The province has given the go-ahead for Cermaq Canada to use up to 2.3 million litres of a pesticide called Paramove 50 to remove sea lice from fish at 14 salmon farms in Clayoquot Sound, but opponents fear the mixture of hydrogen peroxide, surfactants and other chemicals will harm other species and weaken the immune system of farmed fish, making them more likely to contract diseases that could infect wild fish.

Bonny Glambeck, co-founder of Clayoquot Action, a group circulating a petition against use of the pesticide in Clayoquot Sound, said studies show the pesticide can persist in the surface layer of the water, home to marine organisms, such as Dungeness crab, prawns, young salmon and herring.

“Right now the wild salmon smolts are migrating and using the shallow areas to make their way out to the ocean and this is where it will end up when it is dissipating,” she said.

The bigger problem is that it can suppress the immune systems of farmed salmon for two weeks and that means they are more susceptible to viral outbreaks such as piscine reovirus, Glambeck said.

“So just as the young salmon are passing by the farms, we could shock these farmed fish into getting PRV or that becoming HSMI (heart and skeletal muscle inflammation disease) which is deadly to wild salmon,” she said.

Recent studies have confirmed a link between PRV, which is common among farmed salmon, and HSMI.

Although the hydrogen peroxide mixture, called Paramove 50, has been used at other sites in B.C., it has never before been used in Clayoquot Sound and the provincial government says steps are being taken to ensure the pesticide is well-diluted before it is discharged.

A permit application, submitted by Cermaq to the B.C. Ministry of Environment, requests permission to use the pesticide between January 10, 2018 and January 9, 2021 at fish farms in Fortune Channel, Bedwell Sound, Cypress Bay, Herbert Inlet, Millar Channel and Shelter Inlet.

A proposal to pour pesticide directly into pens protected with tarpaulins was turned down and the province is demanding that a well boat be used to reduce the amount of pesticides and minimize the effect on other marine organisms.

“The treatment bath, inside the well boat, will begin naturally breaking down as additional seawater is added before it’s filtered and discharged into the ocean far from shore,” Environment Minister George Heyman said in an e-mailed statement.

In 2011, over 13,000 farmed Atlantic salmon were killed at an east coast fish farm after a well boat treatment that used Paramove 50, according to an incident report filed with Health Canada.

In Norway, 126,000 farm fish died in 2016 during delousing treatment, an event fish farming company SalMar said was likely due to overexposure to hydrogen peroxide.

The government is continuing to look at whether sea lice treatments are scientifically supported and consistent with international best practices and a new interim policy, to guide statutory decision-makers, demands more stringent information-gathering and reporting, Heyman said.

That interim policy will be reviewed “over time” to ensure it is having the desired effect, he said.

“We take very seriously the concerns related to sea lice treatment expressed by First Nations and the public as the the protection of our waters and health of our wild fish stocks is paramount,” he said.

The pesticide Paramove 50, which stuns sea lice, meaning they fall off fish as they rub up against each other, is being used instead of antibiotic insecticides administered in feed, because, globally, sea lice are becoming resistant to antibiotics given to farmed fish.

However, Cermaq says the company wants to use Paramove 50 because the hydrogen peroxide bath treatment has a low environmental impact and is a more natural way to manage sea lice than feeding pesticides.

“It’s important that, as farmers, we have multiple tools in the box to allow us to effectively manage sea lice on our marine farms,” said Cermaq Canada managing director David Kiemele in an e-mailed response to questions from DeSmog Canada.

“The request and subsequent approval for the use of Paramove 50 was our first step in achieving a multi-faceted approach to integrated pest management,” said Kiemele, adding that hydrogen peroxide has been used internationally and in other areas of B.C. without negatively affecting the environment.

The Cermaq website points out that “hydrogen peroxide is almost the same as water, with just one more oxygen molecule,” and that, as long as the treatment is used properly, there are no risks to wild or farmed fish.

The Cermaq website emphasizes that fish farmers take good care of their fish, which are their livelihood, and many steps are taken to ensure the treatment is done properly.

However, for Glambeck, the heart of the issue is that the discussion should not be about the best poison to put in B.C.’s coastal waters, but how to move fish farms out of the ocean.

“It will be a couple of years and then another chemical will be needed. We need to look for long term solutions,” she said.

“The problems of disease and sea lice are global fish farm problems that the industry has not been able to solve — and they are not trying to solve them because of concern about the environment but because it is costing them a lot of money — so the industry globally now is looking towards closed containment,” she said.

Land-based farms are the answer, for the industry and for wild fish, and both levels of government should be working at a transition strategy to support fish farm workers and communities, Glambeck said.

Two major land-based fish farms are opening in Maine, with the global trend towards land-based containment, and B.C. is going to be left out of the game if companies insist that ocean pens are the only way to go, she said.

“We are going to be stuck with 1980’s technology. Our governments need to be investing in moving this industry forward into the new millennium,” Glambeck said.

“At the same time we are losing our wild salmon and allowing them go the same way as the East Coast cod. All the markers are there, the science is there to show we really need to intervene and get these farms out of the ocean,” she said.

Doug Donaldson, Minister of Forests, Land and Natural Resource Operations, who is in charge of provincial aquaculture tenures, has said that the province is interested in moving to closed containment and, with 22 fish farm tenures coming due for renewal in June, both the industry and environmental groups will be watching closely.

Image: Atlantic salmon farm in Clayoquot Sound. Photo: Clayoquot Action

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It’s been a nightmarish year for Washington State’s only active Atlantic salmon farming company — Canada’s Cooke Aquaculture Inc.

On Tuesday, a Cooke subsidiary was found responsible for an August 2017 fish farm mishap that released up to 263,000 Atlantic Salmon into Washington’s Puget Sound — in addition to misleading the public and regulators about the cause, and lowballing the number of fish that escaped.

Those were the key findings of an investigation led by Washington’s Department of Ecology, Department of Fish and Wildlife and Department of Natural Resources (DNR) — which started last fall after a net pen near Cypress Island in Puget Sound (about 50 km east of Victoria) broke up on August 19.

“The collapse was not the result of natural causes,” said Hilary Franz, commissioner of public lands at a press conference Tuesday.  “Cooke’s disregard caused this disaster and recklessly put our state’s aquatic ecosystem at risk.”

On the same day this was announced, the state also fined the company $322,000 for violations of Washington state water quality laws associated with the August incident.

The outcome of the investigation is just the latest setback for Cooke and a nascent Atlantic salmon farming industry attempting to gain a foothold in Washington state — currently the only Pacific U.S. state where Atlantic salmon are farmed in ocean net pens.

In December, the Department of Natural Resources terminated Cooke’s lease of aquatic lands at Port Angeles — one of four sites the company has in the state — alleging multiple violations, and prompting the company to launch legal action that is pending. A month later, a coalition of Washington state tribes demanded that legislators outlaw Atlantic salmon farming in Puget Sound altogether.

But by far the most serious risk to Atlantic salmon farming in Washington state is the threat that lawmakers will phase out the industry for good. A case in point: a bill co-sponsored by Washington Senator Kevin Ranker that would prohibit the state from awarding new (or renewing old) farm leases like those run by Cooke continues to advance.

Could the bad news of this investigation be a final nail in the coffin for Atlantic salmon farming in Washington state?

What really happened?

State investigators say that last August, tidal currents at Cypress Island pushed against a heavy build-up of mussels and other organisms on the nets — weighing 110 tons in all — and overwhelming the pen’s mooring system and crushing the pen. Not only did Cooke fail to remove the mussels and clean the pens as they should have, the investigators concluded, they did not take “necessary precautions” after an earlier July incident that saw the Cypress Island net pens shift under the force of strong currents.  

“The results of our investigative report clearly show a significant violation of Washington’s water quality laws,” said Ecology Director Maia Bellon on Tuesday. “Cooke Aquaculture could have prevented this failure.”

“Cooke Aquaculture could have prevented this failure.”https://t.co/sxp7cAAdo4

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) February 2, 2018

Company underestimated escaped fish: state report

Based on Cooke’s reports, it was widely reported that 160,000 fish escaped as a result of the incident.

But state investigators on Tuesday said Cooke “misrepresented” the number of fish it harvested when the pen collapsed, which ultimately low-balled the total number of unaccounted fish.

Of the 305,000 fish in the pen, the company claimed to have extracted 145,000 fish, but the investigators concluded that Cooke could only have removed a maximum of 62,000 fish. The state now says the real number of escaped Atlantics could be as high as 263,000.

The issue of escapes has been high profile because wild Pacific salmon continue to struggle and the prospects of competition and disease transmission from escaped Atlantic salmon could hasten the decline.

Since the escapes, fishermen in Washington and B.C. have caught about 2,000 Atlantic salmon while Washington’s Lummi Nation, which declared a state of emergency after the disaster, has recovered at least 20,000.

A Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife map details the location of Atlantic farmed salmon caught and reported by anglers.

B.C. First Nations and Washington tribes protest

On January 18, Lummi Nation chairman Jeremiah Jay Julius joined 20 other Washington Treaty Tribal leaders in demanding that Washington lawmakers immediately enact legislation to remove Atlantic salmon from Washington waters.

“Too much is at stake — and the risks are too great — to allow Atlantic salmon aquaculture to continue now,” reads the letter.

This tribal activism in Washington mirrors recent protests in B.C.’s Broughton archipelago — where First Nations and environmentalists have raised alarms about sea lice and disease transmission from farmed to wild fish for years. Late last summer, two Broughton-area salmon farms owned by Marine Harvest were occupied by local First Nations demanding provincial and federal governments revoke their permits.

Newly elected Premier John Hogan met with Broughton-area First Nations last October to discuss their concerns, followed by a meeting in late January.

This week, a joint statement by four B.C. ministers and five Broughton-area First Nations confirmed discussions were continuing, but no changes were announced.

Troubled waters ahead for salmon farming in Washington?

On Tuesday, Cooke Aquaculture Pacific lashed out against the state investigation. Vice president of public relations Joel Richardson told DeSmog Canada the company did not overestimate the number of fish recovered and rejects the state’s explanation for the cause of the disaster, despite a concession that the company “fell behind in [net] hygiene.”  (Richardson says the real cause of the mishap is likely a combination factors, and cannot be solely attributed to the buildup of mussels on the nets.)

The report, the company says, is “intended to fuel the push by aquaculture opponents to put Cooke out of business in Washington.” And putting Cooke out of business is now a real possibility.

Commissioner Franz, whose Department of Natural Resources is technically Cooke’s landlord on the seabed where it farms, is now reviewing the report and will make an announcement in the coming week regarding the future of the Cypress Island facility. Asked if evicting the company was an option from this site, a spokesman for the department said “all options are on the table.”

Meanwhile Senator Ranker’s bill cleared another hurdle this week, advancing past a critical finance committee on Monday.

Regardless of what comes next, it’s clear that Cooke has made powerful enemies in Washington state.

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