with tar sands.

We don't need tar-sands oil from Canada, yet Big Oil is determined to force it down our throats anyway -- or at least force us to let them pipe through our nation so they can export it abroad. And now we've got some pretty shocking evidence of just how high a price we could end up paying for their greed.

In 2010, more than 30 miles of the Kalamazoo River was transformed into an environmental disaster zone by a cracked tar sands pipeline and a tar sands pipeline company that neglected to turn off its pumps. Since then, a monumental $700 million cleanup effort has removed more than a million gallons of tar sands crude, along with 17 million gallons of polluted water, and 190,000 cubic yards of contaminated soil and debris. Last week, after two years, the EPA officially reopened the affected section of the river.

Now, though, a just-released in-depth report from Inside Climate News today shows that this massive cleanup effort was in fact a debacle -- a failure that reinforces the reputation of tar sands as the dirtiest oil on earth, exposes the weakness of regulatory oversight, and casts an ominous shadow across the thousands of rivers and streams that millions of Americans who live downstream of proposed tar sands pipelines depend on.

Tar sand spills prove even more toxic and difficult to clean up than typical oil spills. That's because the heavy mixture of oil sand sinks in water, which means that tactics like skimming the surface can't be used. Instead, remediators must try to recover the oil from the bottoms of rivers, reservoirs, or wherever it has spilled -- a far more difficult task. Tar sands already contain high concentrations of heavy metals, and chemical diluents mixed in for transport are also known to be carcinogenic. EPA lab tests following a December 2011 oil leak in Colorado found concentrations of cancer-causing benzene as high as 2,000 parts per billion in the creek where the leak occurred -- well above the 5 ppb national drinking water standard.

This would be bad enough if such spills were rare occurrences -- but they're not. In the past two months alone, three separate tar sands pipelines have reported spills in Canada. Enbridge Inc., whose pipe leaked into the Kalamazoo, reported a spill of 1,450 barrels of oil-sand crude in eastern Alberta just last week, while two other companies cited spills of 3,000 and 5,000 barrels respectively, the former into a reservoir used by a nearby small town.

And Canadian tar sands spills are not limited to Canada. Since May 2011, three major tar sands spills have occurred in North Dakota, Montana, and Colorado. The North Dakota spill was the twelfth from TransCanada's Keystone I pipeline during its first year of operation.

READ ENTIRE HUFFINGTON POST ARTICLE HERE

 In

Canada's Tar Sands, a Dante's Hell Threatens People Nearby and Across the Globe July 12, 2012

In Canada's western province of Alberta, Melina Laboucan-Massimo’s community—the Lubicon Lake Nation—has endured a withering toxic tar sands oil assault, an Armageddon against nature few Americans are fully aware of. Here in the once pristine sub-Arctic, tar sands mining operations level vast swaths of boreal forests near native lands, as pipelines burst and spew corrosive chemical-laced tar sands oil into rivers and lakes.

The Lubicon are used to living in harmony with nature. But tar sands mining has brought a deadly discordance to their environment. Melina has watched family and friends battle unheard of cancers and respiratory ailments; she's listened to local fishermen and hunters complain about unusual lesions and tumors festering in their catches and prey. She's reacted in disbelief as her government has sponsored airborne sharpshooters to gun down mighty Canadian wolf packs—a zero sum game that is killing one species to try to save another—as dwindling herds of caribou flee their disappearing forest homes and may be gone forever in the not so distant future.

For members of the Lubicon Lake Nation, it is a nightmare of Kafkaesque proportions. Their verdant land of abundant wildlife is metastasizing into pock-marketed battlefields of a thousand Verduns.

Melina and other community leaders have not sat idly by as the environmental carnage unfolds around them. She has testified before Congress, spearheaded Greenpeace protest actions, and worked tirelessly to get the word out about the devastation in her community.

Watch Melina Laboucan-Massimo's story about the destruction of her native land in this short video, soon to be posted along with other updates to the Voices Against Tar Sands webpage.

According to one report, at least seven million gallons of oil has been spilled in Alberta since 2006— much of it tar sands oil—and there have been thousands of pipeline accidents since the 1990s.

Just in the past few months there have been several major pipeline spills in the province, including one spilled millions of gallons of crude near Melina’s community a little over a year ago. This is how Melina describes it when she along with others impacted by one of the largest tar sands spills in history during a rare opportunity to testify before Congress last March: The poisons that infest these tar sands mining operations are some of the nastiest in the petrochemical world, including highly dangerous compounds like mercury, arsenic and lead. As they are dumped into rivers that flow toward the Arctic and are spewed into the cold north winds that deposit them far and wide across the remote region—thanks to powerful wind and water currents that already make it a natural sink for global toxic emissions.

A seminal study published in the National Academy of Sciences in 2010, led by renowned Alberta biologist David Schindler, found toxic pollutants from tar sands oil operations leaching into the Athabasca River, which flows north and feeds into the vast MacKenzie River Basin system that empties into the Arctic Ocean. The study poked holes in the Canadian government’s environmental monitoring system—long decried as inadequate and industry-biased by environmentalists and health activists—forcing the government to implement a new environmental monitoring plan this year.

READ ENTIRE HUFFINGTON POST ARTICLE HERE

 Will tar sands oil flow through Vermont?

June 19.2012

This map shows the U.S. portion of a Montreal-Portland, Maine pipeline, in red. Map courtesy National Wildlife Federation Editor’s note: A companion story to this piece, Environmental groups push for preemptive halt to oil transit, by Alan Panebaker, was published on VTDigger.org today.

New England environmental groups are sounding the alarm over a Canadian oil company’s plan to bring tar sands oil from Alberta to refineries in Eastern Canada. Environmentalists believe the proposal by Enbridge Oil is the first step in a long-range plan to move tar sands oil through Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom and New Hampshire to Portland, Maine, for export. The oil company says, “There is no active plan at this point.”

In a statement, an Enbridge spokesman, citing their pipeline that runs between Sarnia, Ontario, to Montreal, Quebec, says it does not go further east. “The projects Enbridge have currently proposed for Line 9 are limited to the reversal of this line, which terminates in Montreal. There is a pipeline between Montreal and Portland, Maine, but it is not owned by Enbridge; any decisions related to this pipeline would be for that company to make.”

It’s believed that the oil that will move east from Alberta will be tar sands oil. The technique has allowed for the capture of previously untouched oil deposits, but it is also estimated by environmentalists to take between 14 percent and 20 percent more energy than the extraction of conventional oil.

“Oil is already incredibly dirty and tar sands are that much worse,” said Ben Walsh, clean energy advocate for the Vermont Public Interest Research Group. “Tar sands is to oil as fracking is to natural gas, and Vermont just banned fracking.”

Exporting oil is the new thing Currently, a pipeline exists that brings imported oil from Portland to refineries in Montreal.

Environmentalists warn that the pipeline reversals in Canada signal an attempt by the oil company to revive a 2008 plan to export tar sands oil through Portland. The plan, dubbed Trailbreaker, would reverse the flow of the pipelines between Alberta and Portland.

“They put a very clear plan out in 2008, when tar sands oil really wasn’t on anyone’s radar screen,” said Jim Murphy, a Vermont wetlands and water resources lawyer with the National Wildlife Federation’s Northeast Regional Center in Montpelier. “Then the economy tanked.”

Since then, environmentalists have mobilized to oppose tar sands oil. They argue that the emissions from the fossil fuel energy needed to extract the oil dangerously accelerate climate change. In the U.S., there was a large grassroots push to pressure President Barack Obama to not fast-track the authorization of the Keystone XL pipeline, which would connect Alberta oil to refineries in the Gulf of Mexico; President Obama declined to fast-track the project. Also, an Enbridge plan to create a new pipeline from Alberta to British Columbia has run into logistical hurdles and has met stiff resistance from some tribes of the Canadian First Nations.

But Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s administration favors more development of the tar sands oil industry, and industry analysts say the demand for the oil is unmistakable. Because the oil is extracted closer to home, it can be refined at a discount, said Andy Black, president of the Association of Oil Pipe Lines. Increased Canadian oil and natural gas production is causing pipeline owners in Texas, Oklahoma and the Great Lakes region to rethink which way oil should flow.

“It’s cheaper to reverse a pipeline than produce a new pipeline,” said Black. “Pipeline operators are trying to think creatively about ways to meet demand.”

Environmentalists connect the dots Environmental groups believe that connecting the dots between Enbridge’s recent moves shows that the big picture is a plan to move tar sands oil through Vermont. For example, they point to Enbridge’s little-noticed court battle in Quebec over the construction of a new pipeline pumping station close to the Vermont border. Environmentalists argue the pumping station is only necessary if the company plans to reverse more of the line than is being announced.

The Quebec provincial government has twice denied the application on procedural grounds, but Enbridge is expected to reapply, they say. An Enbridge spokesman said he was currently too unfamiliar with the pumping station project to comment.

Also, environmentalists argue that if Enbridge goes through with the flow reversal of its Canadian pipelines, then it would create an expensive redundancy in its pipeline system. Currently, the Portland-Montreal pipeline pumps some 170,000 barrels of imported oil a day, but the pipeline system has the capacity to carry more than twice that. Meanwhile, the Montreal refineries can’t handle much more than the amount already piped from Portland, Murphy says, adding that exporting oil seems the only way to make the plan worthwhile and that Enbridge is taking an incremental approach only to avoid public alarm over the idea.

“There’s really not much other explanation for the piecemeal approach to the project that exists,” he concludes.

Oil pressure Environmentalists also fear the decades-old pipeline isn’t equipped to handle tar sands oil, which they argue is more toxic, has more sediment and flows at a higher temperature inside the pipeline. They worry a break could endanger New England’s waterways, including Crystal Lake and the Connecticut River. Enbridge has come under fire for its handling of a recent 800,000-gallon spill of tar sands oil in Michigan’s Kalamazoo River. Its engineers apparently misread the problem as one of low pressure in the pipeline.

“It took the company about 12 to 15 hours to really notice there was a spill. In the meantime, they put the foot on the gas, pumping-wise,” Murphy said.

But Enbridge spokesman Graham White counters that transporting tar sands oil poses no additional risk compared to transporting heavy crude oil. He also denied that Enbridge has any current plans to move tar sands oil through Vermont.

“We have been perfectly clear and completely forthcoming in multiple public forums, hearings (sic), to news media on both sides of the b order and to communities and stakeholders that this is not the Trailbreaker project and that we are not pursuing the Trailbreaker project,” Enbridge spokesman Graham White said in an email.

“We have been perfectly clear and completely forthcoming in multiple public forums, hearings (sic), to news media on both sides of the border and to communities and stakeholders that this is not the Trailbreaker project and that we are not pursuing the Trailbreaker project,” White said in an email.

But he refused to speculate on the future of the Montreal and Portland pipelines, saying they were independently owned. Ted O’Meara, a spokesman for the Portland Pipeline, said there was no active plan to reverse the flow of the pipeline, but also that the company wasn’t immediately concerned about Enbridge’s move to bring more oil to the Montreal refineries. O’Meara said there is more potential for refinery capacity in Montreal than is currently estimated, but to comment further would be pure speculation.

But environmentalists throughout New England remain unconvinced by the denials and are using protests and publicity campaigns to raise awareness about an eventual move by Enbridge to propose bringing tar sands oil through New England.

“There is an overwhelming market drive to get that oil out,” said Dylan Voorhees, clean energy project director of the National Resources Council of Maine. “This is really coming. It’s just a matter of time.”

ď ś Texas Planning Commission Joins Fight Against Tar Sands Pipeline July 6, 2012 OKLAHOMA CITY (CN) - A Texas planning commission joined the legal fight against a 485-mile leg of the 1,400-mile Keystone Pipeline, claiming the Army Corps of Engineers is cheating by "piecemealing" approvals of the giant project to bring tar sands crude oil from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico.

The Sierra Club, Clean Energy Future Oklahoma and the East Texas Subregional Planning Commission sued the Army Corps of Engineers in Federal Court, claiming it greenlighted the southern leg of the Keystone Pipeline without assessing its environmental impact on more than 1,000 U.S. water crossings and hundreds of acres of forested wetlands.

The plaintiffs claim the Corps of Engineers issued a nationwide permit (NWP 12) for the project without assessing "minimal environmental effects," as required by federal law.

They claim the Corps relies on district engineers to determine environmental effects on a case-bycase basis and denies the public the opportunity to comment on the decisions.

"The result of NWP 12 is to allow the Corps to 'piecemeal' large interstate pipeline projects like the Keystone Pipeline Gulf Coast Project (the 'project') into several hundred ½-acre 'projects' so as to avoid the individual permit process under section 404 of the CWA [Clean Water Act], which would require public notice and comment and an analysis of the overall project's impacts and alternatives pursuant to NEPA [the National Environmental Policy Act] and the CWA," the complaint states.

"Under NWP 12, a major utility line would almost never require a comprehensive environmental review of the project's impacts."

The southern leg of the Keystone Pipeline is a proposed 485-mile tar sands crude oil pipeline that would run from Cushing, Okla. to the Texas Gulf Coast. It is one of three sections of the 1,384-mile pipeline designed to transport heavy crude oil from Canadian tar sands to Texas Gulf Coast refineries.

The U.S. Department of State in November 2011 delayed a final decision on the Keystone Pipeline pending further review of the project's environmental impacts.

After President Obama denied the permit for the pipeline in December, TransCanada, the project proponent, broke the project into two parts, to avoid environmental review of its southern leg, according to the complaint.

The environmentalists claim the nationwide permit authorizes activities that will have more than "minimal adverse environmental effects."

They claim the project will hurt their members, who own property close to the affected water bodies and depend on them for clean water.

They say the permit may be used repeatedly for the same utility line, to the detriment of the environment.

READ ENTIRE COURTHOUSE NEWS ARTICLE HERE

Planet Earth

 Cost of saving world’s fisheries? $292 billion July 15, 2012 It could cost up to $292 billion and take almost three decades, but University of B.C. experts have a proposal to save the world’s fisheries.

In a study released Friday in the online journal of the Public Library of Science, a team of American and Canadian economists and ecologists led by UBC professor Rashid Sumaila called on governments worldwide to dramatically reduce subsidies to fisheries in a bid to stop unprofitable and unsustainable fishing.

Eventually, those cuts would result in more robust fish stocks and fisheries worth $54 billion, a great improvement from the $13 billion they lose each year, the study claims.

“There are too many boats going for the fish. A key component is reducing the number of boats and therefore the number of people fishing,” said Sumaila, director of the university’s fisheries economics research unit.

“This is not going to be an easy thing, because fishers need their livelihood. They need to keep busy while the fish [stocks] rebuild,” he said.

The cost of that transition, including compensating and retraining fishermen, is $130 billion to $292 billion and will take four to 26 years, depending on the species and the health of the stock.

But countries could recoup that expense within 12 years, and in 50 years, the return on investment could be three times the cost, the study shows.

The report, titled “Benefits of rebuilding global marine fisheries outweigh costs,” blames government subsidies totalling $27 billion globally for overfishing because the subsidies artificially support the industry. But it also acknowledges governments find rebuilding fisheries too costly in the short term.

Sumaila and his colleagues recommend a rest period that depends on the fish, the economic climate and the cultural significance of the fish. For example, first nations people are unlikely to stop fishing entirely, he said.

But a decline of 40 to 60 per cent is recommended to rebuild commercial fisheries like the Atlantic cod, which collapsed in the 1990s. Sumaila also pointed to Pacific salmon as having potential for improvement.

Cutting subsidies doesn’t have to mean the money leaves the communities that rely on the industry, but could be redirected to retraining and other support.

Ocean scientists and others brought attention to harmful subsidies at the recent Rio+20 environmental summit, but whether governments will support cuts is another matter.

“The practicalities in terms of the politics are tough for politicians to stick their necks out and do it,” Sumaila said.

Experts also point to climate change as a potential threat to what they call one of the world’s most important renewable natural resources, particularly for food security in developing countries.

“As human populations continue to grow, the future benefits that fishing resources can provide will depend largely on how well they are rebuilt and managed,” the authors note.

Sumaila said he and his team are now working on modelling to discover how much rising ocean temperatures could cost the fishing industry in the future.

ď ś The Hidden Costs of Farmed Salmon

Farmed salmon color selection fan Wild salmon get their beautiful hue from the prey they eat. But their

Farmed salmon are raised in open cages, thousands of them in a

Diseases and infestations can spread rapidly in crowded pens where salmon are

farmed cousins rely on a dye to color their flesh pink. Without that added pigment, their meat would be a pale gray.

Selling authenticity short

net-pen the size of a small house. Usually, a dozen or so of these pens are tethered together. The fish pass their feces right into the waters around them, contaminating the water with as much raw sewage as a town of 65,000.

Treating the ocean like a cesspool

raised. Fish farmers dose their fish to combat these outbreaks, using seven tons of antibiotics in British Columbia in 1998 alone.

Still, epidemics can infect and decimate wild stocks. The 2002 collapse of the pink salmon run on the central B.C. coast is blamed on parasites known as sea lice, contracted from the area’s numerous salmon farms.

A wild world in peril

The fishmeal and fish oil fed to farmed salmon are more contaminated with dioxins than any other livestock feeds, according to a study by the European Union.

As a result, an analysis of British Columbian salmon found that farmed salmon was nearly ten times higher in PCBs than the wild variety.

A pure food no more

Family fisherman RJ Kopchak, Cordova, Alaska The salmon farming industry is controlled by a short list of global corporations -- just four companies produce more than half of the farmed salmon sold in North America.

By flooding the market with their product, they’ve put harvesters of wild fish -- and the communities that depend on them -in an economic squeeze.

Curtains for local fishing communities

2,162,000 tons of fish taken from the oceans to produce 871,200 tons of farmed salmon Salmon aren’t your everyday livestock -they’re carnivores.

Their feed is made from mackerel, sardines, and other smaller fish, but something is lost in the translation. It takes nearly two and a half pounds of smaller fish to raise one pound of farmed salmon -reducing the amount of seafood by 59 percent.

Emptying the oceans

ď ś 12 Fish You Should Never Eat Sometimes the easiest way to decipher seafood guidelines is in knowing what NOT to eat.

8 of 13 Atlantic Salmon (both wild-caught and farmed)

Why It's Bad: It's actually illegal to capture wild Atlantic salmon because the fish stocks are so low, and they're low, in part, because of farmed salmon. Salmon farming is very polluting: Thousands of fish are crammed into pens, which leads to the growth of diseases and parasites that require antibiotics and pesticides. Often, the fish escape and compete with native fish for food, leading to declines in native populations. Adding to our salmon woes, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is moving forward with approving genetically engineered salmon to be sold, unlabeled, to unsuspecting seafood lovers. That salmon would be farmed off the coast of Panama, and it's unclear how it would be labeled. Currently, all fish labeled "Atlantic salmon" come from fish farms.

Eat This Instead: Opt for wild Alaskan salmon now, and in the event that GE salmon is officially approved.

 How coal trains could choke NW's economic engines July 12, 2012 A new study sees possible trouble for ports, manufacturers, and communities along rail lines.

Two locomotives push a 129-car coal train along the waterfront in British Columbia.

“Concerns about rail traffic have dominated much of the discussion of the export terminals in recent weeks, but other concerns dealing with marine traffic, air and water pollution, fisheries issues, and local economies will come to the fore in the next several weeks as environmental review begins on the largest of the six Northwest terminals, Gateway Pacific Terminal at Cherry Point north of Bellingham.”

Runs of trains loaded with coal could increase under proposals new shipping facilities in Washington and Oregon.

A new study of rail transportation problems associated with the transport of millions of tons of coal from the Powder River Basin of Wyoming and Montana to proposed export terminals in the Pacific Northwest was released today in Montana, citing "a huge, huge increase in volume that we've never seen in this part of the world."

READ ENTIRE CROSSCUT ARTICLE HERE

ď ś Family eats HEB salmon covered in worms Health department is investigating the case June 19, 2012

ROUND ROCK, Texas (KXAN) - The Pham family is trying to forget what happened at their large Father's Day celebration Saturday.

They prepared their own sushi with raw salmon purchased the same day at the H-E-B in Round Rock at State Highway 45 and Greenlawn Boulevard.

"My niece came in here, and she was eating one of the few pieces of sushi we had left on the plate and said, 'Ew, something feels funny,'" said Nichol Pham. "She pulled something out of her mouth, and it looked like a string."

When they looked closer, the string was moving. When they looked at the rest of the salmon, they could see more tiny worms covering the fish.

Pham said 23 people ate the salmon and felt sick the next day. Half of them were children, all cousins, ages 2 to 12.

"We've vomited, have diarrhea, stomach aching," said Pham. "My stomach is still aching today."

She said they went back to H-E-B that night to talk to a manager who offered a refund.

"We explained to him: 'We don't want a refund. We've already ingested this into our bodies,'" said Pham. "Common sense to me: You pull it off the shelf until you find out what's wrong with your fish."

Then she contacted the Williamson County Health Department. A spokesperson for the department told KXAN News they are investigating and will be looking into how the product was handled at the market and how it was handled after the purchase.

Carol Huntsberger, owner of Quality Seafood Market , said salmon carries a lot of parasites and worms -- though they are rarely seen at a store.

There are only two ways to kill them: cooking the fish thoroughly or freezing raw salmon through a process mandated by law at minus 4 degrees for 168 hours, which is about seven days.

"It kills the parasites. It kills the worms, and it makes sure it's safe to eat," said Huntsberger.

H-E-B emailed the following statement: "H-E-B is committed to absolutely safe food. We discourage the consumption of raw or undercooked seafood unless it is prepared and handled according to FDA specifications.

"We encourage all consumers to practice safe food handling when preparing sushi with raw fish. For additional information, refer to the FDA website."

ď ś Do you know what your dinner ate for breakfast?

You may already know that the tiger prawn is one of the world’s worst environmental hazards. But did you know that it also has a lot in common with farmed salmon from Norway?

Depleted oceans, ravaged ecosystems and human rights violations are some of the consequences of fish meal production. The fish meal is fed to giant prawns and farmed salmon from Norway, two products that are popular in Swedish shops and restaurants.

Each kilogram of farmed salmon requires between two and five kilograms of other fish; fish that is caught illegally, with harmful fishing methods. This is not a solution to the overfishing of the oceans, rather the contrary.

In our new film and report "Do you know what your dinner ate for breakfast?" we review fishmeal production in Thailand and Peru, two of the world's largest producers of fish meal.

http://youtu.be/MqW8V4Qjl1I

ď ś CTV News Investigation: COSTCO Sales of Infected pen-raised salmon July 3, 2012

Watch CTV News report here Sign petition here: COSTCO, Safeway & Loblaws: We Don't Want to Eat Salmon Flu or Heart Viruses

 Wild No More: Farm-Raised Fish Labeled As “Wild Caught” April 23, 2012 Tonight’s salmon dinner was awful. Bitter and filled with bones, a thin filet that was more skin than flesh. And it made me wonder if all wild caught salmon really IS wild caught and not farm-raised salmon hiding behind a label. After all, salmon is one of the main farm-raised fish in fisheries. After tasting tonight’s salmon filet, and knowing the cost of quality wild caught salmon after reading this recent article, I (unfortunately) believe that not all salmon labeled as wild caught really is.

Is that salmon filet you're cooking tonight really wild?

To confirm this, I went online and found an article summarizing Consumer Report’s (“CR“) 2006 study on farm-raised salmon. CR found that only 10 of the 23 salmon filets labeled as wild caught were truly fish from the wild.

Another interesting article on seafood labeling outlines several loopholes in the USDA labeling, which was established in 2005: •

“Processed” seafood is exempt, leaving more than 50% sold in the U.S. without labels;

•

90% of fish sellers, such as wholesale markets, are exempt; and

•

No enforcement mechanism exists and violators face paltry fines.

According to the USDA’s web site, the Country of Origin labeling for fish/seafood has not changed since 2005 when the labeling was put into practice, and with these loopholes, it seems like the whole labeling process is more about the USDA pretending to enforce something rather than doing much about it. Mass grocery store retailers can easily label things as wild, considering the third bullet point above, not to mention the first bullet point negating 50% of the seafood sold in the US alone. And, as an illustration of this faulty labeling system, CR struck again in October 2011 with a report that “reveals more than one-fifth of 190 pieces of seafood bought at retail stores and restaurants in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut were not what they claimed to be.”

The Fish Ladder (AlaskanLibrarian, Flickr) So where does that leave us? With cattle stuffed to the gills with corn, an unnatural food source for cattle if there ever was one. With chickens in cramped cages stacked one on top of the other in dark barns. And with fish, one of the very last wild sources of animal-based protein being roped in and farmed away until we can’t even trust that what we eat is actually wild.

I guess this means we should all go grab our fishing poles and try to catch our own dinners. Or head to vegetarian hills.

 A Fishy Tale (movie) – Coming Fall 2012

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=771qGR_G-Zk More: http://www.afishytalemovie.com

ď ś Enjoy wild Pacific salmon dinners at these restaurants:

ď ś

Say NO to Farmed Salmon

 “Pants on Fire” Recognition: BC Provincial fish pathologist Dr. Gary Marty

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

The August 2012 recipient of the Wild Game Fish Conservation International “Burning Pants” honor is: BC Provincial fish pathologist Dr. Gary Marty. “He’s skeptical of the lab results in B.C.” “We don't have any sick fish. If we had sick fish, then we’d be more concerned, but without the sick fish we think it might be a false positive result,” he said.

He suggested that if ISA is in B.C., it could be a unique strain that is not as dangerous as its Norwegian counterpart. (CTV News report, July 16, 2012)

Canada  Use of Genomics to Control Infectious Salmon Anemia Virus (ISAv) May 12, 2012, Updated July 12, 2012 Editorial Comment: Open pen salmon feedlots are breeding grounds for many deadly salmon diseases including the Infectious Salmon Anemia virus discussed in the following paper by Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans in collaboration with the open pen salmon feedlot industry (fox guarding the hen house).

As we’ve come to expect, due to the vast amount of money involved, government and industry officials continue to report that these diseases cause no harm to humans – of course we suspect otherwise. At the same time, we are fully aware that chemicals used to treat exploding populations of fish-killing parasites and these diseases are in fact harmful to humans over time.

We also understand that these deadly salmon diseases and parasites associated with open pen salmon feedlot practices negatively impact stocks of wild Pacific salmon – to the point of significant population reductions.

Summary Infectious Salmon Anemia virus (ISAv) poses a serious threat to fish farmers in Canada and globally.

It can cause significant economic losses to Atlantic Salmon farming operations, and is a potential risk to wild Atlantic Salmon populations. Although improved farming and management practices have helped reduce the risk and impact of the disease, further outbreaks associated with new virulent strains remains a threat to the industry. A greater understanding of fish-virus interactions at the molecular level is of critical importance in the development of effective molecular tools and vaccines.

A common approach for studying post-pathogen interactions at the molecular level is the use of functional genomic tools, such as DNA microarrays, which measure gene expression in specific tissues at specific times during the infection. With the use of this method, it has been possible to identify several genes up-regulated or down-regulated in salmon kidney tissue during the course of an ISAv infection and has provided a better understanding of how the fish fight the disease. Gene expression was measured at five different time points during an experimental infection: 6 hours, 24 h, 3 days, 7 d and 16 d after injection of the virus. Several genes involved in immune defense mechanisms were upregulated as the infection progressed. During the last stage of infection, several genes involved in oxygen transport were down-regulated. Such gene expression closely corresponds to anemia (low red blood cell count) observed in Atlantic Salmon infected by virulent strains of ISAv just prior to death. Such studies provide a deeper understanding of the defence mechanisms of fish against disease and provide insight into the approaches that could be taken to help the industry and prevent infections.

Introduction Infectious Salmon Anemia virus (ISAv) poses a serious threat to stock health of the fish-farming industry. The virus can cause systemic disease that can lead to mass mortality in Atlantic Salmon (Salmo salar). Infected fish suffer from hemorrhaging, pale gills, congestion of internal organs and severe anemia, often leading to death.

Other members of the salmonid family, including Brown Trout (Salmo trutta), Rainbow Trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) and Coho Salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch), can also be infected by ISAv. However, the majority of these infections are asymptomatic (a fish may carry the disease but experience no symptoms). Although ISAv has similarities with the influenza virus, it is not zoonotic (humans cannot be infected).

The disease was first reported in Norway in 1984 and has since been detected in Canada’s East coast, the United States, Scotland, the Faroe Islands and Chile. The virus was identified in 1996 in New Brunswick, where it devastated the aquaculture industry. A number of biosecurity measures were introduced to limit the spread of the infection, such as aquaculture bay management units, but the risk of new outbreaks remains. Various strains of ISAv have been identified and characterized over the years and show a range of virulence from low to high, depending on the strain.

Although the evolution and pathogenicity of the various ISAv strains have been extensively documented, few studies have been conducted on the molecular interactions that take place between the virus and the host during an infection. When salmonids are infected with a virus, several defense mechanisms are activated, including an immune response and production of antibodies which will immunize the fish against subsequent viral attacks. However, with ISAv this response is often not sufficient to fight the virus, resulting in death of the fish. Understanding how salmon respond to the ISAv during the course of an infection is vital to the development of new antiviral treatments and new vaccines.

Given the major economic importance of salmon to the aquaculture industry and the potential disaster that could result from an ISAv infection outbreak, several teams of researchers are trying to develop a vaccine against the virus. When effective, vaccines stimulate the production of specific antibodies and protect the fish against future, related viral attacks. Effective vaccines are available for a number of fish diseases; Vibrio, furunculosis, etc., but to date, salmon have not responded well to the ISAv vaccines in development. The testing of vaccines is a long and costly process and therefore it would be extremely useful if a gene expression profile indicating the onset of the immune response in fish could be identified. This profile would be developed after vaccination and a short incubation period. It is very likely that effective vaccines would produce a genetic response in fish that is very similar to the response shown following an actual ISAv infection.

In recent years, a series of genome projects has led to the sequencing and construction of complementary deoxyribonucleic acid (cDNA) libraries for fish species, including Atlantic Salmon and Rainbow Trout. These cDNA libraries have made possible the development of DNA chips, which have been useful in many functional genomic studies. DNA chips consist of glass slides onto which DNA spots are printed. Each spot represents a unique genetic marker, usually a gene expressed in the host tissue.

The purpose of the present study is to identify genetic markers (a gene or DNA sequence of known location on a chromosome) indicative of an ISAv infection, as it progresses in time. It is assumed that many of these markers would also be present following vaccination with an effective vaccine formulation. An initial test of vaccine formulations could be performed to select the most promising for more detailed testing.

READ ENTIRE DFO REPORT HERE

 Three B.C. scientists attack changes to Fisheries Act June 21, 2012

Canada's Fisheries Minister Keith Ashfield tells the House of Commons in Ottawa on Wednesday that changes are coming to the federal Fisheries Act. VANCOUVER — Three scientists from B.C. have used an internationally prestigious journal to launch an attack against changes to the federal Fisheries Act currently before the Senate.

In a letter published online Thursday in the journal “Science,” the scientists from Simon Fraser University criticize cutbacks at eco-toxicology labs and an aquatic research facility and changes to the act itself, saying the government’s rational for making the changes is not supported by fact.

The changes are part of the omnibus budget bill known as Bill C-38, which passed third reading in Parliament earlier this week but has not yet become law.

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans did not respond to a request for comment on the letter.

“Where it seems that the evidence doesn’t support the claims, it’s important that people look at that and make the leaders aware of that, and continue to call out that we do value evidence and we do value effective management of the country,” said Brett Favaro, a PhD student at the university.

“So that’s where this really comes from is looking at the data and making sure we are making the best decisions based on the data.”

According to the bill currently before the Senate, the amended act would only apply to major waterways and only to prohibit “serious harm” to a commercial, recreational or aboriginal fishery.

“Serious harm” is defined as death or permanent damage to habitat.

The changes would also give the federal government more leeway to allow exceptions.

The Conservative government has argued the legislation has been applied indiscriminately against ditches and other structures unlikely to bear fish and as a result has interfered with landowners and farmers, write Favaro, and SFU biology professors John Reynolds and Isabelle Cote, citing Parliamentary debates.

The government has also argued that removing habitat protection would enable Canadians to undertake activities on their properties without obtrusive interference, the scientists add.

READ ENTIRE VANCOUVER SUN ARTICLE HERE

ď ś Harper Wasting No Time Slashing DFO Habitat Jobs as Notices go out to Staff July 3, 2012 According to Otto Langer, the former senior DFO scientist and manager who first blew the whistle on Stephen Harper's plan to gut the Fisheries Act, the job cuts associated with Harper's program will soon be taking effect in BC. Langer sent out the following warning on June 27.

Today all DFO habitat protection and management staff in Canada are receiving letters that they are now "redcircled" - i.e. they are being affected by Bill C-38 with it's budget and habitat legislation and program cuts (i.e. DFO downsizing) and many will soon not have a job. Yesterday all staff in the BC-Yukon region were advised of this happening in a telephone call from Pacific Regional Director General Susan Farlinger. Staff were directed to not discuss this with anyone and only DFO Ottawa was allowed to comment on the issue.

132 habitat staff across Canada will be fired (laid off) in the next few months in that many will have to compete for remaining jobs. In the Pacific Region, they now have 92 staff and that is to be reduced to 60 - an approximate 33% cut in staff. Also, all habitat office locations in Pacific Region are to be closed down, with the exception of Whitehorse, Prince Rupert, Kamloops, Vancouver and Nanaimo. That means offices such as those in Mission, Campbell River, Prince George, Nelson, Williams Lake, Smithers, Port Hardy, etc. are to be shut down. If the Enbridge and natural gas pipelines go across northern BC, there will be no habitat staff in Prince George or Smithers, etc. to respond to potential disasters - the closest offices will be Prince Rupert or Kamloops.

The office in Port Hardy has looked after salmon farming issues, which it will be unable to do now.

This puts DFO back where it was in the early 1980s, i.e. 5 offices in BC and even less staff than they had in 1983 with many giant projects such as Enbridge, gas lines, gas liquification plants, New Prosperity Gold Mine, Site C Dam on the Peace River, Panamax tankers of jet fuel up the Fraser River, Roberts Bank Port expansion, etc. now being proposed and pushed along. Never in the past 50 year history of habitat protection have we seen such great cuts in staff the face of upcoming massive industrial development that can and will harm habitat and our fisheries of the future.

Finally, Ottawa has given all DFO habitat staff directions to remove the "Habitat Management Program" title from their organization and from their offices, etc. in that they are now to be called the "Fisheries Protection Program".

In summary, this puts DFO back to where they were in the late 1970s in terms of habitat staff numbers in the Pacific Region, but with next to no legislation to protect overall habitat and a greatly reduced presence in the field where the habitat damage takes place. Their efforts will of course be distracted over the next year or more in that staff will have to compete for the surviving 60 positions and put their minds to what they can do for a living when laid off and where they move to get a job to support their families, etc. I am told the already very low morale of the staff was destroyed by Bill C-38 and now it has received its final blow - the willingness and direction to do their jobs can now be measured in negative quantities.

One can now say that the Harper Government has 'right-sized' the workload for the reduced number of staff! They will protect less habitat, despite the incredulous claims of DFO Minister Ashfield and many Conservative MPs that DFO will provide the fishery with better, more focused protection. More staff-related budget cuts have been outlined for 2013 and 2014.

All DFO habitat protection offices from Quebec to the BC-Alberta border, i.e. Central and Arctic Region, will also be drastically cut and all offices will be shut down except in Ottawa, Burlington, Winnipeg, Edmonton and Yellowknife.

It is indicated that of 63 DFO offices in Canada with habitat staff (now "fisheries protection" staff), most will be closed and the number of offices having habitat-type program staff will be reduced to 14 for a giant geographic area - i.e. Canada.

 Canada's PM Stephen Harper faces revolt by scientists July 9, 2012

Canada's prime minister Stephen Harper: his government is accused of jeopardising Canada’s scientific reputation.

Scientists to march through Ottawa in white lab coats in protest at cuts to research and environmental damage Canada's prime minister, Stephen Harper, faces a widening revolt by the country's leading scientists against sweeping cuts to government research labs and broadly pro-industry policies.

The scientists plan to march through Ottawa in white lab coats on Tuesday in the second big protest in a month against the Harper government's science and environmental agenda.

Harper is accused of pushing through a slew of policies weakening or abolishing environmental protections – with an aim of expanding development of natural resources such as the Alberta tar sands.

His government is also accused of jeopardising Canada's scientific reputation by shutting down the Experimental Lakes Area (ELA), a research station that produced critical evidence to help stop acid rain.

"In my view there are a lot of attempts in this country, and other countries too, to push through resource-based economies," said Prof John Smol, a freshwater lake biologist at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. "People working at ELA are constantly finding reasons why you can't just put a pipeline here, or an industry there, because there are going to be environmental costs."

Andrew Weaver, a climate scientist at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, was even more pointed. "It's not about saving money. It's about imposing ideology," he said. "What's happening here is that the government has an ideological agenda to develop the Canadian economy based on the extraction of oil out of the Alberta tar sands as quickly as possible and sell it as fast as it can, come hell and high water, and eliminate any barriers that stand in their way."

However, a spokeswoman for Gary Goodyear, the minister of state for science and technology, said the government remained committed to funding science. "Our government has made historic investments in science, technology and research to create jobs, grow our economy, and improve the quality of life for Canadians," she said.

But Canadian government officials also indirectly confirmed scientists' charges that Harper was far more interested in funding research with direct industry applications, than in funding pure science or environmental research.

READ ENTIRE THE GUARDIAN ARTICLE HERE

British Columbia

ď ś Virus discovered in Cultus Lake sport fish July 19, 2012

Rick Routledge, an SFU fish-population statistician, says he has helped uncover a potentially deadly virus in a B.C. freshwater sport fish.

A Simon Fraser University fish-population statistician, working in collaboration with non-government organization scientists, has uncovered evidence of a potentially deadly virus in a freshwater sport fish in B.C. SFU professor Rick Routledge and Stan Proboszcz, a fisheries biologist at the Watershed Watch Salmon Society, have found evidence of the piscine reovirus (PRV) in cutthroat trout caught in Cultus Lake, in the Fraser Valley region of B.C. Tests conducted by, Fred Kibenge, a virology professor at the Atlantic Veterinary College in Prince Edward Island, found evidence of the virus in 13 of 15 sampled fish. Follow-up analyses further confirmed the virus's presence in these fish and identified their genetic sequencing as 99 per cent identical to Norwegian strains.

The virus has been scientifically linked to heart and skeletal muscle inflammation (HSMI), a disease that has reportedly become widespread in Norwegian salmon farms and can kill up to 20 per cent of infected fish.

Routledge believes this first ever discovery of PRV in a B.C. freshwater sport fish indicates the virus could be prevalent in B.C. Many Canadian scientists and interest groups are concerned that B.C. salmon farms pose a serious risk to wild Pacific salmon.

Scientists in other countries have specifically raised concerns about the spread of PRV from farms to wild salmon. "If PRV has been found in a Cultus Lake sport fish it could be contributing to the failure of the lake's sockeye population to return in abundance," says Routledge.

He notes the federal government-mandated Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada has listed the species as endangered. "The discovery of PRV in Cultus Lake's cutthroat trout also begs the question is it in other related species in the lake, such as rainbow trout, kokanee and Dolly Varden?

This latest discovery could also mean that salmon and trout in any lake exposed to spawning salmon returning from the North Pacific must be considered at risk of infection.

ď ś Highly

Contagious Salmon Disease Surveillance Underway in British Columbia

OTTAWA, ONTARIO--(July 17, 2012) - The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has begun collecting and testing wild salmon off the coast of British Columbia to determine the status of three salmon diseases: infectious hematopoietic necrosis, infectious pancreatic necrosis and infectious salmon anemia.

While all three diseases are no risk to human health, they are highly contagious and can cause mortality in wild and aquaculture salmon.

Infectious hematopoietic necrosis (IHNV) is known to exist in certain species and populations of wild fin fish in British Columbia. The surveillance initiative will determine its presence in certain species and populations of wild fin fish in British Columbia. Infectious pancreatic necrosis and infectious salmon anemia have not been confirmed in British Columbia.

Through this initiative, approximately 5,000 wild salmon will be collected annually, for a minimum of two years. The Agency will also evaluate the ongoing testing of farmed salmon.

All disease testing, as well as any activities undertaken to respond to confirmed cases, will follow international guidelines and national aquatic animal health requirements.

Any confirmed disease cases will be reported on a monthly basis through the Canadian Food Inspection Agency's website as is done for all terrestrial and aquatic reportable diseases. Those interested can subscribe to receive e-mail notifications when the report is updated.

Many organizations are supporting the Agency in this initiative, including Fisheries and Oceans Canada, the Province of British Columbia, First Nations groups, and the aquaculture industry.

For more information on the salmon disease surveillance initiative visit the Canadian Food Inspection Agency's web page on Salmon disease surveillance in British Columbia

 DFO

to Decide on Clayoquot Sound Fish Farm Expansion, Even Disease Outbreaks Go Viral July 9, 2012

CTV News Investigation (Video): More regarding ISAv in BC’s open pen-raised salmon Fears over salmon farm expansion in Clayoquot Sound: DFO decision expected amidst viral outbreaks  Bonny Glambeck “Wild salmon are the life blood of Clayoquot Sound. Please ask Premier Clark to stand up with us & say no to more salmon farms in these waters.“ http://www.livingoceans.org/initiatives /salmon-farming/action

Tofino BC — Mainstream Canada, a Norwegian-owned company, is applying for a new 55 hectare salmon farm in the Clayoquot Sound UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. The proposed feedlot would be sited 12 kilometres northeast of Tofino at Plover Point, on Meares Island.

Transport Canada has completed its environmental assessment of the application and has approved the new feedlot. Mainstream is currently awaiting approval from the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), and from the province of BC for the seabed lease. These decisions are expected this month. If approved, the total number of salmon feedlot sites in the Clayoquot Sound UNESCO Biosphere Reserve would be 21.

In May, Mainstream reported outbreaks of Infectious Haematopoietic Necrosis virus (IHN) on two of their open net-cage salmon farms in Clayoquot Sound. Both farms were culled, and the diseased fish of marketable age were sent to market. IHN is endemic to wild Pacific fish, and at low concentrations is not deadly to them. However, salmon farms amplify diseases, and much like in a crowded hospital, pathogens that are normally not an issue can become deadly.

Dr. Kristi Miller, Head of the Molecular Genetics section at the Pacific Biological Station, Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO), found Infectious Salmon Anemia Virus (ISAv) on 2 other Clayoquot Sound salmon farms late last year. Both of these diseases are highly contagious and can cause mortality in wild and farmed salmon.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) began a two-year coast-wide surveillance program this spring to assess how widespread these diseases are in British Columbia.

A July 2011 internal memo to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans Canada stated that decisions on all new salmon farm applications should be postponed until the recommendations of the Cohen Commission of Inquiry into the Decline of Fraser River Sockeye Salmon have been made. However, the memo goes on to specifically recommend an exception for the Plover Point application.

Expansion of fish farms in the Clayoquot Sound UNESCO Biosphere Reserve is strongly opposed by many groups including Tla-o-qui-aht First Nations.

"It would be reckless to increase the number of fish farms in the UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in the midst of so many disease outbreaks", said Friends of Clayoquot Sound campaigns director Bonny Glambeck. "With Cohen's findings not yet released and CFIA in the midst of a viral survey, this is not the time to be expanding salmon farming in British Columbia waters."

ď ś First detection of Salmon Alphavirus in BC - farmed steelhead June 21, 2012 Dr. Alexandra Morton On March 25, 2012 we purchased 11 farmed steelhead and 3 Arctic Char heads from the Fairway Market in Victoria, BC and sent samples from them for testing for three European farm salmon viruses.

8 came back positive for the salmon heart virus (piscine reovirus) 7 came back positive for Salmon Alphavirus.

7 tested positive for both This is the first-ever report of Salmon Alpha virus in BC although there is a single report by Dr. Michael Kent, of the disease it causes, Pancreas Disease, in Atlantic farm salmon being raised in BC in 1987. The reason I asked the lab to test for these European viruses is because Dr. Gary Marty, the BC farm salmon vet, reported lesions in farm salmon that caused him to include Salmon Alphavirus in his reports to Mainstream and Marine Harvest on at a least 6 occasions from 2007-2009. He cites this paper. One of these cases was in the Broughton Archipelago in 2009 at the Mainstream, site Maude Island. Salmon Alphavirus is not a "reportable disease," but it is killing salmon and trout in Norway, Scotland and Ireland. Chile has requested that it be listed as a reportable pathogen and has also requested permission from the World Trade Organization to block import of eggs from regions with Salmon Alphavirus. I don't know how this virus got into these steelhead raised in Lois Lake BC near Powell River. The eggs were reportedly from the Trout Lodge . The Lois Lake facility reportedly rears imported Atlantic salmon eggs for Atlantic salmon operators in BC.

What is Salmon Alphavirus, SAV? First recognized in Scotland in 1984, SAV was subsequently detected in Ireland and Norway. There are three closely related viruses in this viral family and they are recognized as serious pathogens of farmed Atlantic salmon and rainbow trout in Europe. SAV 1 is the causative agent of pancreas disease (PD). SAV2 is the causative agent of sleeping disease of rainbow trout. SAV 3 has only been detected in Norway (as of 2007) causing Pancreas Disease in Atlantic salmon and rainbow trout.

Pancreas Disease is spreading in salmon farms the length of Norway. Marine Harvest was recently instructed to slaughter an entire farm in Norway by June 20th (Intrafish June 8). There were 90 cases in 2011 and the virus has spread to 8 farms in northern Norway this year (Intrafish May 31, 2012).

Salmon Alpha virus survives well outside the fish drifting through the water spreading the infection.

Chile became extremely alarmed when rumours of Salmon Alphavirus popped up there in 2008.

Santiago Times In 2009 Chile wrote to the WTO asking for permission to ban egg imports from countries known to have Pancreas Disease. This is a problem for countries trying to protect themselves from disease in Atlantic salmon eggs. Canada has expressed fear of trade sanctions if they refused to allow companies to import eggs even from hatcheries that do not meet Canada's standards. In January 2011, Chile made an application to the OIE to have pancreas disease listed as "reportable" but the OIE declined. Scientists and industry debate whether it can be moved in the eggs. (See page 13 of document) Both Atlantic salmon and rainbow trout are susceptible to this disease. Sea lice, and other wild fish may spread the disease.

Where did these farmed steelhead come from?

Fairway Markets told us they source their steelhead from a trout farm in Lois Lake. West Coast Fish Culture (WCFC) reports it is a family owned business rearing 600 tonnes of steelhead a year in a hatchery and Lois Lake. The facility exists within Sliammon Territory. WCFC is one of the six members of the BC Salmon Farming Association.

In 2004, WCFC made a joint application with Marine Harvest for a marine farm site at Raven Bay, Texada Island, but stiff opposition from the Sliammon Nation, Texada Islanders and Georgia Strait Alliance blocked the application.

READ DR. MORTON’S ENTIRE BLOG POST HERE

 Lethal Virus Found in Farmed Salmon May 29, 2012 93 comments

Two companies, three salmon farms and a whole lot of uncertainty — that’s the situation in British Columbia’s salmon farming industry these days. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) has placed three farms under quarantine because of tests that showed evidence of the IHN (haematopoietic necrosis) virus.

While IHN is not harmful to humans, it can be particularly lethal for Atlantic salmon. Finfish such as sockeye, chinook, coho, and rainbow trout can also contract it, though wild populations have, to date, been more resistant.

According to CFIA, the virus is found in the Pacific Ocean watershed of B.C. On occasion, it has also popped up among farmed fish. It can be spread by contaminated equipment and contaminated water, as well as by infected fish, both alive and dead. A vaccine to prevent the virus is available, but the BC Salmon Farmers Association say Mainstream was not using it.

As of this writing, 30 B.C. fish farms have been cleared after being tested for the virus. “Weak positive” results have been found on two Mainstream Canada farms north of Tofino as well as on a Grieg Seafood coho farm near Sechelt. All three farms are under quarantine.

The virus has also cropped up in Washington among Atlantic salmon at a Bainbridge fish farm, leading to destruction of more than a million pounds of Atlantic salmon. In an interview with the Kitsap Sun, John Kerwin, Department of Fish and Wildlife fish health supervisor, said, “Any first time it occurs, you don’t fully understand the impact to wild fish. We know it can impact (farm) fish. If we move fast, we can try to minimize the amplification.”

 Mining Threatens One of BC’s Largest Sockeye Salmon Runs June 15, 2012 (Adapted from a forthcoming publication by MiningWatch Canada on the threats to salmon posed by the push for new mines in BC)

The Thompson River flows into the Fraser River west of Kamloops, B.C. and provides important spawning grounds and migratory routes for a number of salmon stocks. The Adams River is a tributary of the South Thompson and is home to one of the most important sockeye runs in the Fraser River system. Roderick Haig-Brown Provincial Park on the lower Adams River has been recognized by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as one of the world’s greatest natural areas. Chinook, coho, sockeye, and pink salmon also spawn in the Adams River. Of course the Secwepemc who have sustained themselves from the river and the land around it have recognised its importance for thousands of years.

The Valley pit, source of most of Highland Valley’s ore, with the Lornex pit behind

The Thompson River watershed already hosts Canada’s largest copper mine – Teck’s open pit Highland Valley mine. The New Afton mine is in construction, the Harper Creek and Ajax mine projects are in the environmental assessment process, and the Ruddock Creek Project is in advanced exploration. If all these projects go ahead the Thompson could go from having one operating mine to five within its watershed. The Ruddock Creek project is of particular concern as it is in the headwaters of the Adams River, is surrounded by sensitive protected areas, and is an important area for the Secwepemc indigenous economy. Over the last three years members of the Secwepemc community of Neskonlith have invited MiningWatch to make several presentations and discuss the potential impacts of the projects in the area. From these visits it is clear that many Neskonlith people are staunchly opposed to the Ruddock Creek project.

As reported in our last newsletter, the Ajax Mine is of concern to Kamloops residents given that the project is perched on the city boundary and would directly affect an important natural and recreational area.

MiningWatch is collaborating with Sierra Club of BC and Ecovision Law to evaluate potential cumulative effects of these projects and the threat of “worst case scenarios”, and to submit these findings into the individual environmental assessments for the Harper Creek and Ajax mines.

In a semi-arid region, use and changes to hydrology are a major concern for all these projects, as are the potential threats to water quality. MiningWatch is currently trying to get access to results from the federal Environmental Effects Monitoring program for metal mines to better understand these threats.

The latest summary of data, from 2007, clearly indicated that despite general compliance with regulations, “on average” mine effluents are still affecting downstream fish and fish habitat.

 Heavy Metals, Acid Mine Drainage a Threat to Pacific Salmon Watersheds July 19, 2012

Acid mine drainage threatens BC's salmon rivers Heavy metals and sulfuric acid, otherwise known as battery acid, or acid mine drainage, are toxic for wild salmon. That should be obvious, but after Bill C-38 – the federal budget implementation bill which “streamlined” environmental assessments, gutted environmental protection agencies, and virtually eliminated local spill response capabilities – the future of British Columbia’s best remaining salmon rivers and watersheds is uncertain. The possibility of mine pollution leaching into fish habitat and spawning grounds is a real and long-term threat. In fact, it’s already happening. For a glimpse of the future of Pacific salmon watersheds, you may need to look no further than the sordid case of Chieftain Metals and the Tulsequah Chief mine in the Taku River watershed in northwestern BC. The Taku River flows from BC into Alaska and is the largest totally intact watershed on the Pacific coast of North America. It also contains an old mine site, the Tulsequah Chief, which was abandoned in the 1950’s. For over half a century the mine has slowly leaked contaminated water into the best spawning grounds on the highly productive Taku River.

Recent attempts to re-develop the mine – first by Redfern (which went bankrupt in 2009), then by Chieftain Metals (a company co-founded by the former CEO of Redfern) – brought the promise of cleaning up the site. Sadly, it was a false promise. On June 6, 2012, Chieftain Metals announced its intent to close the Interim Water Treatment Plant installed at the Tulsequah Chief site in November 2011 to address chronic acid mine drainage and heavy metals pollution. The company will now be violating its discharge permit, and contaminants will again seep into the river.

What happens now is anyone’s guess. At this time, Chieftain can’t afford to run the water treatment plant. The mine proposal, including a 122 km road through the currently roadless watershed, is fraught with financial and logistical problems and a dwindling social license from the residents of Atlin and the Taku River Tlingit First Nation.

Now is the time for the governments of BC and Canada to step in. If both governments choose to look the other way on the noncompliance by Chieftain Metals, it will show that neither government has any real interest in salmon habitat and fisheries conservation issues.

The stakes are high. The situation facing the Taku River may be a future scenario for the transboundary region as a whole. Along with the Taku River, the Stikine, Iskut and Unuk Rivers support robust populations of all five North American species of Pacific salmon, which sustain commercial, sport, and subsistence fisheries in both BC and Alaska. All of these latter three rivers are threatened by proposed mining projects that dwarf the Tulsequah Chief by several orders of magnitude.

BC Hydro’s Northwest Transmission Line (NTL), a 287 kV power line running 344 km north from Terrace to Bob Quinn on Highway 37 near the Iskut River, is currently under construction in the transboundary region. Billed as a “gateway” project to further industrial development, the power line could lead to the construction of up to 11 new mines.

Most all of these proposed mines, such as Red Chris, Kerr-Sulphurets-Mitchell, and Schaft Creek, are huge open pit copper and gold mines that would leave behind millions of tons of waste rock that would need to be treated for acid mine drainage for centuries to come.

Ingesting even minute amounts of copper makes salmon more susceptible to predation. Ingesting sulfuric acid – created when the mining process exposes sulfide minerals to water and air – is acutely toxic for salmon. In a region that has heavy snows, frequent avalanches and seismic activity, the potential for an industrial accident is high. This poses an unacceptable risk to internationally significant salmon habitat.

In the post-Bill C-38 Canada, our nation’s environmental protections have been greatly weakened.

But as renowned Canadian scientist Dr. David Schindler has said, “All species, including humans, require functioning ecosystems based on healthy habitats. It is the explicit role of government to find the balance between protecting this habitat and encouraging sustainable economic growth – not to pit them against one another.”

The transboundary region is a place where government can still try and get it right. They can start by stepping up and forcing a cleanup of the Tulsequah Chief mine site. Failure to do so would send a signal that both federal and provincial governments have chosen to abdicate their responsibility to protect our environment, and that pollution risks to Pacific salmon watersheds will likely continue to grow.

ď ś Former BC Hydro chairman facing charges under Fisheries Act July 6, 2012

A former head of BC Hydro has been charged with violating the federal Fisheries Act by allegedly damaging local salmon habitat at his waterfront property in West Vancouver. John Laxton, chairman of BC Hydro from 1995 to 1999, built an extensive breakwater in front of his four waterfront properties on Marine Drive between late 2010 and fall of 2011. Officials from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans allege the structure could harm wild salmon stocks. .

A former head of BC Hydro has been charged with violating the federal Fisheries Act by allegedly damaging local salmon habitat at his waterfront property in West Vancouver.

John Laxton, chairman of BC Hydro from 1995 to 1999, built an extensive breakwater in front of his four waterfront properties on Marine Drive between late 2010 and fall of 2011. Officials from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans allege the structure could harm wild salmon stocks.

Search warrant documents filed by the DFO claim Laxton wanted to rebuild the breakwater after it was damaged by a storm. Several weeks after work began, fisheries officers warned him the effort was endangering local fish, the documents state.

Laxton refused to halt construction even after the DFO ordered it.

“We believe we have a right to place rock on the property we own. ... We do not believe you have the jurisdiction,” Laxton stated in court documents from April 2011.

He now faces criminal charges on nine counts under the Fisheries Act for his actions between December 2010 and October 2011. These include five counts of harmful alteration or destruction of fish habitat and two counts of depositing a deleterious substance.

The charges are the latest chapter in Laxton’s four-year battle to rebuild the breakwater — an artificial point of land created by filling in the foreshore with large rocks or lock blocks.

After buying the properties from the province, Laxton applied for a permit to repair the crumbling structures. When the municipality refused in 2008, he took legal action, arguing successfully in B.C. Supreme Court that the repairs did not constitute land use, which can be regulated by the municipality.

“There seems to be no policy reason to oppose the repair of the breakwater,” Laxton said after the ruling in October 2010.

“I presume the dispute is ended.”

A spokeswoman for the DFO declined to comment while the most recent case is in court, but a conviction for Laxton’s alleged environmental damage could carry up to $300,000 in fines, according to court documents.

The charges stem from repeated surprise inspections by DFO officials, who found heavy equipment digging on or near the shoreline with streams of sediment running into the ocean and a large hose pumping dirty water into Howe Sound.

One of Laxton’s neighbours and the construction company behind the project are also facing charges.

Laxton and his co-accused are scheduled to be in North Vancouver Provincial Court in August to face the charges.

Laxton is no stranger to controversy. A key co-conspirator in the so-called Hydrogate scandal of 1996, the then BC Hydro chairman had installed his son-in-law at a subsidiary of the Crown corporation to help carry out a power project in Pakistan.

Laxton had then initiated the incorporation of covert offshore companies to secretly purchase shares for the project, contrary to specific directives by BC Hydro officials. After a few days of intense media pressure in 1999, he admitted to the offshore accounts, resigned as chairman and submitted to disciplinary actions by the Law Society of B.C.

Newfoundland and Labrador

 Salmon Farming Operation Quarantined July 5 2012

Editorial Comment: Once again the open pen salmon feedlot industry, along with elected and appointed government officials, communicates that: •

the potential virus poses no risk to humans or wild fish (no proof)

•

very strict protocols enforced by provincial veterinarians to ensure all the fish that are put into farms are disease and virus free (not enforced)

•

there's a lot of disease and virus in the wild itself and that's where the farmed animals would have picked up the bug (not a problem in the wild, would not be a problem if pens were removed from oceans – overcrowding in pens exacerbates impacts of diseases)

A salmon farming operation in St. Alban's is being quarantined as testing is taking place to determine if the fish have contracted a virus. Miranda Pryor, the Executive Director of the Newfoundland and Labrador Aquaculture Industry Association, says bio security measures are in effect.

Pryor says it could be a few different viruses. She says she's expecting the results from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency soon. Meantime, Pryor says the potential virus poses no risk to humans or wild fish, just the farmed fish in the cage.

There are very strict protocols enforced by provincial veterinarians to ensure all the fish that are put into farms are disease and virus free. Similar measures are taken before they're put in the wild, according to Pryor. She says unfortunately, there's a lot of disease and virus in the wild itself and that's where the farmed animals would have picked up the bug.

Pryor says it's common for any farming operation to have to deal with a disease in the farm. She says we have not experienced anything to this degree in NL yet but the situation certainly isn't new to the farming industry.

ď ś Salmon virus confirmed on Newfoundland's south coast July 7, 2012

OIE Reference Lab Report World Organization for Animal Health: OIE Reference Laboratories are designated to pursue all the scientific and technical problems relating to a named disease or specific topic.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has confirmed that 450,000 farmed salmon, like those from the undated file photo above, have tested positive for a virus. (CBC)

Editorial Comment: Once again: •

Wild stocks are blamed for passing naturally occurring diseases to pen-raised salmon

•

Salmon feedlots are sited in wild salmon migration routes

•

Infected salmon in feedlots impact wild stocks

•

Canada’s taxpayers will pay for financial loss of farmed salmon due to industry practices

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has confirmed that 450,000 salmon at an aquaculture facility on Newfoundland's south coast have been infected with a virus, and will have to be destroyed.

Newfoundland and Labrador's Fisheries Minister Darin King said the virus, known as infectious salmon anemia or ISA, came from wild fish and was discovered through routine testing.

He said his department is now awaiting the agency's order to destroy the fish.

"We're just focused on encouraging the federal government to move quickly to get the fish out of the water and to follow the proper protocols to make sure we contain this and get the situation fixed," stated King.

King also confirmed the salmon farm is in Butter Cove and is owned and run by Gray Aqua Group.

Officials with the company declined requests for interviews. However, a source close to the situation told CBC News that the farm in the Baie D'Espoir area has been on high alert for days.

They also said some mature fish at the facility have already died because of the disease.

Incident a "blip" Miranda Pryor, executive director of the provincial aquaculture association, said the industry would recover.

"What we do know from other regions that have dealt with ISA in the past because this is the first time we've dealt with it ... it's very manageable and we have regions of this country and other countries that have rebounded very well from dealing with a virus like this," said Pryor.

King supported Pryor’s assertion adding that he doesn't think this incident will harm the aquaculture industry in Newfoundland and Labrador. "[It's] an unfortunate blip, but it happens. It happens in all parts of the world where aquaculture is occurring," noted King.

Last month, 700,000 salmon were killed at a fish farm in Nova Scotia after fish there were also infected with ISA. The owner, Cooke Aquaculture, was compensated for its lost stock by the federal government.

 Delay destroying infected salmon questioned July 13, 2012 Alexandra Morton “I didn't actually say it is imperative for officials to find out if this has spread to the wild fish, I don't believe anything the officials say about salmon farms anymore they are all in too deep. I said it is imperative that people learn if this has spread. Testing is so easy I don’t know why no one seems to want to do it. Here in BC if you believe the “officials” you would not think ISA virus is here, but three NOT official labs have found it.”

Dr. Alexandra Morton Marine Biologist A salmon-farming critic is raising questions about the delay to destroy 450,000 infected salmon at a Gray Aqua site near Conne River.

The fish are infected with salmon anemia — a disease that kills fish, but is said to be harmless to humans.

Last week, federal officials ordered the farmed fish to be destroyed, but a plan to do that is still being worked out.

"That's really shocking because they should have a mass mortality plan in place. I can't believe you have an industry in Newfoundland where they have been allowed not to do that," said Alexandra Morton, a British Columbia biologist and expert on the impact that salmon farming has on wild salmon.

Morton said the affected fish are extremely infectious. She said the longer they are in the water, the greater the chances the infection will spread to other farmed salmon or wild fish.

"When this virus spread from Norway to Chile, they were dragging their feet and they lost $2 billion because it spread so fast once it had mutated, so getting out of the water is the only path they can take."

Morton said it's imperative officials find out if the disease is spreading through the wild fish or the farmed salmon.

She said the infection is an influenza virus that mutates rapidly and well.

"The only way any one in the world treats this disease right now is to kill the farmed salmon as fast as possible."

ď ś Infected salmon will not be eaten by humans July 17, 2012

One of 63 comments from a related article: "I happen to work in this industry and with the things I've seen------ I would not eat any of the farmed salmon if I was dying from starvation. Dead and rotten fish is constantly being produced as top grade ...just spice it up or put it in a sauce... use red dye to change the color and don't ask any questions. That’s the way this industry works. Employees work like dogs, low pay, long hours, overheated plants in summer, freezing in winter. They used the downturn in the NL fishery to line their pockets. Don't eat the fish people it’s not fit."

450,000 salmon from pens such as these will have to be destroyed in Butter Cove. CBC

Newfoundland and Labrador's Fisheries Minister said infected salmon ordered killed at an aquaculture site on the south coast will not go to market for human consumption.

Darin King confirmed that 450,000 fish, located at Gray Aqua Group's salmon farm in Butter Cove, will be disposed of in other ways.

"In this particular case, none of these are going to be harvested for consumers," said King. "They're all going to be destroyed through fish meal or landfill or some other appropriate means."

On July 6, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency confirmed some of the 450,000 fish had infectious salmon anemia, a disease which kills fish, but which the agency said is harmless to human health.

The entire stock was worth $10 million, and about half the fish were ready to go to market.

An industry source later said that the company hoped to sell at least part of the stock ordered destroyed to supermarkets.

King said he expected the CFIA to approve the company's operating procedures for disposing of the salmon within the next 24 hours.

The CFIA has set a deadline of Aug. 4 for depopulation to be complete.

Nova Scotia  Another suspected salmon infection probed at Cooke Aquaculture June 19, 2012 The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is investigating another suspected outbreak of infectious salmon anemia at a Cooke Aquaculture operation in Nova Scotia.

“I can confirm another investigation in an aquaculture operation in Nova Scotia,” agency spokesman Guy Gravelle said Tuesday in an interview from Ottawa.

Gravelle wouldn’t comment on details of the investigation, including who the aquaculture operator is or where the salmon farm is located.

“We’re doing preliminary tests.”

Any reportable diseases discovered as a result of the investigation would be posted on the agency’s website, www.inspection.gc.ca, in early July, he said.

Several hundred thousand farmed salmon were destroyed earlier this year after an outbreak of the disease at an open-pen salmon farm outside Shelburne Harbour owned by New Brunswick-based Cooke.

Cooke spokesperson Nell Halse confirmed Tuesday that one of the company’s six operating farms in Nova Scotia is under investigation by the agency, but she wouldn’t disclose which one.

“It’s not in Shelburne or in St. Marys Bay,” Halse said. “If it is confirmed positive and action is taken, we’ll identify where it is.”

The farm in question is a small operation on the South Shore and the two cages under investigation contain about 40,000 fish, or one per cent of the company’s production in Nova Scotia, she said.

Sterling Belliveau, the provincial minister of fisheries and aquaculture, compared infectious salmon anemia to other manageable agricultural diseases and has expressed confidence that aquaculture can be done in an environmentally sustainable way in Nova Scotia.

Fisheries and Aquaculture Department spokesman Brett Loney reiterated that position Tuesday.

“With any farming operation, marine or terrestrial, there are diseases,” Loney said.

The department takes all cases of animal-related disease, including the current suspected case, seriously, he said.

Loney said the aquaculture operator notified the department and agency of increased fish mortalities at the aquaculture site a week ago.

But he wouldn’t identify the operator or the quarantined location for security reasons.

“It’s secured for a reason.”

Infectious salmon anemia isn’t a health threat to humans, Loney said.

The federal government compensated Cooke for some of the costs associated with the spring fish kill because the agency ordered it.

Raymond Plourde, wilderness co-ordinator with the Ecology Action Centre in Halifax, argued that taxpayers shouldn’t have had to pay for Cooke’s mistakes.

And Plourde said the latest investigation supports the centre’s call for a moratorium on open-pen salmon farms.

“This is a reality of their own making,” he said in an interview. “This happens because of their own bad practices.”

Plourde, a former director and vice-president of the Nova Scotia Salmon Association, said infectious salmon anemia was imported from Norway and poses a threat to wild Nova Scotia species, including salmon and trout.

He rejected the government’s comparison of diseases found in open-pen salmon farms to those found in land-based agriculture. “How often are whole herds of cows killed? It’s very rare with livestock.”

Plourde also questioned why the suspected outbreak and the investigation weren’t announced last week when both levels of government were made aware of a potential problem.

Cooke’s aquaculture expansion plans in Nova Scotia have been criticized by traditional fishermen and coastal communities that see large-scale salmon farms as a threat to the marine environment and to lucrative wild fisheries.

ď ś Aquaculture opponents worried by Cooke approval July 5, 2012

Cooke Aquaculture operates open net pen fish farms in several areas around the province. (CBC)

Opponents of a Cooke Aquaculture plan to put two new fish farming sites in Jordan Bay, Shelburne County, are upset with Ottawa's approval of the plan.

Transport Canada says there are enough checks and balances in place to protect the environment if the new farms go ahead, and that "the project is not likely to cause adverse environmental effects."

Sindy Horncastle says that is not the case and even if safeguards do exist there is no enforcement.

"Neither DFO or the provincial government for that matter, has ever enforced any regulations, so there are no controls in place to prevent pollution, pesticide use.

We've seen that in other communities, so we don't feel there is any protection," she said.

Horncastle says Jordan Bay is a sensitive lobster fishing area and an expansion of fish farming could destroy that industry.

The province recently announced 25 million dollars in loans and forgivable loans to help Cooke Aquaculture expand its operations at three locations in Nova Scotia.

ď ś Marine scientist says environmental trouble brewing in Shelburne Harbour July 13, 2012 Moratorium, data sharing and environmental review suggested CBC audio interview: Biologist says Shelburne's sea-bottom is grossly polluted

More than 150 people showed up in Shelburne Thursday to hear Inka Milewski, Science Advisor to the Conservation Council of New Brunswick, give a scientific guided tour of the sea bottom in Shelburne Harbour, under the site of a decommissioned salmon farm.

As part of the Aquaculture Dialogues series, Milewski presented the results of the first year of a multiyear research program in the Inner Shelburne Harbour conducted with the assistance of Nova Scotiabased McGregor GeoScience Ltd. The seafloor imaging and benthic sampling survey at the old Sandy Point salmon aquaculture site showed a considerable degradation of the bottom.

Results of the survey indicate the area of sea bottom below the decommissioned site was highly contaminated and had a very low biodiversity rating. In a CBC interview Friday, Milewski described the sea bottom under the site as "grossly polluted" by large, white "bacterial mats."

The bottom surveyed had lost much of its biodiversity and was populated by a large number of "capitela" worms, which are known to thrive in environments rich in sulphur dioxide, which, she said, is a by-product of high sulphide levels resulting from concentrations of fish feces.

The results of the survey suggest that the entire Inner Shelburne Harbour may not have the capacity to assimilate the "organic waste load" from its multiple farm sites and that additional, sustained, cumulative organic waste loading may prove disastrous for salmon farm operators in Inner Shelburne Harbor.

Milewski revealed that salmon cage sites in Shelburne Harbour - and those likely to be approved in Jordan Bay - far exceed the guidelines for fish numbers established by Fishers and Oceans Canada.

The likely consequence, says Milewski, is that the farm operators will continue to suffer regular losses from disease outbreaks and that the sites will become "dead zones" in which aquaculture cannot thrive.

Milewski said that, in her decades of research in the area, she has seen regular outbreaks of infectious salmon anemia (ISA), sea lice infect caged salmon populations in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. In February, Cooke Aquaculture was forced to slaughter 700,000 salmon in Shelburne Harbour and last week a firm in Newfoundland was ordered by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to slaughter more ISA-infected fish.

In April, Milewski sent a copy of the report and her findings to Fisheries and Aquaculture Minister Sterling Belliveau, with an invitation to meet with him to discuss her findings. She said that, to date, she has had no response to her offer.

The data gathered and analyzed by Milewski and colleagues led to her recommendation that the Inner Shelburne Harbour be cleared of all salmon farm sites. The farm sites are the most significant contributor or organic and nutrient loading to the Harbour and are preventing the Harbour from recovering,” says Milewski.

Further, based on her findings, Milewski says the provincial government must place a moratorium on licensing new salmon farm sites until it conducts a thorough environmental review of existing sites.

The government must release all environmental monitoring data for all existing salmon farm sites, says Milewski. “If the province can’t publicly produce environmental monitoring data from existing fish farms in a timely manner,” she says, “They certainly can’t be relied upon to act when environmental damage is being done by these farms”.

Milewski has presented these findings in Ottawa concerning the former Sandy Point site, before the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans and has been an expert witness in the hearing by the Maine government regarding fin fish aquaculture regulations there.

The evening concluded with a showing of "Salmon Wars", a just-released documentary by Silver Donald Cameron.

 Infected Atlantic salmon for dinner anyone?

July 13, 2012 Infectious salmon anemia virus not a food safety concern for humans SHELBURNE — Atlantic salmon ordered destroyed because they’re affected by infectious salmon anemia could end up on your plate.

That’s because the disposal of infected salmon includes slaughter for human consumption because the virus is not considered a food safety concern for humans, a Canadian Food Inspection Agency spokesman said Friday.

A recent Canadian Press report from Newfoundland says an aquaculture company there wants to process about 450,000 infectious salmon anemia infected fish for the human market. And it is known that when the virus hit New Brunswick hard about 15 years ago, many fish infected by the virus were sold in supermarkets.

On Friday, a spokeswoman for Cooke’s Aquaculture said the hundreds of thousands of salmon in pens near Shelburne that were ordered destroyed earlier this year because of the virus could have ended up in supermarkets if they’d been a little bigger.

“Those fish were sort of halfway through their growth cycle so they were rather small for the marketplace,” said Nell Halse, Cooke’s vice-president of communication.

“Had we had a processing plant (in Nova Scotia) or had the fish been bigger there would have been no reason why we couldn’t have marketed those fish.”

Instead, the fish were euthanized and composted.

An office manager at Gray Aqua Group Ltd. of Newfoundland declined to comment on their plans for their virus-infected salmon when contacted Friday.

Referring to the New Brunswick outbreak, Halse said “there would have been fish going into the marketplace that would have come from ISA-positive farms.”

“But again, you would never know that because those fish are perfectly safe. They look fine. It’s a fish health issue. Not a human health issue.”

When conducting a cull of fish infected by the virus, “a lot of the fish that you are harvesting are actually not diseased,” she said.

However, all harvesting from a quarantine farm is monitored by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and every fish is inspected before leaving the plant, Halse said.

However, she said fish from a quarantined farm would not be labelled as being infected with the virus.

Greg Roach, Nova Scotia’s associate deputy minister of fisheries and aquaculture, said Friday that all fish infected with the virus earlier this year were destroyed, but had they been sold for human consumption they would have posed absolutely no risk to people.

“This particular virus that’s very problematic for salmon doesn’t even hurt other fish let alone warm blooded animals,” Roach said.

“The public can be absolutely assured that no unsafe fish would go into the distribution system.”

 Voice of the People July 18, 2012 No proof salmon safe Re: “Infected Atlantic salmon for dinner, anyone?” (July 14).

“In a recent letter to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, I sought a copy of the study done to make the determination that farmed salmon with infectious salmon anemia (ISA) is safe for human consumption. The information requested was the location of the study, the number of participants, the amount of diseased salmon consumed and over what period of time.

On July 12, I received a response from Kim Klotins, CFIA, that states: “An experimental study where humans are deliberately infected with the virus that causes ISA is highly unlikely to occur for ethical reasons.” She goes on to say, “The population of people that one could consider most at risk of contracting infection is people who handle infected fish — no illness has been described because of the handling of these fish in Norway, Chile, U.S.A. or Canada.”

The conclusion I reach from this information is that no testing has been done to determine if it is safe, and that the ISA epidemic is worldwide.

It makes you wonder when you’re told by CFIA that it is unethical to test infected fish on humans, but it is ethical to sell farmed salmon, infected with the ISA virus, to humans at supermarkets.

Once people started to die from the meat of BSE-infected cattle and chickens infected with the bird flu, measures were put in place to rid the marketplace of these products. In the case of ISA-infected farmed salmon, I guess we will have to wait until some deaths are reported before the “sickly salmon” is removed from the grocery store shelves!”

Darrell Tingley, Lunenburg

Would you eat them?

I read in the July 14 issue of The Chronicle Herald that infected Atlantic salmon from fish farms can be, and have been, slaughtered for human consumption.

My first question to Premier Darrell Dexter is: Would you eat them? My second question is: Why do we, the taxpayers, then pay these companies for their loss?

Would it not make more sense to invest in wild salmon and in their habitats? Why are we not only encouraging big companies to come to our beautiful province to destroy it, but giving them money to do so?

Would it not be more economical to have a province that was free of oil companies that drill next to our largest body of water in Nova Scotia (Lake Ainslie), where salmon, gaspereau and 14 other species of fish live? Salmon and gaspereau alone take in millions of dollars in this area.

I have also read that the Chinese will not eat fish grown in fish farms in their country.

Premier Dexter could make a difference, and be a leader who would be envied by other provinces, if he would look at the big picture and invest in what we already have here.

We don’t need quick fixes; we just need to keep what we have and develop it in a manner that doesn’t hurt our environment and the people, wildlife and plants that live here.

Mary C. Gillis, South West Margaree

Scotland

 Keeping salmon farming problems secret July 1, 2012

Scotland’s £1 billion salmon farming industry has been accused of hiding “damning” information about its environmental dangers from the public.

Salmon companies are refusing to send vital data to Scottish government scientists to avoid it being released under freedom of information law. And on the few occasions they have had to forward information, it has been deleted by government officials.

The information is about one of the biggest problems plaguing salmon farmers - infestations of sea lice. The tiny creatures multiple in salmon cages and can spread to wild fish, eating them alive.

Salmon farmers apply toxic pesticides to try and kill them off, though there are signs that the lice are becoming increasingly resistant. The pesticides have contaminated sea lochs along the northwest coast.

The law requires salmon farmers to regularly monitor the number of sea lice in their cages. They have previously sent the results to Scottish government marine scientists in Aberdeen to help with research and treatment.

But emails released in response to freedom of information requests show that salmon farming companies are no longer supplying the data because it could be accessed by their critics using freedom of information legislation.

In one email, Norwegian-owned Marine Harvest said that releasing the information “could result in misrepresentation of the facts which would of course be damaging to our commercial interests as a company.”

The companies pointed out that they complied with the law by allowing government inspectors to see sea lice counts when they visited individual farms. When computers were down, the information had to be sent in afterwards, they said.

But when the information has been transmitted, it has been scrubbed. In response to a freedom of information request last year, the government’s Marine Scotland Science said it had deleted sea lice data from three Marine Harvest farms “as we had no further use for it”.

This was criticised by the Salmon and Trout Association, an angling group that fears that lice from fish farms harm wild fish. “It seems odd to go about deliberately destroying valuable and possibly contentious biological data, unless you were worried about having to disclose it under freedom of information,” said the solicitor acting for the association, Guy Linley-Adams.

He demanded full publication of the industry’s sea lice data as “a litmus test of the Scottish government’s commitment to limiting the environmental damage caused by the fish farming industry.”

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency told the Sunday Herald that the data “needs to be available on a site-by-site basis in as near to real time as possible, in order to facilitate effective treatment.”

Don Staniford, a veteran campaigner from the Global Alliance Against Industrial Aquaculture, pointed out that detailed sea lice data was published in other major fish farming countries like Norway and Canada. The limited summary information made available by the Scottish industry showed that levels of lice infestation in some areas could rise to six times guideline limits.

“It’s painfully clear that the sea lice data is so damning that it will be a case of publish and perish for Marine Harvest and other salmon farming companies operating in Scotland,” said Staniford.

Marine Harvest stressed that it met legal requirements on reporting lice numbers. “We would be unhappy about the general release of sensitive company information,” said the company’s business support manager in Fort William, Steve Bracken.

The Scottish Salmon Producers’ Organisation, which represents fish farming companies, attacked “single-issue pressure groups” for distorting reality. “It is extremely disappointing to see them continue with their on-going campaign of misinformation,” said the organisation’s chief executive, Scott Landsburgh.

"Farmers monitor sea lice levels on a weekly basis, in accordance with legislative requirements, and these records are inspected by the Scottish government's fish health inspectorate during the hundreds of farm visits that are made each year.”

The Scottish government accepted that it did not possess detailed sea lice data, but claimed companies had not withheld it because of freedom of information law. The data was not going to be included on a new aquaculture website due to be launched next month.

“Our consultation on possible aquaculture and fisheries legislation set out issues related to sea lice data collection and publication,” said a government spokesman. “All of the consultation responses are currently being considered with a view to introducing the bill in the autumn.”

 FishyLeaks:

Scotland’s Secrets Exposed! - Leaked Report Reveals ‘Data Cleansing’ of Diseased Salmon Farming July 17, 2012

A leaked report reveals that the Scottish Government is preparing a public relations offensive to clean up the poor image of Scotland’s foreign-owned salmon farming industry. According to the Marine Strategy Forum report, ‘Scotland’s Aquaculture Database’ will be officially launched publicly at the end of July as a “proactive” weapon in the PR war. As a pre-emptive strike, 'FishyLeaks' today published ‘dirty data’ on diseases, toxic chemicals and mortalities sourced via Freedom of Information (FOI) requests from Marine Scotland and the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA).

Marine Scotland has been ‘data cleansing’ and ‘cleansing data’ for over two years in a project with the Scottish Salmon Producers’ Organisation and SEPA. At a meeting on 15th June, the Marine Strategy Forum met privately to discuss a communications strategy which includes “material for inclusion in Schools pack”, “targeted preparatory presentations” and a “proposed Ministerial Press Notice”. “The database/website allows the opportunity effectively to publish, on a proactive basis, a lot of information that would be releasable under Freedom of Information and Environmental Information legislation,” noted the Marine Strategy Forum [1].

“The proposal for a database, bringing together information from a variety of partner bodies, was made around two and a half years ago by the then head of the Marine Scotland Aquaculture Unit,” stated the leaked report. “Since then, a great deal of work has been done in developing the proposal, comparing and cleansing data, designing the website etc.” “Policy, data cleansing/sharing arrangements and database and website development have now been taken to the stage where.....the database/website will be rolled out to partner bodies later in July; we aim to launch it publicly at the end of July,” continued the report [2].

“This ham-fisted attempt to greenwash the Scottish salmon farming industry is hogwash,” said Don Staniford of the Global Alliance Against Industrial Aquaculture. “Thanks to FishyLeaks the public can now see for themselves the disease-ridden and lethal nature of Scotland’s filthy feedlots. All the ‘data cleansing’ in the world does not alter the fact that salmon farming is a dirty rotten industry. Even cleaning queens Kim and Aggie cannot clean crap off crap!”

FishyLeaks reveals: •

A 'mort mountain' of nearly 7 million farmed salmon in 2011 with over 2 million morts in the first three months of 2012

•

700,000 morts in Orkney alone during March 2012 with 194,905 at one site (Bay of Vady) operated by Meridian

•

Over a quarter of a million farmed salmon (267,114) with a weight of 291,056 kg died during October 2011 at the Scottish Salmon Company’s site at St. Molios on the Isle of Arran

•

Infectious diseases including: Infectious Salmon Anaemia, Ichthyobodo, Vibrio, Cardiomyopathy, Moritella vicosa, Yersinia ruckeri, Epitheliocystis, Salmonid alphavirus, Nephrocalcinosis, Tenacibaculum maritumum, Exophiala, Pasteurella skyensis, Nocardia, Pseudomonas, Flavobacterium, Gyrodactylus derjavinoides and Infectious Pancreatic Necrosis

•

The use of the toxic chemicals Deltamethrin, Azamethiphos, Teflubenzuron and Emamectin benzoate by companies including Marine Harvest, Hjaltland (Grieg), Scottish Salmon Company, Scottish Seafarms and Loch Duart

The Global Alliance Against Industrial Aquaculture (GAAIA) filed a FOI request on 1st July demanding access to all the documents relating to ‘Scotland’s Aquaculture Database’ as well as any data that has been deleted. SEPA and Marine Scotland are now seeking to narrow down the scope of the FOI request. “There is no database cleansing as part of the Aquaculture Database project, if by that is meant changes to or transformation of data, either at source or in the Aquaculture Database, for the purposes of the project,” wrote SEPA on 12th July (read the letter in full online here).

Earlier this month, The Sunday Herald revealed that salmon farming companies are refusing to send vital data to Scottish Government scientists, to avoid it being released under FOI law. In one email made available to journalist Rob Edwards, Norwegian-owned Marine Harvest said that releasing the information “could result in misrepresentation of the facts which would of course be damaging to our commercial interests as a company.” “It seems odd to go about deliberately destroying valuable and possibly contentious biological data, unless you were worried about having to disclose it under freedom of information,” said solicitor Guy Linley-Adams of the Salmon & Trout Association.

Shocking data obtained by GAAIA via FOI in June also revealed that salmon farming companies have killed over 300 seals in Scotland alone since the start of 2011. ‘Farmed Salmon Exposed’ and The Salmon Farm Protest Group have also published damning data on toxic chemicals, diseases, escapes and mortalities. A WWF Report – “Scotland’s Secret?” – also lifted the lid on the full extent of nutrient pollution from salmon farms in Scotland.

“The salmon farming industry is Scotland’s dirty little secret,” continued Staniford (an award-winning campaigner and author). “Instead of cleaning up the image of this foreign-owned industry, the Scottish Government should be cleaning up chemical pollution, infectious diseases and dead seals.

That the Government is now gearing up to launch a PR campaign targeting impressionable schoolchildren is scraping the bottom of the barrel and leaves a nasty taste in the mouth just like Scotland’s Norwegian-flavoured farmed salmon.”

Following a trade junket to Norway in May (when Marine Harvest announced a £80 million five-year plan for Scottish expansion), Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond shamefully described the predominantly Norwegian-owned salmon farming industry as “the essence of Scotland”. Last year, Scotland signed a trade deal with China signalling a “recklessly irresponsible” doubling of Scottish farmed salmon production. Meanwhile, China has imposed restrictions on Norwegian farmed salmon which are “rotting in Chinese warehouses”.

 Yank our salmon off your shelves July 8, 2012

ANIMAL rights campaigners want the US to ban Scottish salmon imports worth more than £200million in a row over seal killings.

Salmon farmers here use marksmen to shoot hundreds of seals a year to stop the animals ripping open underwater cages.

Industry bosses claim a single seal is capable of eating thousands of fish in a matter of WEEKS. But activists say they could stop the seal menace by using high-strength anti-predator nets — just like American fish farmers have to by law.

Seals and other marine mammals are protected in the US by the Marine Mammal Protection Act. It means American farmers have to keep seals away from stock without harming them. John Robins, secretary of Save Our Seals Fund said: “We have asked the US Department of Commerce to use US marine mammal protection laws to ban the import of salmon from Scottish floating factory fish farms.

“This year alone the Scottish Government has issued licenses allowing the killing of 1,100 seals.

“The Scottish Government does not monitor this shooting and relies on returns from those carrying out the shooting to determine how many seals are actually shot.”

It’s claimed the industry use marksmen because it’s cheaper than nets.

Mr Robins added: “Shooting seals costs a fraction of the amount required to install and maintain predator exclusion nets.”

More than 43,000 tonnes of factory farmed Atlantic salmon were shipped from Scotland to the US last year, earning an estimated £211million, and supporting around 6,000 jobs.

Spain  Spain: Of Sun, Siestas — and Salmon?

June 21, 2012.

A happy fisherman holds a healthy Atlantic salmon, about to be released back into the Cares River. Most fishermen still keep such fish, a practice that some guides believe must change if the species is to survive. Photo courtesy of Luis Menendez.

“In this place, there are sometimes 100 salmon at a time,” says Luis Menendez to me as we stand side by side on a bridge over a deep green pool on the Cares River in Niserias, a five-building cluster of old bars and a hotel, just across from a famed fish ladder and only miles downstream of the huge summits and canyons of the Picos de Europa.

Menendez is a local lifelong fisherman and a professional fly fishing guide. Born in the nearby cider-making town of Nava, Menendez knows the sight of a stream full of 10-, 15- and 20-pound salmon. But on this drizzling afternoon, we see none—and it’s a safe bet that there are no salmon in the pool at all, for this spring’s return of fish has been a poor one compared to historical returns. We take a drive along the river, canyon walls to either side, and pass through the thriving mountaineers’ and hikers’ town of Las Arenas. Menendez rolls down the window to call over a friend. He asks if he has heard of any salmon recently caught.

“None,” the man says.

That, Menendez says as we drive on, is one of the best fishermen in the area and was once one of the best known professionals, on whom local restaurants could often depend for a fresh salmon before the government banned the sale of river-caught fish about 10 years ago. Now, about the only way to taste Spanish salmon is to buy a fishing license and catch one.

READ ENTIRE SMITHSONIAN BLOG POST HERE

USA  A look back to 2010: Testimony to NOAA regarding Ocean Aquaculture Neil Frazer1,2 Professor of Geology and Geophysics, School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI 96822. Tel: 808-956-3724.

Email: neil@hawaii.edu Given May 9, 2010.

Summary Sea-cage farming of carnivorous finfish has been an environmental and social disaster wherever it has been allowed to scale up. Production of each pound of farm fish consumes 4–5 pounds of pelagic forage fish that are an important dietary item in poor countries. Sea-cages function as unintended pathogen culture facilities that amplify diseases from wild fish, causing infection rates in wild fish to increase and wild fish to decline. The sea-cage industry employs many disease specialists with PhD’s, but wherever it proliferates, commercial fisheries, subsistence fisheries and sport fisheries are reduced or destroyed, causing loss of social license and widespread public protest.

The loss of subsistence fisheries is especially hard on aboriginal peoples.

In order to avoid the mistakes of countries such as Norway and Canada, the following suggestions are offered: (1) Study the aquaculture of other countries directly rather than relying on what is said by their government and industry officials. (2) Understand the ecological principles underlying traditional Hawaiian aquaculture and other aquacultures that have been demonstrated to work over centuries.

(3) Remember that, as fish cannot avoid modern methods of capture, the capture fishery is now a form of aquaculture; until it has been restructured for sustainability, no offshore finfish aquaculture should be permitted. (4) Allow Hawaii to manage its own fisheries out to the limit of the EEZ. (5) Be aware that the literature of parasite interchange between farm fish and wild fish in sea-cage aquaculture is contentious for reasons having more to do with commerce than with science. (6) Promote a level playing field for environmentally responsible U.S. aquaculture by advocating countervailing duty tariffs against countries such as Canada that subsidize their aquaculture by permitting environmentally destructive practices.

1. Introduction My motivation for testifying is that I happen to be from British Columbia, Canada where sea-cage salmon farming has been an environmental and public relations disaster.3 Everyone there who lives anywhere near it, and is not on the payroll, detests the sea-cage industry with a passion that is difficult to imagine by those who haven’t studied the subject carefully.4,5 I would be sorry to see the U.S. repeat the mistakes of Canada and the other countries that have uncritically adopted sea-cage fish farming. By the evidence, nobody, absolutely nobody, knows yet how to do open ocean aquaculture in a sustainable way. As currently practiced, sea-cage fish farming is just a disguised capture fishery in which forage fish from the eastern Pacific are ground into oil and meal, adulterated with vegetable material Testimony ~ L. N. Frazer 2 and shipped thousands of miles to feed carnivorous fish.6 Commercially, it is the most precarious form of aquaculture since its existence depends on the nutritional and toxicological ignorance of consumers, on low energy prices, and on exchange rates that temporarily allow wealthy nations to purchase an important source of dietary protein in poor nations and feed it to animals.7,8 In addition to learning from the aquaculture mistakes of other countries, NOAA could learn from mistakes made in capture fisheries. The lesson from capture fisheries seems to be that centralization of authority leads to regulatory capture, which leads to subsidies, which lead to overcapitalization and eventual destruction of the resource.9,10

READ ENTIRE NOAA TESTIMONY HERE

Alaska  Big Red: The Season for Bristol Bay Sockeye Salmon Is Here June 18, 2012

Protect Bristol Bay – Forever!

Salmon enthusiasts, start your grills: the world’s largest wild sockeye run, in Bristol Bay, Alaska, is open for commercial fishing—and with a commercial forecast of 21.7 million fish, it shaping up to be another abundant season for this delicious, healthy and sustainable fish.

Dillingham, Alaska (PRWEB) June 18, 2012 Although the Bristol Bay salmon season has been open since the beginning of the month, today marks the more-official start of the season, when all Bristol Bay commercial fishermen are required to “drop their cards,” an official Alaska Department of Fish & Game (ADF&G) process that requires Bristol Bay fishermen to declare a district to harvest in during the duration of the summer season.

Known as the “salmon lover’s salmon” and celebrated for its brilliant red color and robust flavor, sockeye from Bristol Bay is naturally rich in heart-healthy Omega 3s and bone-boosting vitamin D. Its firm texture and distinctive flavor invites a wide variety of preparation techniques, from sautéing to grilling to smoking.

ď ś Alaska governor seeks disaster aid for weak salmon runs July 14, 2012

(Reuters) - Alaska's governor asked the Obama administration on Saturday to declare a fisheries disaster for parts of the state where weak salmon runs are taking a toll on Native Alaskan villagers who rely on wild fish for food and as one of their few income sources.

Governor Sean Parnell made the request to acting Commerce Secretary Rebecca Blank in a move that could free up some financial aid for impoverished residents of villages that depend on salmon from the Yukon and Kuskokwim Rivers in western Alaska.

"Residents in the Yukon and Kuskokwim regions experience some of the highest poverty rates in the country. Earnings from even small commercial fisheries are critical to make it through Alaska's winters," Parnell said in a statement.

"Even more important to these residents' survival is the ability to engage in subsistence harvests," he said.

If granted by the acting secretary, the disaster declaration would not automatically trigger financial aid. Such aid, available under federal law, would have to be appropriated by Congress, according to the National Marine Fisheries Service.

On the Kuskokwim River, the 2012 salmon return is shaping up as one of the worst in state history, according to state Department of Fish and Game figures. There have been rolling closures there for even the traditional subsistence harvests.

The Kuskokwim run of king salmon, also called Chinooks, was poor last year, too, limiting the commercial catch of that species to a negligible amount, Parnell said in his letter to Blank.

On the Yukon River, whose kings are among the most prized of Alaska salmon because of their high oil content, size and taste, returns of king salmon were so low as to force a ban on commercial harvests, the Department of Fish and Game said.

The Yukon River commercial king salmon harvest is usually worth $3 million a year, Parnell said. Last year's Yukon River king run was also extremely weak.

But this year's Yukon River run of lower-priced and lower-quality chum salmon is above the historic median, allowing for some commercial harvests to continue, according to a summary issued on Friday by the department.

Parnell said runs of king salmon in the Cook Inlet region near Anchorage were also extremely low, and may qualify for a disaster declaration as well.

The governor said state officials were gathering scientific data to back their request for a disaster declaration and trying to determine the reasons for the poor runs.

ď ś Fish Factor: Buoys measure ocean acidification June 22, 2012 Thanks to a nearly $3 million show of support from the state, high tech buoys will soon be measuring ocean acidity levels year 'round, and Alaska fishermen will play an important role in the research.

Basic chemistry proves that ocean waters are becoming more corrosive and it is happening faster in colder waters. The acidity, caused by increasing carbon dioxide emissions, can prevent shells from forming on crabs or oysters and tiny shrimp-like organisms essential to fish diets.

Alaska's monitoring project will allow scientists to develop a "sensitivity index" for the Gulf of Alaska, Bering Sea and the Arctic and key species in the regions.

"By doing that we will get an idea of which regions are the most vulnerable," explained Jeremy Mathis, a chemical oceanographer and director of the Ocean Acidification Research Center at the University of Alaska/Fairbanks. "After that, we will be able to start modeling out some scenarios using our ocean observations combined with subsistence and economic data — where if there was a disruption in a certain species, we could quantify those costs.

"We can communicate with stakeholders and policy makers using numbers instead of in terms of pH levels and saturate rates," he added.

Mathis and his team will begin ordering and building the buoy equipment next month with deployment planned for March. The fully loaded buoys each come at a price tag of about $300,000, or "roughly the price of one 10 day research cruise."

The buoys will be located in Southeast, Resurrection Bay off Seward, Kodiak, and the Bering Sea. "That buoy sits about 100 miles west of Bristol Bay, right in the middle of the big crab fishery. So between those four sites we are able to monitor where the stakeholders and the fisheries are, and ultimately we will be able to answer some of those ecosystem questions," Mathis said.

The OA research center will contract with fishermen and vessels for buoy deployments and maintenance, as well as for collecting water samples to expand the ocean chemistry data base.

"We hope to be able to utilize the fleets in these different locations, rather than charter a research vessel from somewhere else," Mathis said, adding that he gets a dozen calls a week from fishermen and others offering to collaborate on OA related research.

Mathis said he was amazed at how quickly Alaskans have organized in support of expanding OA research and called the state money "a major victory for science this year."

We are at the tip of the spear in terms of the impacts we are going to have and because of the fisheries we rely on.

It is truly amazing to see the support at the grass roots level and have the legislature and the governor step up and allow us to take the national lead on this," Mathis said.

The state will get a good return for its investment. By putting up the seed money for the buoys, federal agencies such as NOAA and the National Science Foundation can partner with the Alaska project for the long term.

"It is a way to bring funds into the state. We will now be more competitive in bringing in federal science dollars into Alaska and the university with a high return. Over the next five years, my group alone will be able to bring in significantly more federal dollars than what the state has invested in it.

But we would probably not have been able to do it if the initial investment had not been made."

Pollock dodge - One key species that appears to be dodging the corrosive ocean bullet is Alaska pollock. Based on the first multi-year studies, pollock seem to be unaffected changes in ocean acidity levels.

"We didn't see dramatic declines in growth or death rates when we exposed them to the more acidic conditions," Mathis said. "We are hoping we can continue research to show that pollock might have some natural resiliency to changes in ocean conditions."

The report on pollock and ocean acidification is on its way to science journals.

Fish watch - Bristol Bay opened its salmon season on June 1; Kodiak followed on June 9. Catches of Copper River reds have topped the one million mark. No fishing for Yukon kings for the third year in a row. State managers predict a lower statewide salmon harvest this year of 132 million fish (177 million last year) due to a decrease in pink catches. ... Halibut fishermen have taken 37 percent of their 24 million pound catch limit; sablefish longliners have taken nearly half of their 29 million pound quota. Prices for halibut are still topping $6 pound at major ports, and $9 for large sablefish. ...Southeast Alaska's summer Dungeness fishery began June 15. ..Jig fisheries have reopened for cod reopened in the Gulf and Aleutians regions.... The Bering Sea pollock and cod fisheries reopened on June 10. The Bering Sea snow crab fishery, which got underway in January, has finally wrapped up its longest season ever, due to ice freezing up the fishery. Estimates peg the snow crab catch at just shy of the 80 million pound catch quota.

California

 10 years after Klamath Fish Kill a County and Tribe Fight to Avoid Another Disaster July 3, 2012 Humboldt’s 50 Year Old Water Right Could be Key for Survival for Record Salmon Run

10 years after Klamath Fish Kill a County and Tribe Fight to Avoid Another Disaster Humboldt’s 50 Year Old Water Right Could be Key for Survival for Record Salmon Run

Eureka, California - When Central Valley farmers came for the Trinity Rivers’ water in 1955, Humboldt County, a small rural county supported by commercial fishing, saw the writing on the wall.

The diversion of the Klamath’s River’s largest tributary could mean that there would not be enough water for Humboldt County needs. In a show of vision for the time, Humboldt County fought the big water interests in the Central Valley and won an entitlement to 50,000 acre feet of water from the Trinity River Division.

“Humboldt County secured this water on top of the language in the 1955 bill that conditioned the diversion of Trinity River water with the need to first protect fish and wildlife.

Yet this language, and our water right, were never respected, and soon 90% of the Trinity was going to the Central Valley. This took a huge toll on our fish runs, and our economy.” stated Ryan Sundberg a Humboldt County Board of Supervisor. “We now feel that to use that water for salmon is the best use of water for economic development consistent with California water law requirements to use water for ‘beneficial use’. For us fish equal jobs.”

Diversions continued until 2000 when the Hoopa Tribe, supported by legislation, a 14 year flow study, and multiple court rulings won back 50% of the Trinity’s flows from California’s agribusiness giants and power users.

“The 2000 Record of Decision restored flows to the river and funded a massive, scientifically based restoration project on the Trinity.” stated Hoopa Valley Tribal Chairman Leonard Masten, Jr. “Unfortunately the decision was still being litigated when the 2002 Klamath fish kill happened. This year we hope that all responsible Californians will unite to support our work to save the fishery and the North Coast jobs it makes possible.”

Fears of a fish kill on the Klamath River arose when Federal, State, and Tribal scientists concluded that a record number of adult salmon, nearly 380,000 fall run salmon alone, will migrate up the river this fall. This number is 2.4 times the run in 2002 when water levels were much too low for the number of fish leading to the stranding and killing of an estimated 30 to 70,000 adult salmon. In 2006, a West Coast fishing disaster was declared as low runs of Klamath Salmon shut down commercial fishing on the West Coast and left California’s two largest tribes, which are located on the Klamath and Trinity River with too little fish.

 Ten years later, the Klamath River flows are uncertain as a controversial water sharing and dam removal plan is still in limbo. This is why Humboldt County, supported by the Hoopa Valley Tribe and Fisheries management agencies, are asking that federal dam operators release Klamath and Trinity water to provide safe passage for migrating fish. They have been joined by the Trinity Management Council, who recently released a study calling for much higher fall flows in the Klamath -Trinity River to protect Klamath Salmon, the Pacific Fisheries Management Council, several congressmen, and sport fishing groups. Water managers in California have been supportive of these requests so far.

The Hoopa Valley Tribe has been fighting for water for the salmon on the Trinity River for over thirty years. Another fish kill could be catastrophic. “For the Hoopa Tribe the salmon are no less important to us then the air we breathe” explained Chairman Masten. “We are as committed now to the recovery of the Klamath and Trinity salmon as we ever were, and we will support anyone working to find water for their recovery.”

Until then Tribal fishermen, Humboldt County, and fisheries managers are watching the River and waiting for Federal and State agencies to act.

Washington State ď ś Fish return to undammed Elwha River First hope for salmon and trout restoration in biggest dam-removal project in US history.

July 5, 2012

Parts of the Elwha River in Washington are flowing freely for the first time in a century, granting access to spawning fish.

A project to remove two hydroelectric dams from the Elwha River in Washington state is bringing benefits for local wildlife. In June, only months after the removal of the first dam was completed, salmon and steelhead spawned in two tributaries that had been inaccessible for more than 100 years.

But the fish are not home free yet. Massive amounts of sediment that had accumulated behind the dam have now been released, and could clog the gills of young and adult alike, killing them. The sediment will muddy the waters for at least three years before spreading out and rebuilding downstream river beds and coastal beaches; until then, the fish must navigate treacherous waters to breed.

The 72-kilometre Elwha River runs through Olympic National Park before spilling into the Strait of Juan de Fuca, on part of the reservation of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, whose people once relied on the river’s bounty. Before the construction of first the 33-metre-high Elwha Dam and then the 64metre-high Glines Canyon Dam in the early twentieth century, the Elwha River boasted abundant populations of all five Pacific Northwest salmon species, as well as steelhead trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss), native char (species of Salvelinus) and coastal cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus clarkii).

The dams not only blocked access for fish, but also promoted erosion of downstream river beds and disrupted natural flow cycles. In 1992, after years of debate, the US Congress passed the Elwha River Ecosystem and Fisheries Restoration Act, authorizing the biggest dam removal in US history.

Work began to remove the dams in September 2011, and by March 2012, parts of the river flowed freely for the first time in more than a century.

“That was a great celebration,” says Robert Elofson, director of the Lower Elwha tribe’s River Restoration Program.

Farming furore Yet controversy resurfaced in February, when four fish-advocacy groups sued the US National Park Service, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries Service, US Fish and Wildlife Service and the Lower Elwha tribe — among other bodies — over the use of fish hatcheries to restore salmon.

The suit claims that the hatcheries violate the Endangered Species Act, and the farmed salmon and steelhead could harm wild fish, such as threatened Puget Sound chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha), steelhead and bull trout (Salvelinus confluentus). Any harm to these species could in turn hurt endangered killer whales (Orcinus orca) that feed on the fish at sea.

Those opposed to the hatcheries say that they are unnecessary because salmon and trout have evolved to deal with occasional volcanic explosions and other cases of massive sediment load, and can recolonize streams without assistance. Nevertheless, many people involved with the project feel that the Elwha River’s salmon and steelhead populations need a boost from the farmed fish.

Not the only could the fish be smothered by sediment, but the eastern portion of the river’s estuary, where young fish mature, is already nearly completely blocked with sand and gravel, with just a narrow access channel remaining. And when the upstream Glines Canyon Dam is completely removed by the end of the summer, another massive slug of sediment will hit the river.

“The short-term impacts are going to be adverse. There’s no doubt about it,” says Brian Winter, manager of the National Park Service's Elwha River Restoration Project. “There’s a really high sediment load.”

Relocation, relocation With the hatchery stalled, other salmon-restoration projects have begun, with promising signs of success. Biologists relocated 600 adult coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch) to above the former site of the Elwha Dam but below Glines Canyon Dam, and half spawned there. John McMillan, a biologist at the NOAA Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Seattle, Washington, says that many of the fish spawned in Little River and Indian Creek, two primary tributaries previously blocked by the lower dam. The biologists also relocated 45 steelhead to Little River, and have since observed 36 nests, or redds, in that stream.

Even more promising is that as of mid-June, spawning steelhead have swum upstream of their own accord. “We were able to document natural colonization of the middle Elwha River by at least two steelhead,” says McMillan.

Fishing on the Elwha River will be restricted for five years, and although treaty rights grant the Lower Elwha the right to fish the river, they have voluntarily suspended their rights for five years to allow fish populations to recover.

Whatever the result of the hatcheries litigation, salmon and steelhead fry are already emerging in reaches of the Elwha River and its tributaries that have not seen their kind for decades.

 Chehalis

River Basin Flood Authority approves two levee projects opposed by Quinault Indian Nation July 12, 2012

Dear Chehalis River Basin Flood Authority: On behalf of the Quinault Indian Nation (QIN), I write to oppose the proposed Adna and Airport levee projects being voted on today. As a signatory to the Treaty of Olympia (1855), the Nation is the only Indian tribe with federally-guaranteed fishing, hunting and gathering rights in the Chehalis River Basin. These levees are likely to adversely impact the Nation’s federally- protected treaty rights.

Despite the overtures that were made to me during my attendance at the workshop in June to work cooperatively with the Quinault Indian Nation, the interests of the Quinault Nation are once again being largely ignored. I am also concerned that the proposals were circulated to our staff without adequate technical analysis and opportunity for comment. It is unacceptable for the Flood Authority to effectively leave the QIN out of critical decision making processes.

The materials that were circulated in support of these proposed projects provided no analysis of impacts to fish habitat—only a summary conclusion of “no downstream impacts” With which we disagree. Providing a day of review with no technical justification shows little respect for deliberative decision-making. This utter failure to provide sufficient information to evaluate potential impacts on ecological functions important betrays the public trust in providing the information needed for understanding and is unacceptable to the QIN. We believe these projects would incrementally change the physical characteristics of the basin and negatively affect habitat and productivity of resources of interest to QIN. Incremental degradation of the Chehalis River aquatic system and related watershed processes (input, movement, storage of water, wood, sediment, and energy through a system impacted by weather, geology, soils, topography, and human land and water uses) will result as well as cumulative changes to the floodplain, flow velocity could result in increases in erosive power (stream banks and bed) as well as the habitat and how wood, water, and sediment move through/are stored in the system.

The Flood Authority has mischaracterized the Adna project as a levee while it is in reality a rail line.

The Flood Authority has not provided an analysis of cumulative direct and indirect impacts or explained the connection and associated impacts of these proposed projects to the FEMA floodplain mapping that appears to be ongoing in the Basin, or other projects such as the Louisiana Avenue Connector project.

In sum, because of the woefully inadequate environmental analysis of impacts, continuing lack of respect for the rights and interests of the Quinault Nation, and the extremely short time period for consideration of these projects, I urge that these projects not be approved..

Sincerely, Ed Johnstone, Fisheries Policy Spokesperson Quinault Indian Nation

 Hatcheries Are Needed Tools

By Billy Frank Jr. NWIFC Chairman

Salmon hatcheries are under attack by people with very short memories. They have forgotten why many hatcheries were built in the first place. Most were built to make up for lost natural salmon production caused by habitat damage and destruction.

Today, more than half of the chinook and coho we harvest are hatchery fish. That’s a direct reflection of the huge amount of natural salmon production we have lost. We continue to lose more every day.

I think hatcheries are a necessary tool that we can use to help recover wild salmon while also providing limited harvest opportunities. I wish we didn’t need hatcheries. I wish abundant wild salmon stocks could thrive in their current habitat, but they can’t.

In response to declining wild salmon runs, we have cut harvest to the point that more reductions will not contribute to salmon recovery. That’s because there isn’t enough good salmon habitat left to support natural salmon production.

Do hatcheries threaten wild salmon stocks? Of course there are risks associated with hatchery programs. There is risk that the program might fail; risk that hatchery salmon will compete with wild salmon for food and space in our rivers; and risk that hatchery fish might affect wild salmon if they interbreed. These are all risks we must measure and balance, and under the science-driven Hatchery Reform effort of the past 12 years, we have done that.

We also need to weigh the risk to wild salmon from lack of habitat. Hatchery salmon were never intended to replace naturally spawning salmon. But that’s what’s happening after more than a century of habitat degradation. We’ve become dependent on hatcheries and the fish they produce because we are losing the battle to recover naturally spawning salmon and their habitat.

Another risk we must measure is the risk to our treaty rights. We tribes depend on hatcheries to support our treaty fishing rights, to provide salmon for our tables, our cultures and our economies.

All fishermen – Indian and non-Indian – rely on hatcheries. Some facilities produce fish for harvest, which helps reduce fishing pressure on naturally spawning salmon. Others are dedicated nurseries where weak wild stocks and their offspring are protected from disappearing altogether.

White River chinook wouldn’t be here today if not for hatcheries. By 1977, fish-blocking dams and other habitat losses resulted in only 66 adult chinook returning to the river. An egg bank was created that year to save White River spring chinook from extinction. We were almost too late. In 1986, just six adults returned. But today those fish have a future. In 1989, the Muckleshoot Tribe’s White River Hatchery opened to protect, preserve and restore those spring chinook. Returns today number in the thousands every year. It’s a direct result of good hatchery management practices, habitat improvements in the upper watershed and cooperation by the tribes, state and others.

Don’t get me wrong. Tribes don’t prefer to rely on hatcheries for the salmon that are the foundation of our cultures and treaty rights. Hatcheries are not a long-term solution to salmon recovery. But when they are managed as part of a river’s ecosystem and combined with conservative fisheries and habitat improvements, they can be effective tools that provide fishing opportunities for everyone.

We can’t forget that the true path to salmon recovery requires that we protect and repair habitat. It always has, because habitat is the key to salmon recovery.

 Murray and Dicks introduce Wild Olympics bill June 23, 2012

Wild Olympics Campaign This area on the East Fork of the Humptulips River, with kayakers on it, is being proposed as Wild and Scenic by the Wild Olympics Campaign.

Editorial Comment: Wild Game Fish Conservation International has yet to take a position regarding the proposed “Wild Olympics” legislation.

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WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Sen. Patty Murray and Congressman Norm Dicks introduced the Wild Olympics Wilderness and Wild and Scenic Rivers Act of 2012 today, roughly three years after conservation and recreation groups started the conversation to expand protection of areas around Olympic National Park.

The plan has been scaled back from that first proposal, which sought a “wilderness” designation on upwards of half a million acres of land. The conservation groups trimmed the plan on their own after conversations with area tribes, timber companies and opponents of the expanded protections. Once the idea was turned over to Dicks and Murray, the plan was reduced even further. The legislation now contains 126,554 acres of land that would be designated as wilderness. An additional 5,346 acres of wilderness could be designated by future administrations. Logging is not allowed in official wilderness areas.

In the plan, 768 acres of what is considered timber that could be logged by conventional methods, as well as 830 acres of timberland that could only be logged by using a helicopter, would be designated as wilderness. There are also 2,978 acres of scattered timberland, but in areas even more remote than those designated for helicopter logging.

The plan contains “wild and scenic” designations on 19 rivers and seven tributaries inside the park or outside of the park, mainly on state or federal lands.

Also gone is a plan that would have allowed the park to expand by letting private landowners sell their land to the National Park if they were in a designated area.

The plan now would only affect state or federal land, not private property owners.

“The amazing natural treasures in the Olympic Peninsula are among the crown jewels of our state, and the Wild Olympics proposal will build on the strong foundation of conservation that has been laid down over generations,” said Sen. Patty Murray in a press release. “I was proud to work closely with Representative Dicks and the local community for over two years to arrive at the compromise proposal we are introducing today. Passing the Wild Olympics bill will be a huge victory for the Olympic Peninsula and Washington state, and I am going to fight hard to get that done.”

“This legislation will protect sources of clean drinking water, preserve critical salmon and steelhead habitat, and protect the area economy,” said Congressman Norm Dicks. “The feedback we have received from everyday citizens has played a vital role in the development of this legislation. The result has been a consensus proposal that will help protect these sensitive areas on the Olympic Peninsula and continue our progress to protect and restore Puget Sound and Hood Canal for future generations.”

Murray’s Office pitched the proposal as necessary to protect “sources of clean drinking water for local communities,” “critical salmon and steelhead habitat,” key recreational opportunities as well as rivers and streams “vital to the health and restoration of Puget Sound.”

The legislation would create new responsibilities for the U.S. Forest Service to figure out how to manage the lands, as well as set up a management plan for the wild and scenic designations.

However, the legislation will not contain any new funding. The Forest Service will have to use its regular budget to do the job.

READ ENTIRE DAILY WORD ARTICLE HERE

ď ś Steelhead

returning to upper White Salmon River following Condit Dam removal (October 2011)

Watch Condit Dam removal video here

 Our Views: Steep-Slope Logging Debate Needs Best Inclusive Science Chronline.com June 28, 2012

A striking photo (above) that ran on the front page of The Seattle Times a week after the December 2007 flood showed a logged-over Willapa Hills slope scarred with mudslides, intuitively proving the decisive role of logging in flooding — right?

In fact, many of the steep-slope slides that contributed mud and trees to the witch’s brew in the 2007 flood came from slopes that hadn’t been logged in generations. There are photos showing mudslides tearing through hillsides with mature trees, just as there are photos of slides on logged-over hills.

The truth is complex, a fact that continues to bedevil us nearly five years after that horrible flood.

The Seattle Times reported this week that the debate continues on this thorny issue, delaying a $1.5 million report on steep-slope logging that was due two years ago.

Scientists have scoured the hills, cataloguing 1,147 landslides triggered by the pounding rain of early December 2007.

Researchers have finished a draft of the study, but disputes among scientists involved with the report have delayed its final release.

The outcome is important. This science-based approach is intended as a guide for crucial rules and guidelines about which trees should be left standing and which should be logged on steep slopes.

The decisions made based on this report will affect downstream residents, loggers in the region and the ecological health of rivers.

While clear-cutting on dangerous hillsides should not be allowed, neither should we mandate that strips of trees be left standing in areas where they will just fall and clog creeks during heavy winds and rainfall.

Editorial Comment: Agreed!

Common sense, backed by unbiased science, is a must when managing the commercial forests throughout the Chehalis River basin is a must if those of us who live work and play in this unique basin are to do so in a responsible manner.

Reasonable forest practice regulations that are adequately enforced are a must. Unfortunately, state ad federal regulators have turned a blind eye to ongoing infractions of existing regulations to the point that steepslope clearcuts are commonplace and inadequate reforestation has taken place for decades.

Now is the time for an immediate and permanent moratorium on steepslope clearcut logging throughout the Chehalis River basin. Now is also the time for reasonable regulations and effective enforcement in order to protect downstream residents, our property and the basin's natural resources

Current restrictions are already in place, and those guidelines should be followed and enforced.

Common sense also must play a role. Clear-cutting of a steep slope directly next to a roadway is a disaster just waiting for the next good rainfall to bring down debris. On the flip side, we have all been out hiking and have seen where logging companies have been forced to leave a swath of trees around the creek bed. Return the following year and half of the trees are downed by wind. The trees are not harvested and now clog the stream anyway.

Regulators, landowners and timber companies need to log and need to be able to use science and common sense to do so in a way that protects downstream residents.

The DNR and those involved in the study need to come to an agreement and release the report. The interests of downstream residents and our logging-dependent communities depend on accurate and fair rules based on broad scientific input.

ď ś Western Washington Tribes Say Tribal Fishing Rights at Risk July 1, 2012

SEATTLE (AP) — More than 150 years ago, American Indian tribes in western Washington ceded much of the state to the federal government in return for guarantees of salmon and other fishing rights.

Now, those tribes say their treaty rights with the U.S. are at risk because the region is losing habitat that salmon need to survive. They say their treaty rights won't mean much if there's no salmon to harvest, and they're warning the federal government that they could resort to court action if more isn't done.

"The tribes' treaty rights, the basis of their economy, culture and way of life are at stake," said Mike Grayum, executive director of Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission, an organization of 20 treaty tribes including the Hoh, Upper Skagit, Puyallup, Tulalip, Nooksack and Nisqually.

"Their very being is dependent on these natural resources. They don't exist without them. From the tribes' perspective, everything is at stake here. Their backs are against the wall."

Frustrated by the lack progress in recovering salmon in Puget Sound and along the coast, the western Washington tribes last summer took their concerns to the White House. In a report, they charged that the federal government has not lived up to its obligations under treaties signed in 1854 and 1855. The agreements preserved the tribes' right to harvest fish and shellfish in traditional grounds outside their reservation, a right reaffirmed in the 1974 Boldt decision and others.

"We need a change," said Billy Frank Jr., chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission and a member of the Nisqually Tribe, who was involved with fish-in protests in the early 1970s.

"We're on a course that's going down. If we don't turn it around, there's not going to be anything left. ... We have to turn it around."

Billy Frank Jr.

Last fall the White House Council on Environmental Quality directed regional leaders of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to come up with a plan to address the tribes' concerns.

In May, those agencies agreed to better use their existing regulatory authorities and incentive programs to protect and restore salmon habitat. They also proposed a forum between tribes and federal agencies to resolve local habitat problems with tribes in Puget Sound and along the Washington coast.

Bob Turner, assistant regional administrator for the salmon management division of NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service, said the agencies take seriously the issues the tribes raised.

"We need to do something to reverse the trends. We aren't gaining ground on habitat productivity," he said. "We are not in disagreement about the goal or concern."

The tribe is working on how to respond to the federal agencies.

"We would characterize it as a positive step forward ... but it's a small step," Grayum said. "It still comes up short of what we think is needed."

Despite millions of dollars spent on salmon recovery efforts in the region, steelhead and salmon such as the Puget Sound Chinook continue to struggle. Development, logging, loss of wetlands and floodplains, overfishing, pollution, bulkheads along shorelines, increased human activity and multiple other factors have contributed to their decline.

"The fundamental problem is that we're losing habitat faster than we can restore it," Grayum said.

For many tribes that have lived for centuries along Washington's rivers and bays, fishing for salmon, digging clams and catching crabs are central to tribal cultural identity, as well as important for subsistence and commercial reasons.

"To be Jamestown is to walk down to the beach to get food for our families to share with our neighbors and to gather our foods in a fashion that we have done for centuries and know that they're going to be there," said Elaine Grinnel, 76, a member of the Jamestown S'Kallam Tribe on the Olympic peninsula.

"At no time did anybody have to go without food because it was so available. When you live on the beach and the tides are going in and out, there's food there. You could always go fishing, you could always go crabbing," she added.

Grinnel worried that the resources won't be there for future generations if more isn't done to protect habitat.

The tribes say federal agencies have been overly focused on restricting harvest in recent years while ignoring improvements in habitat.

Jeanette Dorner, salmon and ecosystem recovery director for the Puget Sound Partnership, said the tribes' concerns are very relevant to her agency's work. "To recover salmon, we have to recover the Puget sound ecosystem," she said.

"We have to stop destroying critical habitat and we need to restore natural processes and habitat. If we don't make progress on all of those things together then we can't recover the salmon," Dorner said.

The tribes blame the lack of political will and coordinated federal leadership, the government's failure to enforce its laws, as well as the uneven application of salmon conservation measures.

"We ceded all this land to the United States for a contract to protect our salmon, our way of life, our culture. We're gatherers and we're harvesters. And they forgot about us," Frank said.

 Derailed coal train fuels critics of increased Northwest shipping July 3, 2012 A derailed Spokane-bound train interrupted an interstate railroad thoroughfare for more than 24 hours, but the tracks were to reopen Tuesday night, BNSF Railway Co. officials said.

The freight train derailed Monday, spewing 31 cars and tons of coal dust across the arid grasslands of southeast Washington.

More than 50 workers from a nearby town bulldozed 30 of the 31 cars into a heap, righted the last one, and cleared the tracks, officials said.

The derailment remains under investigation, but it provides fodder for opponents of a proposed increase in coal shipping in the Pacific Northwest.

“If we see a tremendous increase in coal trains, we’ll see a tremendous increase in derailments,” Brett VandenHeuvel, executive director of a local river preservation organization, told the Los Angeles Times. “It’s that simple.”

The rail lines in the Pacific Northwest are some of the most heavily trafficked in the world. The BNSF route, which angles northeast from Portland to Spokane, is the only rail cut-through in the Cascade Mountains. It is also the only rail route to the Powder River Basin, a 20,000-acre area in Wyoming that produces nearly 40% of the nation’s coal.

But that single rail route wouldn’t be enough to supply Asia, a market coveted by coal companies. Six proposals for new coal shipping terminals in Washington and Oregon are in the environmental analysis stage. Multiple federal agencies have asked the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to review the effects the terminals would have on the Powder River Basin.

Should those proposals go through, train traffic in southeastern Washington would increase from three trains a day to more than 30, VandenHeuvel said, putting an enormous strain on towns, vineyards and farms.

More train traffic would mean more environmental issues – including coal dust, which can contribute to derailments.

“Coal dust poses a serious threat to the stability of the track structure and … to the operational integrity of our lines in the Powder River Basin,” BNSF says in a statement on its website.

After a multiyear investigation, BNSF found that coal dust buildup can prevent water from draining out of the tracks, leading to flooding, warping and sometimes derailment.

The company told shippers in 2010 to limit coal dust their shipments shed, but left how to do that to the shippers. The BNSF spokeswoman who answers questions about coal could not be reached for comment.

Up to 500 pounds of coal dust can blow off during a shipment, said Kimberly Larson, a spokeswoman for the environmental nonprofit ClimateSolutions. Much of that occurs near the mines, but also can blow off further along the route.

Along the Columbia River, not far from the train tracks, VandenHeuvel said he sometimes finds peasize lumps of coal littering the riverbank.

Youth Conservation: 2012 NW Youth Conservation and Fly Fishing Academy

The 2012 NW Youth Conservation and Fly Fishing Academy was a wonderful experience for 22 boys, 12-16 years in age. The event was on Hicks Lake, in Lacey, WA. June 24-30, 2012. We were privileged to have experienced instructors, including CCI casting instructors, professional fly tiers, and conservation experts from various private and state organizations.

Most of the boys had never held a rod, tied a fly or knew much about conservation. They all caught fish and many catch their first fish on a fly they tied. They spent a day on a stream sampling on-thewater aquatic macro invertebrate activity.

The Academy is sponsored by WSCFFF and WCTU, hosted by Olympia Chapter TU, South Sound Fly Fishers and Puget Sound Fly Fishers. We were rewarded by over 50 volunteers again this year.

Thank you all for your financial support, in-kind support and moral support. Without you - this Academy would never happen.

The 2013 Academy will be June 23-29, 2013 on Hicks Lake in Lacey, Washington.

Community Outreach: 36th Annual Elders Gathering at Abbotsford, BC “We want fish farms out!�

Anissa Reed and other dedicated wild Pacific salmon activists share their knowledge and concerns regarding deadly salmon diseases and parasites associated with open pen salmon feedlots.

Free seminar: Fishing Deschutes River - Olympia, Washington OLYMPIA CHAPTER OF TROUT UNLIMITED JULY 25, 2012 7:00PM NORTH OLYMPIA FIRE STATION 5046 BOSTON HARBOR ROAD NE

The Deschutes River (WA) Fishery

Program: The public is invited to the July 25th meeting of the Olympia Chapter of Trout Unlimited for a presentation on fishing and fishery issues of the Deschutes River, refreshments, and fishing equipment raffle.

Jason Small will be on hand to discuss fishing opportunities and regulations. He will also provide information on present and future efforts to improve the fishery and the habitat in the Deschutes River watershed. Come with your questions and get experienced answers. Program starts at 7:00pm at North Olympia Fire Station, 5046 Boston Harbor Rd NE.

Bio: Jason is an avid fisherman and a river steward with The Native Fish Society. He is also a board member of the South Sound Fly Fishers. He is a local resident with a great deal of local knowledge and experience on the Deschutes River.

Featured Artist: Christopher Hawes

Audio: Lock Them Out

Featured Fishing Adventure: Westport Washington – Chinook and coho June Chinook fishery turned into a great experience

By Mark Cedergreen July 8, 2012

Port Orchard’s Kevin Malone landed the best catch of the week off Westport — a Chinook at 25-3 dressed — on June 24 to mark the opening day of the traditional all-species season. Malone’s catch is the current leader in the Westport Charterboat Association’s Derby.

The third year of a June Chinook “selective” (hatchery only) fishery off Westport turned out to be very successful.

Although there were a few days that were devoid of evidence that there were salmon in the area, the overall daily catch rate per person was 0.97; almost one per person and twice the average of 2011.

More than 5,500 anglers caught 5,403 Chinook salmon in a 15-day fishery. That’s about as good as it gets anywhere in our state. Most of the good fishing took place on the beach in 50-75 feet of water.

Currently, we are a couple of weeks into the all-species season. Both Chinook and coho may be retained. There is a sub-limit of one on Chinook, but they can be either wild or hatchery fish. The coho must be hatchery origin (healed adipose fin clip). The fishery runs five days per week, Sunday through Thursday. Catch rates continue to be around one per person.

Recently, the weather has been good and the seas relatively calm. Ferdinand Magellan rightfully named our huge western neighbor the ‘Mare Pacificum;’ well, part of the time anyway.

Have you ever wondered how salmon can be managed to protect the weakest stocks in a mixedstock fishery?

A little device called a coded wire tag is implanted in the nose of a set percentage of juvenile hatchery fish before they leave the hatcheries. These tags identify the release date and origin of the fish when analyzed in the lab after capture. When anglers return to the marina with their catch, fisheries dock samplers use an electronic “wand” to detect the tag and remove the salmon’s nose to gather the information.

Over the years, and assuming that naturally spawned salmon act similar to their hatchery cohorts, there is a very accurate estimate of the source of the salmon population in any given area. This information is then used to set regulations every year to optimize fishing opportunity while protecting the weakest natural stocks.

You might be surprised to know that catch areas on the ocean and the areas of origin aren’t necessarily right next door to each other. The ocean fishery off our coast harvests a preponderance of Lower Columbia River salmon. Willapa and Grays Harbor Chinook are harvested primarily off Canada. Upper Columbia River Chinook are caught as far north as the Bering Sea. And, at times, Sacramento River Chinook are caught as far north as Westport. These patterns add to the complexity of fishery management and make it truly international in nature.

Our derby continues daily with our season leading Chinook weighing in at 25-3 dressed. The largest coho so far is 8-14 dressed. The lingcod leader is 35-5 in the round. With the exception of our leading (and sure to be winning) 117-pound halibut, these weights are sure to grow over the course of the season.

We’ll update you in a couple of weeks but in the meantime — let’s go fishing!

Mark Cedergreen is the CEO of the Westport Charterboat Association. For more information on the association, visit its website at www.charterwestport.com.

Conservation Video Library – “Why we’re involved” Salmon Wars: Salmon Farms, Wild Fish and the Future of Communities (6:07) Tar Sands: Oil Industry Above the Law? (1:42) SPOIL – Protecting BC’s Great Bear Rainforest from oil tanker spills (44:00) The Facts on Fish Farms (60:00+) Undamming Elwha (26:46) Is your favorite seafood toxic? (6:06) “Algae culture fish farm” (6:40) Pebble Mine: “No Means No” (1:15) Salmon Wars- Aquaculture, Wild Fish & The Future of Communities (6:25) Vegetarian Fish? A New Solution for Aquaculture (7:32) Everyone Loves Wild Salmon – Don’t They? - Alexandra Morton (2:53) The End of the Line (1:08) Sacred Headwaters - British Columbia, Canada (16:14) Atlantic salmon feedlots - impacts to Pacific salmon (13:53) Salmon: Running the Gauntlet - Snake River dams (50:08) Farmed Salmon Exposed (22:59) Salmon farm diseases and sockeye (13:53) Shame Below the Waves (12:37) Locals Oppose Proposed Pebble Mine (7:23) Occupy Vancouver, BC - Dr. Alexandra Morton (6:18) Farming the Seas (Steve Cowen) (55:53) Farming the Seas (PBS) (26:45) Cohen Commission – Introduction (9:52) Deadly virus found in wild Pacific salmon (1:57) A tribute by Dr. Alexandra Morton (5:35) Green Interview with Dr. Alexandra Morton (6:06) Closed containment salmon farms (8:15) Don Staniford on 'Secrets of Salmon Farming' (7:50) H2oil - A documentary about the Canadian tar sand oil (3:20) From Tar Sands to Tankers – the Battle to Stop Enbridge (14:58) Risking it All - Oil on our Coast (13:16) To The Last Drop: Canada’s Dirty Oil (22:31) Greed of Feed: what’s feeding our cheap farmed salmon (10:37) Land-based, Closed-containment Aquaculture (3:14)

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

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

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

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

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