legacy - january 2013

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“It’s amazing what can be accomplished when no one cares who gets the credit.”

John Wooden

©© WWiilldd GGaammee FFiisshh CCoonnsseerrvvaattiioonn IInntteerrnnaattiioonnaall

Issue 15 January 2013

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http://www.wgfci.blogspot.com/

Legacy – January 2013

Wild Game Fish Conservation International

Wild Game Fish Conservation International (WGFCI): Established to

advocate for wild game fish, their fragile ecosystems and the cultures and economies that rely on their robust populations.

LEGACY – 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 encouraged.

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.

LLeeggaaccyy


Wild Game Fish Conservation International founders:

Bruce Treichler Jim Wilcox

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Wild-Game-Fish-Conservation-International/123459167750176

http://wgfci.blogspot.com/

mailto:%[email protected]






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By Wild Game Fish Conservation International volunteers

Contents Impacts of open pen salmon feedlots ..........................................................................................................7 Greed of Feed: what's feeding our “cheap” farmed salmon? - Video ............................................ 7 Special report: How our growing appetite for salmon is devastating coastal communities in Peru 8 Down our throats: Fed-up with salmon feedlots ............................................................................ 9 Open pen salmon feedlot industry is not and will never be sustainable ...................................... 10 Antimicrobial Resistance in Fish Pathogenic Bacteria and Other Bacteria in Aquatic

Environments .............................................................................................................................. 11 New east coast ISA outbreak? .................................................................................................... 12 BC Poised to be Designated ISA Virus Positive - CFIA steps in ................................................. 13 Canadian Food Inspection Agency tangles with P.E.I. fish scientist ........................................... 14 Salmon farming not affecting orcas' health: report ...................................................................... 15 Column: Salmon drama raises questions about government’s role ............................................ 16 BIM farm would destroy Galway Bay's salmon and sea trout in five years ................................. 17 Details of fish farm chemicals sought .......................................................................................... 18 Something Fishy in BC. The latest foe in the war over salmon farms? Rapacious Norwegians. 19 Marine Harvest continues wild salmon research ......................................................................... 20 Headless sea lions remain a mystery ......................................................................................... 22 Devastating impact on Wild Salmon populations from Sea Lice ................................................. 23 No confirmed disease in B.C. salmon ......................................................................................... 24 BC Salmon Farmers Association – Winter 2012 ......................................................................... 25 Government ordered to reveal secret seal shooters ................................................................... 26

Seafood consumption: Food safety and health ........................................................................................ 27 Smoked salmon recalled after Listeria detected in samples ....................................................... 27 Enjoy seasonal wild Pacific salmon dinners at these fine restaurants: ....................................... 28 Wild Salmon Supporters – View entire list here .......................................................................... 29 Fishy info about salmon? ............................................................................................................ 29 Seafood Sleuthing Reveals Pervasive Fish Fraud In New York City .......................................... 30 Scientific Opinion on infectious salmon anaemia (ISA) ............................................................... 31 Farmed and dangerous: the dish about fish ................................................................................ 32 Food Safety Agency Should Protect Public, Not Cover up Virus for Salmon Farming Industry .. 33 Eco-Washing McFarmed Fish ..................................................................................................... 34 Tell Your Representative to Support Safe Seafood .................................................................... 35 The Truth Behind Farmed Salmon .............................................................................................. 36 Can a Sustainable Salmon be Farmed? ..................................................................................... 37 AquaBounty Hoping to Serve DNA-Altered Salmon on US Plates .............................................. 39

Energy production and wild game fish: Oil, Coal, Hydropower, Natural Gas, Wind .............................. 40 Sea Change: Action needed on ocean acidification .................................................................... 40 Oil – Drilled, Fracked, Tar Sands ..................................................................................................... 41 The Keystone XL Tar Sands Pipeline Is far from a Done Deal ................................................... 41 'Wall of opposition' to tar sands pipelines in B.C. grows stronger ............................................... 42 Cost of worst-case tanker spill outweighs rewards of Northern Gateway: UBC study ................ 43 Video: Oil in Eden – The Battle to Protect Canada’s Pacific Coast ............................................. 44 Oil Pipeline Politics: Canada’s Tar Sands ................................................................................... 45 Pipeline proposal a sign tar sands oil is headed to Maine .......................................................... 46 Keystone Conflict: Nebraska Firm Reviewing Tar Sands Project Has Ties to Pipeline Builder ... 47 Second shipping incident in two days heightens concerns ......................................................... 48 Embattled oil producers quietly eye rail option ............................................................................ 49 Refiners, railroads gear up as oil boom resonates in South Sound ............................................ 50 Two companies want to export oil from the Harbor ..................................................................... 51 Coal ................................................................................................................................................. 52 Coal ports are bad idea for both Washington and China ............................................................ 52 Asia coal export boom brings no bonus for US taxpayers .......................................................... 53 McGinn orders economic review of coal train proposal ............................................................... 54 Arctos Anthracite Project (formerly known as Mount Klappan Anthracite Metallurgical Coal

Project) ....................................................................................................................................... 55


Wild Game Fish Conservation International Civic politicians demand public inquiry on expanding coal exports from B.C. ports .................... 56 Ship crashes into dock at Westshore Terminals, spilling coal into water .................................... 57 Metro Vancouver dike improvements could cost $9.5 billion by 2100: new report ...................... 58 Clallam County board briefed on ocean acidification .................................................................. 59 Washington Could Boost Coal Exports Despite Green Governor ............................................... 60 Debate over coal exports leaves out some communities along route, critics charge .................. 61 Almost 1,200 coal plants proposed globally ................................................................................ 62 Those Wind Turbines are Such Eyesores ................................................................................... 63 Santa’s sleigh was weighed down with lumps of coal for those on his “Naughty List” ................ 63 Gateway Pacific Terminal at Cherry Point Proposal ................................................................... 64 Hydropower .................................................................................................................................... 65 Feds: New move to break Columbia River salmon impasse ....................................................... 65 The extraordinary effort to save sockeye salmon........................................................................ 66 Chehalis River Dam Recommendations to Washington State Governor – Christine Gregoire ... 67 New Floating Surface Collector at the Baker Hydroelectric Project is a Model for Innovative Fish

Passage (with video) ................................................................................................................... 68 Metro Vancouver eyes adding hydro generators at reservoir dams ............................................ 69 Scientists raft down newly freed Elwha River to track sediment flows ........................................ 70 Groups go to court to fight release of Elwha River hatchery fish................................................. 71 Natural Gas ..................................................................................................................................... 72 B.C.’s gas export plans on same scale as Alberta’s oilsands, Premier Christy Clark says ......... 72 Moratorium on coal bed gas drilling in ‘Sacred Headwaters’ ends Tuesday ............................... 73 B.C. First Nation members evict gas line surveyors, set up pipeline road block ......................... 74 Gas pipeline may sidestep review ............................................................................................... 76 Natural gas minimizes market for coal – Watch Video ................................................................ 77 Resource industry is engine for B.C.’s economic growth, says Premier Christy Clark ................ 78 Wind ................................................................................................................................................ 79 U.S. Offers Wind-Power Leases Offshore Three Atlantic States ................................................ 79

Forest practices and wild game fish .......................................................................................................... 80 U.S. Supreme Court will decide how logging roads will be regulated ......................................... 80 Forest industry group presents trade-off plan for Wild Olympics; plan would free national

forestlands for tree harvests........................................................................................................ 81 Jury Decides Logging Company Not Responsible for 2009 Glenoma Landslides ...................... 82

Mining and wild game fish .......................................................................................................................... 83 Giant Strip Mine Threatens Alaska's Iconic Bristol Bay............................................................... 83 Bristol Bay Tribes’ Fight to Fend off Pebble Mine Highlighted in National Geographic ............... 84 “If you love salmon, you hate Pebble Mine” ................................................................................ 85 Teck liable for river cleanup in Washington state ........................................................................ 86

Wild game fish management ....................................................................................................................... 87 Small fish, big opportunity ........................................................................................................... 87 Ending Overfishing - video .......................................................................................................... 89 Canada’s 2.5 million protected lakes and rivers have been reduced to 82! ................................ 90 Ban anglers from catching salmon in spring, urge fish farm experts ........................................... 91 Young coho get 'flu shot' in unique program ............................................................................... 92 Land-based fish farms now part of aquaculture's future.............................................................. 93 B.C.’s salmon guardian needs you to listen – before it’s too late ................................................ 94 Ottawa moves against PEI lab that reported virus in B.C. salmon .............................................. 95 Letter to Director General of OIE ................................................................................................ 97 Friends of the Earth Canada files petition - questions regarding Canada’s action to strip OIE Lab

of credentials............................................................................................................................... 98 Special Recognition ..................................................................................................................................... 99 Four North Islanders to receive Queen's Jubilee medal.............................................................. 99 “Pants on Fire” Recognition: Dr Martin Jaffa, Callander McDowell (Fisheries and salmon farming

consultants)............................................................................................................................... 100 Local Conservation Projects ..................................................................................................................... 101 Makah tribe replaces culvert with bridge over Grimes Creek .................................................... 101 Salmon in China Creek Show Progress in Restoration Efforts.................................................. 102 Chum salmon make stronger-than-usual return in 2012 ........................................................... 103

Youth Conservation: .................................................................................................................................. 105 Teen takes salmon farm petition to Beehive ............................................................................. 105 The G.R.E.E.N. Generation – Olympia Chapter Trout Unlimited .............................................. 106 2013 Northwest Youth Conservation and Fly Fishing Academy ............................................... 107


Wild Game Fish Conservation International Please support conservation-minded businesses promoted in Legacy:.............................................. 109 Riverman Guide Service – since 1969 ...................................................................................... 109 Performance Anglers Fishing Tackle ........................................................................................ 110 West Coast Wild ....................................................................................................................... 111 Inland Fisheries Ireland – promotion via commercial airliner .................................................... 112

Attention Conservation-minded Business Owners ................................................................................ 113 WGFCI endorsed conservation organizations: ....................................................................................... 113 Featured Artists: ........................................................................................................................................ 114 Leanne Hodges – Coastal Grizzly and the Chum Run Connection........................................... 114 Jeannie Williams Wallen - Sacramento River King Salmon ...................................................... 115 Holly Arntzen and Kevin Wright - Music video: Merry, Merry Fishmas ...................................... 116

Featured Fishing Photos: .......................................................................................................................... 117 A gorgeous wild British Columbia winter steelhead .................................................................. 117 Wild salmon and trout require clear, cold, disease-free streams for successful spawning and

rearing ....................................................................................................................................... 118 Music and slide video: “Fish On” song (iFishVideos) ................................................................ 119 Winter Whopper ........................................................................................................................ 120 Video games? ........................................................................................................................... 121 First Steelhead – Thompson River Chrome .............................................................................. 122 Be safe while enjoying the great outdoors ................................................................................ 122 Smith River (Montana) – trout on the fly in “Big Sky” ................................................................ 123 Even the youngsters “bring home the bacon” ........................................................................... 124 Sometimes dad and mom must provide for the youngsters ...................................................... 124

Community Activism, Education and Outreach: ..................................................................................... 125 Public seminar: VERTICAL JIG FISHING FOR SALMON ........................................................ 125 GIVE A GIFT TO THE ENVIRONMENT - BOYCOTT SMOKED FARM SALMON THIS

CHRISTMAS ............................................................................................................................. 126 Gathering in Dublin, Ireland to protest Norwegian-owned, open pen salmon feedlots (Video:

Interviews with local fishermen by Don Staniford, Global coordinator, GAAIA) ........................ 127 Petition to: Stephen Harper - Prime Minister of Canada: Recognize a Healthy Environment as a

basic Human Right in Canada .................................................................................................. 128 Keystone XL pipeline protest in Washington DC - Video .......................................................... 129 No Tar Sands Keystone XL Pipeline ......................................................................................... 130 CASTING A VOICE - 5 MINUTE TEASER ............................................................................... 131 Please vote today to support Williston Lake Trout Project (British Columbia, Canada) ............ 132 Save Bristol Bay campaign – 38,000 and growing .................................................................... 133 Protect our Sacred Headwaters, Salmon and Health of our Future Generations ...................... 134 Get Out Migration – slide show ................................................................................................. 135 Please donate to support Dr. Morton’s continued research ...................................................... 136 Want Wild Salmon – Please sign this petition ........................................................................... 137 Turn up the Volume – “The Fish Farm Fight” ............................................................................ 138 Get salmon feedlots out of the ocean – Please contribute today .............................................. 139 Evict Salmon Farms – NOW! .................................................................................................... 140 Premier Christy Clark: Do not renew salmon farm leases ......................................................... 141 Eastern Shore citizens to lead March on Province House demanding aquaculture moratorium142 Moratorium on new licenses for open pen finfish aquaculture in Nova Scotia .......................... 143 Petition - No Salmon Farms at Sea ........................................................................................... 144 Don't let the salmon farm industry destroy Ireland .................................................................... 145 Opposition mounts to super-sized fish farm in Galway Bay ...................................................... 146 Kids involved in protest outside Norway's Embassy in Dublin, Ireland ..................................... 147 Boycott smoked Atlantic salmon ............................................................................................... 148 No to salmon farms in Ireland ................................................................................................... 149 Fish farming’s ‘public enemy No 1’ to boost Bantry campaign .................................................. 150 International speakers slam Bantry fish farm plans ................................................................... 151 Marine Harvest – Third Quarter Presentation to Investors ........................................................ 152 Petition - Costco, Safeway & Loblaws: Please stop selling diseased farm salmon ................... 153 The Organic Salmon Co. – Taste as Nature Intended (NOT) ................................................... 154 Marine Harvest’s “Orca Chief” plying BC waters between salmon feedlots and processing

facilities ..................................................................................................................................... 155 Twenty year license granted for British Columbia salmon feedlot ............................................. 156

Conservation Video Library – “Why we’re involved” ............................................................................. 157 The Size of the Fish Doesn’t Determine the Size of the Memory ........................................................... 158



LLeeggaaccyy

Forward The January 2013 issue of Legacy marks fifteen consecutive months of our web-based publication – Legacy; recently organized by topic especially for those following specific issues no matter where in the world they occur. Legacy is published each month to expose current and planned actions that impact the future of wild game fish and their ecosystems around planet earth to our growing audience. 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 our planet’s 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 and retailers are paying close attention to the impacts each of us have on global resources through our daily activities and 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



Impacts of open pen salmon feedlots

Greed of Feed: what's feeding our “cheap” farmed salmon? - Video

“We are liquidating the marine resources”, Professor John Volpe, University of Victoria

A net loss – It’s a drain on ocean resources”, Don Staniford, Global Alliance Against

Industrial Aquaculture

“Cheap”, farmed salmon is now the fish of choice the world over

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2ZufwW1f7U

http://www.gaaia.org/




Special report: How our growing appetite for salmon is devastating coastal

communities in Peru

December 1, 2008

The coast of Peru is being blighted by an industry sprung up to satisfy the West’s voracious

appetite for salmon – marine life, human health and whole ecosystems are paying the price.

Andrew Wasley and Jim Wickens report

It is a life of poverty and filth. Standing above the tangle of rusting metal pipes and concrete-rimmed pools that lead into the ocean, Segundo Vorges and Luis Diaz explain how they scratch a living here in Chimbote harbour, Peru. They are part of a twilight community of ‘pipe people’ who survive by reclaiming waste discharged from nearby fishmeal production plants.

When operational, the pipes carry effluent – an unsavory mixture of fish bodies, scales and fat – into the pools and the sea. Vorges and Diaz skim off the useful waste, particularly the fat, before shoveling it into containers. Some is turned into pellets used for cooking and sold at nearby markets. Whole families, including children, are involved in this dirty enterprise, earning $3 per day.

Despite some nasty-looking substances festering in the pools, the ‘pipe people’ maintain they are unconcerned about potential risks – unlike the environmentalists, who claim such effluent contaminates the sea. ‘Whatever the job is, it’s work,’ says Vorges. ‘We need to bring money to the table.’

This shocking scene is a million miles from the succulent pink salmon fish-steaks on sale across the western world. But the two are inextricably linked: much of the fishmeal and oil produced in Peru from anchovy fish stocks is the principal ingredient of feed used in salmon farming.

Aquaculture has long been targeted by pressure groups concerned at its apparent unsustainability and ecological footprint. Campaigners in Peru and Chile are now claiming that there are serious environmental and social costs, however – including pollution and health problems, overfishing, and impacts on ecosystems and wildlife – arising from production of fishmeal and fish oil. And the Ecologist has learned that at least one major supplier of farmed salmon to UK supermarkets and wholesalers has partnered with a feed company procuring significant volumes of controversial Peruvian fishmeal.

Overfishing and illness

Fishmeal is a protein-rich flour produced by cooking, drying and milling raw fish and trimmings. Fish oil is a byproduct of fishmeal processing. Both are largely derived from oily fish including anchovies, herrings and sardines. High nutritional values – both contain omega-3 fatty acids, beneficial both to humans and animals – has led to massive demand from the aquaculture industry.

Globally, the sector is worth almost $2.5 billion, with 400 plants producing approximately six million tonnes of fish flour and one million tonnes of fish oil annually. Principal fisheries supplying producers of meal and oil are situated in European waters and in the Pacific bordering Peru and Chile. Peru is the world’s leading exporter, supplying 28 per cent of the UK’s fishmeal in 2007.

READ ENTIRE THE ECOLOGIST ARTICLE HERE

http://www.theecologist.org/trial_investigations/1220194/how_our_growing_appetite_for_salmon_is_devastating_coastal_communities_in_peru.html





Down our throats: Fed-up with salmon feedlots

DECEMBER 11, 2012

The issue is as tangled as cage netting

washed ashore after winter storms.

Forty years ago it was seen as a

burgeoning industry, a salvation for

fisherman, and a pathway towards a

sustainable fishery that would protect

wild stocks. Salmon, once a rare treat

for anglers and a staple for many

coastal native groups, was commodified

into a mainstream supermarket fish.

In the late 1960's, faced with declining

wild stocks, Norwegian fishers began

"farming" Atlantic Salmon (Salmo salar)

in open pens on the coastline. It was a

huge commercial success and this form

of aquaculture soon spread to Scotland,

Canada, Chile and elsewhere. Over the

years it has grown to become a colossal

global industry worth on the order of

$10.7 billion annually. Norway produces

33 per cent of farmed salmon followed

by Chile (31 per cent), Scotland (9 per

cent), Canada (8 per cent), Faeroe

Island (3 per cent), and the USA (3 per

cent) with producers in other countries

accounting for the remaining 13 per

cent. Over time, however, flies began to

appear in the ointment.

Aquaculture or Salmon feedlots?

Over time and unanticipated, a suite of

problems began to attach themselves to

the salmon aquaculture industry, fouling

the once clear waters and sucking

blood, and money, from the enterprise.

READ ENTIRE RABBLE ARTICLE HERE

http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/christophermajka/2012/12/down-our-throats-fed-salmon-feedlots

http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/christophermajka/2012/12/down-our-throats-fed-salmon-feedlots



Open pen salmon feedlot industry is not and will never be sustainable

Watch “Marine Harmfest's Bad Case of Chemical Use” video here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUycUhM_1ig&feature=player_embedded



Antimicrobial Resistance in Fish Pathogenic Bacteria and Other Bacteria in Aquatic Environments

ScienceDaily (Nov. 19, 2012) — Little attention has been paid to the use of antibiotics in the aquaculture industry as one reason for the increase in bacteria resistant to antibiotics and the spread of such resistance to other bacteria. Since the antibiotics that are used in veterinary medicine and aquaculture belong to the same group of antibiotics as those used in medicines for humans, increased resistance to these medicines will be detrimental to public health.

Syed Qaswar Ali Shah's doctoral research project has studied the genetic foundation for resistance to antibiotics in bacteria isolated from salmon fish in Norway. He collected quinolone-resistant isolates of the bacterium Flavobacterium psychrophilum from rainbow trout and equivalent isolates of Yersinia ruckeri from Atlantic salmon. These bacteria are the cause of bacterial coldwater disease in rainbow trout and redmouth disease in salmon respectively. Only a limited number of antibiotic agents are authorised for use in aquaculture. The development of resistance to quinolones must lead to restrictions in the use of this drug in the aquaculture industry, heightened focus on the prevention of infection and the development of a vaccine against Flavobacterium psychrophilum so that infection is avoided.

Syed Qaswar Ali Shah also studied bacteria isolates with a view to discovering genes as codes for resistance to different antibiotics used in veterinary medicine. The bacteria isolates were collected from freshwater carp aquafarms in Pakistan, from tilapia farms in Tanzania and from fish farms in Chile and Norway. A significant proportion of the isolates were found to be resistant to several different types of antibiotics. The isolates from freshwater farms were found to contain more resistant bacteria than those from the seawater farms. In addition, Shah discovered resistance to antibiotics in isolates from freshwater farms which had not used antibiotics as a method of treatment. This can be explained by integrated fish farming operations, whereby fertiliser from other farm animals was used as an important source of feed for the farmed fish.

There were more bacteria resistant to antibiotics in the seawater isolates from Chile than in the isolates from Norway. The higher occurrence in Chile may be explained by the excessive use of antibiotics in salmon farming there: approx. 840 grams of antibiotics per 1000 kg fish in 2008. In comparison, approx. 1 gram per 1000 kg of fish was used in Norway in the same year.

READ ENTIRE SCIENCE DAILY ARTICLE HERE

Claudette Bethune:

"Antibiotics are given as a feed

supplement in the aquaculture

industry and as a result, the

surrounding environment is directly

exposed to these drugs.

Since the spread of bacteria pays no

heed to political decisions or

geographical borders, the

development of resistance to

antibiotics poses a serious threat to

public health.

The main reservoir of genes resistant

to antibiotics is thought to exist in

aquatic environments, and fish

pathogenic bacteria represent a

possible intermediate stage in the

transfer of resistance from aquatic

environments to resistant bacteria on

land."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121119104637.htm





New east coast ISA outbreak?

December 4, 2012

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) has confirmed that they have launched an investigation into a suspected finding of ISA at a commercial aquaculture facility in Newfoundland and Labrador.

The Agency has placed a quarantine on the facility, and is taking samples for further testing, which is being conducted by Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) at their national reference laboratory in Moncton, New Brunswick. Results are expected within weeks.

If ISA is confirmed, CFIA says it will take further unnamed disease control actions, if warranted, and notify the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE).

In a formulaic PR missive sent to inquiring media, CFIA says, "At this point, it is too early in the investigation to define the precise measures that would be taken if ISA were confirmed. The response measures taken would depend on a number of factors, including the strain of the virus and biosecurity protocols and procedures at the site location. Any decisions made would be based on sound science."

A reporter from the St. John's Telegram contacted Grey Aquaculture, who denied that the infected fish farm was theirs. Cooke Aquaculture, who is the largest operator of open pen net farms in Newfoundland, referred the reporter to the CFIA

An outbreak of a virulent strain of ISA at a Cooke facility in Shelburne in early 2012 resulted in the slaughtering of a reported 700,000 market-ready salmon, for which company was reimbursed by the government up to $15 million.

The outbreak also resulted in a quarantine of all fish cage sites in Shelburne Harbour.

Possible ISA infection of wild salmon from farmed salmon in British Columbia has been a topic of great contention since the hearings earlier this year by the Cohen Commission there.

CFIA contends that ISA does not affect human health or food safety, but says that it does pose risks to aquatic animal health and the economy.

Original art by Anissa Reed

Anissa Reed:

“Remember through the holidays

as you are surrounded by friends

and family that:

FRIENDS DON'T LET

FRIENDS EAT

PHARMED SALMON“

http://www.southcoasttoday.ca/content/new-east-coast-isa-outbreak







BC Poised to be Designated ISA Virus Positive - CFIA steps in Dr. Alexandra Morton November 23, 2012

British Columbia is poised to be designated ISA virus positive. A few weeks ago the Office of International Epizootics, OIE, changed the definition of an ISA virus positive region.

Instead of having to diagnose the disease, today detection of any strain of the virus is enough to designate a region as ISA virus positive. This is the difference between a person being HIV positive, or having AIDS.

This change means a place like BC, could move fast enough to stop a full-blown epidemic. The ISA virus has been detected by the North American OIE reference lab for ISA and two other labs. DFO got positive ISA test results in 2004, but hid them. Now the federal Canadian Food Inspection Agency may be causing a dangerous delay, risking wild salmon of the North Pacific.

The Globe and Mail reports today that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) has written to the Office of International Epizootics (OIE) asking that the Kibenge Lab at the Atlantic Veterinary College, PEI be stripped of its standing as one of only 2 ISA virus reference labs. The second lab is with the Norwegian government.

There are 169 comments, over 100 shares and Facebook posts in response to this article! Here is one:

"Good on you Mr. Kibenge. As a fellow scientist I have witnessed first hand the sweeping layoffs targeting the PC (physical scientist) designation in government.

It is our responsibility to stand up for the safety and values of Canadians regardless of what the current regimes mandate is."

ISA virus is in the influenza family. If it is in BC it is absolutely essential that it be stopped from spreading, because it appears to be European. This means the wild fish of the North Pacific may not have enough immunity to it.

It was Dr. Kibenge who accurately diagnosed ISA virus for the first time ever in Chile. That virus exploded within weeks of his diagnosis to cause $2 billion in damages, to the Chilean salmon farming industry. Chile, however, had no wild salmon to lose. For BC the stakes are even higher. No one knows what this virus will do to wild Pacific salmon if it is left to spread - NO ONE.

Could the CFIA just be engaging in due diligence? Perhaps, but there are extenuating circumstances.

When the OIE applies their ISAv designation upgrade to British Columbia by accepting the results from their lab British Columbia's status would have to be altered from ISAv-free to ISAv-positive.

The CFIA testified under oath at the Cohen Commission in December 2011 that if the ISA virus is confirmed in BC, BC farm salmon trade could cease. The Provincial Minister of Agriculture echoed this stating in the BC legislature that US and Asian lawmakers were pushing to close their borders to BC farm salmon as a result of the first ISA virus positive test results from Dr. Kibenge's Lab. One has to ask if this is why the CFIA is trying to disconnect Dr. Kibenge's lab from the OIE?

If the CFIA is successful, they will destroy any hope of a fast response. The research will continue, but we will be at the mercy of this virus, giving it the opportunity to do what it does best - Go Viral

The directive to protect wild salmon has to come from us, because there is no one else who can do this. This is a very ominous development.

Help fund Dr. Morton’s research

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/ottawa-moves-against-pei-lab-that-reported-virus-in-bc-salmon/article5582798/

http://www.inspection.gc.ca/food/eng/1299092387033/1299093490225

http://www.oie.int/

http://avc.upei.ca/oie

http://www.gofundme.com/FishFeedlotsOut



Canadian Food Inspection Agency tangles with P.E.I. fish scientist

December 14, 2012

CHARLOTTETOWN—There’s something fishy going on in Prince Edward Island.

A professor at Atlantic Veterinary College says the Canadian Food Inspection Agency is trying to discredit his work after tests he conducted showed a virus in British Columbia’s valuable wild salmon population.

Dr. Frederick Kibenge, who found the infectious salmon anemia (ISA) virus in October 2011, is recognized by the World Organisation for Animal Health — known as the OIE — as an expert on the virus.

Despite Kibenge’s results, and a Department of Fisheries and Oceans lab in B.C. that also found ISA, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency has maintained that West Coast salmon is free of the virus, which has never been found in the province before.

If the virus is confirmed, it could have a devastating impact on the wild salmon industry in the province.

The OIE says Kibenge’s results in other cases were questioned by OIE member countries — it wouldn’t say which ones — and that it conducted an audit of his lab this summer. The organization says the “conclusions of the audit were unfavourable and showed that a series of weaknesses in the system have a direct impact on the quality of diagnosis conducted by AVC.”

Kibenge, chair of the department of pathology and microbiology and professor of virology at AVC, where he has been since 1989, says the international cases were “never questioned” when the OIE met with him. The only case talked about was in British Columbia.

The CFIA had earlier conducted its own inspection of the lab and raised concerns, which the AVC said it would address.

Kibenge’s lab is one of only two OIE-designated labs worldwide that studies the virus; the other is in Norway.

A letter from the CFIA, dated Nov. 5, was sent to the OIE supporting a recommendation to temporarily suspend the OIE designation of Kibenge’s lab. The letter was from Dr. Brian Evans, the Canadian government representative to the OIE and also a senior manager at the CFIA.

READ ENTIRE THE STAR ARTICLE HERE

Professor Rick Routledge, Simon Fraser University:

“The focus, in my mind, should not be on attempting to discredit one particular lab,” he says. “I think it is absolutely the wrong approach. They (the federal government) need to be taking this matter seriously and showing some responsible leadership.”

Dr. Alexandra Morton, Marine Biologist:

“When Dr. Kibenge diagnosed this virus for Chile in 2007 his results were accepted — there was not this kind of debate.”

She notes that after Kibenge made his diagnosis, “the epidemic went viral” in Chile and devastated its salmon fish farming industry.

She believes the CFIA is uncomfortable with designating B.C. as being positive for the virus.

Beatrice Olivastri, CEO of Friends of the Earth Canada:

“This can only be a witch hunt against someone who doesn’t agree with the government line, and is suffering from the government’s bullying.”

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/1302712--canadian-food-inspection-agency-tangles-with-p-e-i-fish-scientist

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/1095085--scientists-spar-over-presence-of-salmon-virus-off-b-c-coast

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/1095085--scientists-spar-over-presence-of-salmon-virus-off-b-c-coast

Beatrice%20Olivastri,%20CEO%20of%20Friends%20of%20the%20Earth%20Canada,%20says%20“This%20can%20only%20be%20a%20witch%20hunt%20against%20someone%20who%20doesn’t%20agree%20with%20the%20government%20line,%20and%20is%20suffering%20from%20the%20government’s%20bullying.”



Salmon farming not affecting orcas' health: report

An orca pod is seen swimming off the coast of Vancouver

December 8, 2012

VANCOUVER -- Don't blame salmon fishermen for the plight of some endangered killer whales off the Pacific coast, says a newly released report.

After three international conferences and nearly 15 months of reflection, members of a joint Canada-U.S. panel studying Southern Resident Killer Whales have concluded there's no simple, linear, cause-and-effect relationship between the number of salmon available to the orcas and the population's growth.

The Independent Science Panel was struck by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in 2011 and was asked to answer whether fishing reduced the supply of food to the whales and if that impeded their recovery.

The population is listed under the Species at Risk Act in Canada and under the Endangered Species Act in the U.S., and since the 1970s the numbers have been growing by less than one per cent.

READ ENTIRE CTV NEWS REPORT HERE

Editorial Comment:

• This article, other than the title, has no mention

of salmon farms and their documented impacts

on wild salmon (including chinook) and their

ecosystems.

• Exotic Atlantic salmon raised in open pen

feedlots are fed with fish meal that often

contains PCB–laden forage fish from the North

Atlantic.

• It’s been scientifically determined that some

dead orcas have high levels of PCB’s in their

systems.

• Orcas likely ingest pen raised salmon that

escape (thousands at a time) as well as wild

salmon that ingest feedlot food not eaten by fish

in the pens.

http://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/salmon-farming-not-affecting-orcas-health-report-1.1071490

http://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/salmon-farming-not-affecting-orcas-health-report-1.1071490



Column: Salmon drama raises questions about government’s role

November 29, 2012

If there were persistent reports of mad cow disease in Canadian beef, say, or hoof-and-mouth

disease, you would expect the federal government to act quickly to get to the bottom of the issue.

Which makes the government’s reaction to the threat of a potentially devastating salmon virus on the

West Coast confounding. Canada has a growing fish farming industry on both coasts and world-

renowned wild salmon stocks, which many fear are at risk from fish farms. Infectious salmon anemia

would not have the same direct impact on human health as some animal illnesses, but it is a

“reportable disease” because of its serious potential — the deadly virus could devastate both farmed

and wild stocks, as it did in Chile.

Rather than simply working double time to determine whether the virus exists in wild and farmed

salmon in the west and either looking for the source or taking precautionary action to make sure it

does not get introduced, the federal government has invested energy and time into shining an

uncomfortable spotlight on the scientists who say they have found evidence of the virus. Some prefer

to characterize it as an attack on scientists whose findings, if true, could have serious implications for

trade, for the aquaculture industry and wild salmon fishery.

“This is a classic campaign of denial, much like the tobacco industry,” said Rick Routledge, a

professor at Simon Fraser University who discovered the virus in two of 48 sockeye smolts he

collected as part of his research and, he says, was discredited by government officials as a result.

The virus in the fish he collected was diagnosed at an independent Prince Edward Island lab, now

threatened with being stripped of its international accreditation. The lab’s head, Dr. Fred Kibenge,

has said he believes he is being punished by the federal government for testifying about his findings

at a federal inquiry into declining sockeye salmon stocks.

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans retested Routledge’s samples at its own lab and was

unable to find traces of the virus, it has said, although the quality of the samples was not good by the

time they were using them. The department says it is retesting salmon.

Meanwhile, a letter from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency reportedly urged the World

Organization for Animal Health (OIE) to strip Kibenge’s PEI lab of its international credentials. The

lab at the Atlantic Veterinary College is one of two in the world recognized by the OIE for its expertise

in detecting ISA virus. It diagnosed the salmon virus in farmed salmon from Chile where it killed

millions of fish.

The lab has been the subject of several audits and concerns about lab conditions and testing

methods, according to the OIE, and could be stripped of its international designation in coming

months. The problems with the PEI lab are an added wrinkle in a complex story about science and

salmon. Such concerns should be carefully investigated and problems, if they exist, rectified. False

reports can do damage to the industry and consumer confidence.

But it is important to have an independent laboratory testing fish, especially since the Department of

Fisheries and Oceans has a potentially conflicted role.

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/technology/Salmon+drama+raises+questions+about+government+role/7629982/story.html



BIM farm would destroy Galway Bay's salmon and sea trout in five years

By Dr Roderick O’Sullivan ( Article and video forwarded by Don Staniford, Global coordinator GAAIA) Related video: “Feck off!” to Fish Farms in Galloway Bay

The Minister of the Marine plans to build four industrial-sized salmon farms along the west coast, starting with a 15,000 tonne per annum complex in Galway Bay. This could potentially become the largest salmon farm in the world. Bord Iascaigh Mmhara (BIM) is applying for the license, intending to franchise out the complex of farms to an independent operator. The only candidate capable of running such an operation is a well-known multi-national; hence, all profits will go to Norwegian banks. The Minister of the Marine, who wholeheartedly supports the complex, will ultimately decide himself on whether this colossal expansion will get his go-ahead. Bizarrely, this is the first time a minister is indirectly applying to himself for permission to build giant salmon farms. Having already paid out millions in consultancy fees, the taxpayer will shell out a further €70 million to build this highly controversial and potentially damaging complex. Whereas BIM claim the project will create 500 new jobs, the more likely figure is 65. Hyper-inflation of employment prospects is a standard BIM ploy when extolling environmentally damaging projects or when shying away from legitimate objections. Since its inception, BIM has distributed over a hundred million euros of State and EU grants to the salmon farming industry - údaras na gaeltacht has handed out €60 million. Surely the long suffering taxpayer deserves to know why the Department of the Marine continues to lavish such eye watering hand-outs on salmon farmers? BIM's complex will threaten the survival of wild salmon and sea trout. Hundreds of thousands of wild salmon previously routed through Galway Bay; today only 20,000 remain and these will be attacked by the billions of lice that will infest BIM's rows of salmon farms. Lice only attack salmon and trout. Small pockets of these parasites previously preyed on salmon for four months, today, lice swarm around salmon farms all year round. The wild salmon may be further attacked by the caligus elongatus, another species of louse. Wild salmon swim around the Aran Islands on their way to spawn in the Corrib Catchment and in the Costelloe, Spiddal and Kilcolgan Rivers. Other shoals bound for rivers in north Mayo, Wales and England will be similarly at risk. BIM insists lice will not kill Galway Bay's salmon because the proposed complex will be the only salmon farm on the globe to be untroubled by lice and any lice from the farms would remain distant from wild salmon.

READ ENTIRE CONNACHT TRIBUNE ARTICLE HERE

Dr Roderick O’Sullivan

Writer, environmental scientist and international

authority on salmon farming.

http://donstaniford.typepad.com/files/connacht-tribune-7-dec-2012.pdf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ej1xNhML-D4&feature=player_embedded

http://donstaniford.typepad.com/files/connacht-tribune-7-dec-2012.pdf



Details of fish farm chemicals sought

November 26, 2012

LOUISE ROSEINGRAVE

An opponent of fish farming who is on a tour of the west coast has called for details of chemical parasite treatments used in Irish waters to be made available.

Don Staniford of the Global Alliance Against Industrial Aquaculture drew a 100- strong crowd on Friday night to Bantry Bay, where he was a guest speaker for local campaign group Save Bantry Bay (SBB). Mr Staniford outlined damaging effects of common fish-farming practices on wild fish stocks and said the industry was “fundamentally flawed”.

Marine Harvest is seeking to develop a 100-acre fish farm at Shot Head in the bay and has lodged an application for a foreshore and aquaculture licence with the Department of the Marine.

SBB is fighting the project, citing concerns about the farm’s impact on wild fish stocks, water quality, fishermen’s livelihoods, angling, tourism and water sports.

Mr Staniford said Marine Harvest was fighting farmed fish parasites but information on chemical treatments used in Ireland was “particularly difficult to access”.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2012/1126/1224327093892.html






Something Fishy in BC. The latest foe in the war over salmon farms? Rapacious Norwegians.

February 11, 2009

Last summer, Norway’s richest man, John Frederiksen, went fishing on Norway’s legendary Alta, one of the world’s richest salmon rivers. Frederiksen made his first fortune running oil tankers to Iran during the Iran-Iraq war. He is now the silver-haired principal shareholder of Marine Harvest, which controls 20 to 30 per cent of the worldwide salmon farming industry. An avid angler, he told the reporter who was along on the trip that he was “concerned about the future of wild salmon,” and that fish farms shouldn’t be allowed near wild salmon runs because of the pollution and disease they spread in the open ocean.

What’s bad for Norway may be just fine for B.C., however, where Marine Harvest and two other Norwegian firms control 92 per cent of the $320-million salmon farming industry. Many of the farms are situated smack in the middle of key wild salmon runs, including the Fraser River run, which, this fall, recorded a 60 per cent decline in returning fish. Over the coming decade, the firms are projected to double production in B.C. Profits are destined for Oslo.

The problems, however, are all too local. Last year, the journal Science sparked international headlines when it projected the complete extinction of pink salmon by 2011 in B.C.’s Broughton Archipelago, one of the richest pockets of biodiversity on the B.C. coast. This fall, the number of pink salmon spawning in five key indicator streams in the Broughton, where the big three operate 30 farms, dropped as much as 90 per cent compared to 2006, down to 147,000 fish. That sudden, stunning collapse is reopening the charged debate over salmon farms. Last month, the Swiss-based

READ ENTIRE MACLEANS ARTICLE HERE

Canada was warned.

In 1990, as Marine Harvest and other Norwegian companies began fleeing tightening regulation at home, Norwegian MP John Lilletun told a Canadian parliamentary subcommittee that the fish farmers were heading our way.

“We are very strict about the quality and the environmental questions,” he said.

“Therefore, some of the fish farmers said, ‘We want bigger fish farms; we can do as we like here.’ ”

http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/02/11/something-fishy-in-bc/





Marine Harvest continues wild salmon research

November 20, 2012

With B.C. aboriginal and

environmental groups clambering for

an end to salmon farming, one of the

biggest players in the sector, Marine

Harvest, is reminding the public that

it has been quietly supporting wild

salmon research for two years.

“In 2010, Marine Harvest, the Pacific

Salmon Foundation and Fisheries

and Oceans Canada partnered to

begin research into wild salmon

health and migratory patterns in the

Discovery Islands area,” says Clare

Backman, Director of Sustainable

Programs at Marine Harvest Canada

(MHC). “We look forward to

expanding on our past support to do

further research into the baseline

health of wild salmon and the

potential interactions with our

salmon farms.”

Earlier this month the Cohen

Commission of Inquiry concluded a

three year probe into the decline of

Fraser River sockeye and Justice

Bruce Cohen presented 75

recommendations to the federal

government. While global warming

and fisheries management were

highlighted in the report as the most

serious concern to the future

sustainably of the Fraser River

sockeye, the recommendations also

included a request for additional fish

health data from government

hatcheries and wild salmon

migrating through the Discovery

Islands area.

Alexandra Morton:

“Dear Clare Backman,

• If Marine Harvest's salmon have no exotic viruses,

as you testified under oath to the Cohen

Commission, allow Molina's Nation to take 5 fish,

of their choice, directly from each farm in their

territory for viral testing. Please contact her and

her family directly.

• You are pushing to have tenures renewed in the

Kingcome region and it seems only fair that they

have a chance to know what it is they are being

asked to agree to.

• All Marine Harvest's farms are operating in public

waters, using those waters to dump all your waste,

several tons per day. Yours is perhaps the only

industry in BC that enjoys this privilege.

• I am sure none of the First Nations you have

signed agreements with have agreed to allow

piscine reovirus, ISA virus or Salmon Alpha virus

to leak into wild salmon habitat.

• You are using public waters, it is time for the

public to know more about you. “

Jim Wilcox:

• The impacts that open pen salmon feedlots have

on wild salmon and their irreplaceable ecosystems

are widely known, understood and documented.

• These quotes by open pen salmon feedlot industry

representatives are more of the same propaganda

designed to stall their eventual loss of tenure in

BC's precious marine environments.

• The open pen salmon feedlot industry must no

longer be permitted to operate in the world's

oceans - send them packing - the sooner, the

better!

http://www.campbellrivermirror.com/news/180236701.html?fb_comment_id=fbc_434209889979784_3887339_434448879955885#f36688cd0ab707c

http://www.campbellrivermirror.com/news/176857421.html?c=y&curSection=/&curTitle=BC+News&bc09=true





Commissioner Cohen said that wild sockeye could suffer “serious or irreversible harm” if exposed to disease

and that the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) needed to recognize the possible risk of

disease transfer between wild and farm fish.

He recommended that DFO undertake a decisive study of the risks to wild salmon from Discovery Islands fish

farming operations.

Cohen’s recommendations “are all about protecting wild salmon which is central to the work that we do each

day on our farms,” Backman says. “We’re confident that our farms are not a risk to wild salmon and we

support more research to confirm that.”

However, the anti-fish farm lobby is in no mood to wait for research to be completed. It is demanding that the

provincial government not renew leases for open-net salmon farms on the coast. Aboriginals and

environmentalists demonstrated outside Premier Christy Clark’s constituency office in Point Grey last week

and delivered a petition with more than 11,000 signatures opposing the renewal of salmon farm leases.

Molina Dawson of the Dzawada’enuxw First Nation from Kingcome Inlet says: “I know without a doubt that the

cost to our wild salmon – and everything that relies on them – isn’t worth it. So, as long as the government and

fish farm companies are actively endangering our fish they will not be getting any support from me.”

BC Salmon Farmers Association Executive Director

Mary Ellen Walling says: “There is no evidence that

salmon farms are harming wild salmon. Justice

Cohen has asked for more research in one

particular operating area and it’s a recommendation

we’ve supported.

Our farmers continue to operate in their responsible manner in the Discovery Islands, and around the coast.

Our contribution to coastal and First Nations communities is important to all of our farm companies working

along the B.C. coast. We plan to see that continue.

As for the tenures, our farmers have been operating there for many years and these are not new applications.”

Walling also says the sector has about 14 protocol agreements with First Nations offering a “range of

opportunities such as priority hiring, contract opportunities and revenue.”

A 2011 report for the Aboriginal Aquaculture Association showed that annual output of farmed salmon is about

77,000 tonnes of which 60,000 tonnes is produced in aboriginal territories under various agreements.

Agriculture Minister Norm Letnick says the province continues to review the Cohen report and will provide a

detailed response in the future. Currently, there are 27 aquaculture tenures in the Discovery Islands.

Of those, seven are under review for tenure replacement and are operating under month-to-month tenancy

agreements.

Don Staniford:

“More bullshit from the BCSFA: “BC Salmon

Farmers Association Executive Director Mary

Ellen Walling says:

"There is no evidence that salmon farms are

harming wild salmon."”

http://www.campbellrivermirror.com/news/180236701.html?fb_comment_id=fbc_434209889979784_3887339_434448879955885

http://www.campbellrivermirror.com/news/180236701.html?fb_comment_id=fbc_434209889979784_3887339_434448879955885



Headless sea lions remain a mystery

December 5, 2012

Some First Nations around Vancouver Island are given licences to shoot sea lions and remove whiskers and hides

for ceremonial purposes, but Paul Cottrell, Fisheries and Oceans marine mammal coordinator, doubts if the

mysterious cluster of headless sea lion bodies recently found on northern Vancouver Island has anything to do with

an authorized First Nations harvest.

"Under the licence conditions they have to report the kill and the species and, typically, we don't have Steller sea

lions on the licence," Cottrell said.

The exception is in some northern areas, where there are few California sea lions, and DFO scientists are

consulted about conservation needs, he said.

"Then we may allow a few Stellers, but very few."

Steller sea lions are listed as animals of special concern in Canada, and as threatened in the U.S.

Licences are approved by area managers, said Cottrell, who could not say how many have been issued this year.

"I don't know the number off the top of my head, but it's not a large number," he said.

Licence conditions require the animals be killed in a humane manner.

Some First Nations use sea lion whiskers to make traditional masks and the hide is used for drum-making.

Three bullet-ridden and mutilated Steller sea lions turned up in Campbell River and Comox over the last week.

"Two were decapitated and the third one had half the head and part of the skin removed," Cottrell said.

A headless harbour seal was found in Barkley Sound earlier this week.

"One of the difficult things is the animals might have died elsewhere and washed up on the beach and then been

decapitated," Cottrell said.

Since the discoveries, there have been reports of dead sea lions from various locations around Vancouver Island,

but, with decomposition, it is difficult to tell how some of them died, Cottrell said.

"We are going back over the last couple of months trying to piece this together," he said.

"We are getting lots of calls ... It's really good because we can keep tabs on what is going on."

Salmon farmers are also permitted to shoot nuisance marine mammals, but few farms now resort to killing animals,

Cottrell said.

DFO figures show that between April and June, the latest statistics available, two California sea lions were shot.

Six harbour seals, two California sea lions and an unidentified marine mammal accidentally drowned after

becoming entangled in predator nets.

Mary Ellen Walling, B.C. Salmon Farmers Association executive director, said it is highly unlikely any of the farms

would know anything about mutilated sea lions.

"We are also quite concerned about this situation. This is not how we operate at all. Our goal is to reduce

interactions by using methods such as predator nets," she said.

Anyone who sees a dead, distressed or sick marine mammal can call the reporting hotline at 1-800-465-4336..

http://www.timescolonist.com/technology/Headless+lions+remain+mystery/7653594/story.html#ixzz2ECsHdVjO



Devastating impact on Wild Salmon populations from Sea Lice November 19, 2012 Related video: Lifelong fishing angler Roy Christie talks about the need to protect the habitat of wild fish and stop the expansion of salmon farms in Ireland.

Inland Fisheries Ireland has collaborated in an international study to examine the impact of sea lice on the marine survival of Atlantic salmon. In a newly published report, results reveal that that on average 39% of salmon mortalities were attributable to sea lice which impacts wild salmon numbers and therefore wild salmon fisheries.

In previously published studies, groups of salmon smolts were treated to protect them against sea lice infestation and other groups were untreated and both groups released to sea into 10 areas of Ireland and Norway. A proportion of these released fish were recaptured as adult salmon one or more years later. Analysis of the results of all previously published studies together provide experimental evidence from a large marine ecosystem that sea lice can have large impacts on salmon recruitment, fisheries, and conservation. The sea lice were likely acquired during early marine migration in areas with salmon farming, which elevate local abundances of sea lice. The research, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, involved experts from the the Scottish Oceans Institute at the University of St Andrews, The Department of Zoology at the University of Otago in New Zealand, the Atlantic Veterinary College at the University of Prince Edward Island in Canada, the Institute of Marine Research in Norway, the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research and Inland Fisheries Ireland.

Results indicate that parasite-associated mortality may cause the closure of some fisheries when conservation targets of return adult abundances are not being met. However, the implications of these results may be most serious for small populations in small river systems. The concern therefore is not only for a 39% loss in salmon abundance, but also the loss of genetic variability.

In these studies, high marine mortality naturally affects both treated and untreated salmon groups. However, analyses in this study allowed for the high natural mortality to be accounted for and isolated the estimated loss of salmon recruitment due to parasitism, revealing a large effect of parasites. Precisely because natural mortality rates are high, even a proportionally small additive mortality from parasites can amount to a large loss in adult salmon recruitment.

The finding that sea lice are responsible for 39 per cent of the mortalities amongst salmon in the Northeast Atlantic Ocean is significant in the context of declining salmon stocks across Europe. The salmon aquaculture industry in Ireland are required to maintain sea lice levels below designated Protocol levels to protect wild fish from increased sea lice infestation. The treatment against sea lice had a significant positive effect on survival .

Minister of State with responsibility for Natural Resources Fergus O Dowd, TD, welcomed the report stating “from the results of this detailed study, it is crucial that sea lice levels are maintained below these protocol levels, particularly in spring when wild salmon smolts are migrating to sea to avoid increased marine mortality. I have consistently given my support for the development of aquaculture, and its reported potential for job creation, which complies with our obligations under the relevant EU environmental legislation and in particular the EU Habitats Directive. The results from the latest comprehensive study augment our knowledge in the context of proposals for aquaculture development. I am equally conscious of the imperative to develop Ireland’s angling sector, worth an estimated €150m annually to the national economy and to ensure a cohesive approach to development across Departments and State Agencies involved in both sectors”.

The full report can be downloaded from http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2012/11/01/rspb.2012.2359.full

http://www.fishandfly.com/news/3255-devastating-impact-on-wild-salmon-populations-from-sea-lice.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=-rGoTyf6dmY

http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2012/11/01/rspb.2012.2359.full



No confirmed disease in B.C. salmon

December 4, 2012

Re: Salmon drama raises questions about government's role, Nov. 30.

Elizabeth Payne's column paints an

inaccurate picture of Fisheries and Oceans

Canada's role in testing for infectious salmon

anemia.

There are stringent federal regulations in

place to protect Canada's aquatic species,

both wild and farmed, from disease. To date,

contrary to some media reports, there has not

been a confirmed case of ISA in British

Columbia salmon, either wild or farmed.

Upon the allegations that ISA had been found

in wild Pacific salmon, the government

reacted quickly and tested the samples using

Fisheries and Oceans Canada's Gulf

Fisheries Centre, which meets internationally

recognized standards for ISA testing; results

from our laboratory can be considered valid.

The Government of Canada, in collaboration

with the province of British Columbia, tested

all samples related to the suspected ISA

investigation in B.C.

Based on the final results, there have been no

confirmed cases of the disease in wild or

farmed salmon in B.C. In recent years, the

Government of Canada and B.C. have tested

more than 5,000 wild and farmed salmon in

B.C. for infectious salmon anemia.

None has ever tested positive. ISA poses no risk to people. Pacific salmon appear to be resistant to the disease.

Canadians can have full confidence in the testing results from the Gulf Fisheries Centre, as they can in the

Government of Canada's serious and ongoing commitment to protecting the health of Canada's wild and farmed

fish from aquatic animal diseases.

Kevin Stringer,

Assistant Deputy Minister, Ecosystems and Oceans Science, Fisheries and Oceans Canada.

Editorial Comment:

Wild Game Fish Conservation International and our

associates around planet earth have no confidence

in the testing results from the Gulf Fisheries Centre.

As we learned during the recently concluded Cohen

Commission Inquiry into the decline of Fraser River

sockeye salmon:

• The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA)

doesn’t test wild salmon for diseases.

• CFIA testing equipment and procedures are sub-

par for testing for and identifying ISAv and other

salmon diseases.

• The Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO)

is responsible for protecting and restoring wild

fish AND for developing open pen Atlantic

salmon farms and marketing these exotic species

around the globe.

We know full well from the open pen salmon feedlots

situated around the world:

• Wild food fish are negatively impacted

• Forage fish to feed pen raised salmon are over

harvested

• Cultures and economies are devastated

• Human health issues arise

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/confirmed+disease+salmon/7646808/story.html#ixzz2E6POUxV0

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/technology/Column+Salmon+drama+raises+questions+about+government+role/7629982/story.html



BC Salmon Farmers Association – Winter 2012

Final Report supports research and care

It was a long and intense process for many people – but the wrap up of the Cohen Commission of Inquiry into the Decline of the Fraser River Sockeye doesn’t mean the end of the work to protect our Fraser River Sockeye. In many ways, it is only the beginning.

On Oct. 31, Commissioner Cohen released his final report, the product of his review of hundreds of days of hearing and forums, dozens of witnesses and tens-of-thousands of documents. It is a comprehensive three-volume document looking at a range of possible triggers for the poor Sockeye return of 2009. All the work turned up no clear cause of the decline as Justice Cohen puts it – but he did find some topics worth further research.

“Some, I suspect, hoped that our work would find the “smoking gun” – a single cause that explained the two-decade decline in productivity – but finding that a single event or stressor is responsible is improbable,” said Cohen in a press release that day.

Among the stressors looked at by Justice Cohen is the effect of warming ocean temperatures on the Sockeye returns. He also speaks to the potential impacts of habitat loss, enhancement fish, North Pacific competition and more. Justice Cohen said that the information being collected by BC’s salmon farmers is second to none, and adds that there is no evidence

The View From Here (BC Salmon Farmers Association)

When Justice Cohen released his final report on the Fraser River Sockeye Oct. 31, we apparently surprised people with our reaction.

Our farmers and association members supported the judge’s report and recommendations and expressed continued confidence in the future of our farming community. It seems this was an unexpected perspective.

Hopefully you heard the message that BC’s salmon farmers feel Justice Cohen’s report is a good one. But some people seem puzzled how we could see it that way.

It’s simple. We can easily support the report, because we’re already well down the path that Cohen has laid out. The high levels of research, the active and astute fish health monitoring, the transparency, the improvement of farm siting criteria and regular operations: these are all things that have been a high priority for many years for BC’s salmon farmers.

READ ENTIRE BCSFA ARTICLE HERE

http://www.salmonfarmers.org/sites/default/files/newsletters/catch-issue11-winter2012-web.pdf



Government ordered to reveal secret seal shooters

Scottish ministers have been ordered to name fish farms that shoot seals – and rebuked for trying to keep the hunts secret.

The Scottish Information Commissioner has ruled against the Government's decision not to disclose the names of fish farms licensed to shoot seals

In a damning decision to be published tomorrow, the Scottish Information Commissioner, Rosemary Agnew, rejects SNP ministers' arguments for secrecy as "tenuous". She says she is "disappointed" at the Government's failure to provide evidence in support of its claim that public safety would be put at risk.

Ministers now have to reveal the number of seals killed by fish-farming companies at individual sites before January 10. The only way to avoid doing so is by appealing to the Court of Session on a point of law.

The Sunday Herald disclosed in September that the Scottish Government was refusing to identify fish farms that shoot seals because of fears that direct action by protestors could put shooters at risk. This was angrily disputed by anti-fish-farming campaigners, and has now been dismissed by Agnew. "The commissioner accepts that the killing of seals is an emotive subject, and one which could conceivably lead to direct action by protestors," says her ruling. "However, in relation to a potential threat to public safety, the ministers have not provided any specific examples or evidence which would support their view that public safety would, or would be likely to be, threatened”.

Ministers referred to protests against a Canadian seal cull, Japanese whaling and a Costa Rican boat cutting fins off sharks, and mentioned demonstrations against a planned seal cull in Orkney more than 30 years ago. But such examples are "tenuous and bear little relation to the issues or situations under consideration", argues Agnew. "Ministers have failed to demonstrate a real risk or likelihood that the harm they anticipated was likely to occur.

Her decision was welcomed by the Global Alliance Against Industrial Aquaculture, which appealed against the Government's refusal to name the fish farms. “The public will now be able to avoid buying farmed salmon from farms where seals are killed needlessly," said the alliance's Don Staniford.

"The public will now be able to avoid buying farmed salmon from farms where seals are killed needlessly," said the alliance's Don Staniford.

Scottish ministers have licensed eight fish-farming firms to shoot more than 300 seals since the start of 2011. Killing them should be a last resort to stop them attacking salmon. But campaigners say it is unnecessary, as seals can be kept out of farms with high-tension nets.

READ ENTIRE HERALD SCOTLAND ARTICLE HERE

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/environment/government-ordered-to-reveal-secret-seal-shooters.19563569

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/environment/government-ordered-to-reveal-secret-seal-shooters.19563569



Seafood consumption: Food safety and health

Smoked salmon recalled after Listeria detected in samples

December 15, 2012

SEATTLE — Ocean Beauty Seafoods has announced a precautionary recall of two cold-smoked salmon products because of possible Listeria contamination. The products were distributed in 12 states, including Colorado.

The products are the 3-ounce Nathan's Brand Cold Smoked Atlantic Salmon and the 4-ounce Lascco Cold Smoked Nova Atlantic Salmon. The products were distributed to retailers and distribution centers in Washington, Oregon, California, Arizona, Texas, Colorado, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey and New York.

The Lascco salmon has a universal product code, or UPC, of 0 72840 01751 7. The Nathan's salmon has a UPC of 0 73030 80368 2. The products are vacuum-packed in a plastic pouch on a foil board. The pack code 285 is printed on the back panel.

No illnesses have been reported.

Ocean Beauty says internal testing by the company revealed the presence of Listeria in samples of the specific packages noted above.

http://www.wggb.com/2012/12/15/listeria-concerns-prompts-salmon-recall/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Listeria



Enjoy seasonal wild Pacific salmon dinners at these fine restaurants:



Wild Salmon Supporters – View entire list here

Fishy info about salmon?

The Yankee Chef in the BDN on Nov. 21 states that he uses “wild Atlantic salmon because the flavor is twice that of farm-raised.”

Wild Atlantic salmon in Maine are an endangered species. Commercial harvest of sea-run salmon (Salmo salar) in Maine ended in 1947, when weir fishermen in the Penobscot River caught a grand total of 40 fish.

Recreational angling for salmon is prohibited because of their endangered status. Commercial salmon fishing is banned in Atlantic Canada and Greenland. Wild Atlantic salmon are not available in retail markets.

Salmon available to Maine consumers is either farm-raised Atlantic salmon (some of which is grown in Maine and eastern Canada) or wild Alaskan salmon.

To help consumers learn more about salmon and other local seafood, consumers can visit the Maine Seafood Guide, seagrant.umaine.edu/maine-seafood-guide.

http://www.salmonsupporters.com/supporters.php

http://bangordailynews.com/2012/11/29/opinion/friday-nov-30-2012-salmon-political-power-and-womens-health/?ref=mostReadBoxOpinion

http://theyankeechef.bangordailynews.com/2012/11/19/historical-recipes/my-best-thanksgiving-salmon/

http://www.seagrant.umaine.edu/maine-seafood-guide



Seafood Sleuthing Reveals Pervasive Fish Fraud In New York City

December 11, 2012

If you buy fish in New York City, particularly from a small market or restaurant, there's a pretty good chance it won't be the fish it claims to be.

An ocean conservation group announced today that three in five retail outlets it visited, including 100 percent of sushi restaurants, were selling mislabeled fish. The report is just the latest in a string of investigations revealing that seafood mislabeling is commonplace.

The researchers, from the group Oceana, collected 142 fish samples earlier this year from 81 retail outlets, including large grocery stores, corner bodegas, high-end restaurants, and sushi bars. They analyzed the samples using DNA barcoding, and found that 39 percent of the fish were labeled as other species.

Farm-raised Atlantic salmon had been substituted for wild-caught salmon, they found. Ocean perch, tilapia, and goldbanded jobfish were sold as red snapper. Fish labeled "white tuna" was escolar, which can cause acute gastrointestinal problems. And one serving of halibut was really tilefish, a species with so much mercury that the Food and Drug Administration has placed it on the do-not-eat list for pregnant women and young children.

The study didn't address who exactly is responsible for the mislabeling — whether at the supplier or the retail level. "That's for the enforcers," notes Kimberly Warner, a senior scientist at Oceana.

Last year the Boston Globe reported that 48 percent of fish in Massachusetts were mislabeled, similar to findings in Los Angeles (55 percent) and Miami (31 percent). A follow-up from the Globe published earlier this month found that 76 percent of fish in a new survey were mislabeled.

And in 2008, two New York City high school students conducted their own DNA study of four restaurants and 10 grocery stores in Manhattan and found that a quarter of the fish they sampled were mislabeled.

Warner says that traceability — a better system that would make it easier to track seafood from net to plate — would help to eliminate the fraud. "We have a very complex and murky seafood chain with no traceability."

A bill introduced to Congress in July is intended to address seafood fraud.

READ ENTIRE WNYC.ORG ARTICLE HERE

Farmed Atlantic salmon was sometimes labeled at

"wild salmon," researchers found when they tested

seafood sold in New York City

http://www.wnyc.org/npr_articles/2012/dec/11/seafood-sleuthing-reveals-pervasive-fish-fraud-in-new-york-city/

http://oceana.org/en/news-media/publications/reports/widespread-seafood-fraud-found-in-new-york-city

http://www.npr.org/stations/force/force_localization.php?station=WNYC_FM&url=http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2011/10/25/141682168/a-dna-check-reveals-widespread-fish-mislabeling-in-massachusetts

http://oceana.org/en

http://barcoding.si.edu/dnabarcoding.htm

http://www.fda.gov/food/foodsafety/product-specificinformation/seafood/foodbornepathogenscontaminants/methylmercury/ucm115662.htm

http://www.fda.gov/food/foodsafety/product-specificinformation/seafood/foodbornepathogenscontaminants/methylmercury/ucm115662.htm

http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/specials/fish

http://www.boston.com/business/specials/fish_testing/

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/22/science/22fish.html?_r=0

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/112/hr6200

http://www.wnyc.org/npr_articles/2012/dec/11/seafood-sleuthing-reveals-pervasive-fish-fraud-in-new-york-city/



Scientific Opinion on infectious salmon anaemia (ISA)

November 20, 2012

Abstract

Atlantic salmon is the only species in which the disease infectious salmon anaemia (ISA) has been observed naturally. Initial reports of findings of infectious salmon anaemia virus (ISAV) before 2002, did not distinguish between non virulent HPR0 and virulent HPRΔ viruses, thus making interpretation of older findings difficult in the light of current knowledge.

Following a request from the European Commission, EFSA was asked to deliver a scientific opinion on the relationship between HPR0 and HPRΔ, the risk of HPRΔ ISAV emerging from HPR0 ISAV, and possible risk factors for such an emergence. HPR0 ISAV does not cause clinical disease in Atlantic salmon; however, it causes a transient subclinical infection and replicates mainly in gills.

There is no evidence for HPR0 ISAV leading to natural infection and replication in fish species other than Atlantic salmon.

Virulent ISAV have deletions in the HPR region of the HE gene and they have either an insertion or the Q266L mutation in the F gene.

The most plausible hypothesis is that virulent ISAV (HPRΔ) is derived from HPR0 ISAV. This is further supported by the close association between the genetic relatedness and spatio-temporal distances of virus strains in solitary outbreaks.

Epidemiological and historical data from solitary disease outbreaks indicates that the risk of HPRΔ ISAV emerging from HPR0 is low, but not negligible. The risk factors for HPRΔ emergence from HPR0 are unknown.

Nevertheless, any factor that affects virus replication or host susceptibility could possibly influence the risk of emergence.

More research is needed on the drivers for transition from HPR0 to HPRΔ and factors affecting host susceptibility and thereby emergence of clinical disease.

A quantitative assessment of the different evolutionary forces for ISA would be useful, as well as the prevalence of ISAV HPR0 in farmed and wild Atlantic salmon.

http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/efsajournal/pub/2971.htm



Farmed and dangerous: the dish about fish

December 1, 2012

This holiday season, there are many things I am looking forward to. I am extremely excited to escape

from the fast-paced college atmosphere and be able to relax with my family in Napa.

I cannot wait to catch up with childhood friends, and am especially anticipating the delicious home-

cooked meals that will be waiting for me once I arrive at home.

Whether it is the tasty Thanksgiving turkey, my family’s traditional Italian Christmas dinner, or the

array of appetizers that are served on New Years Eve, in my family, the holidays are a time to

celebrate, share, and enjoy mouth-watering meals.

Although the menu changes slightly each year, there is one thing that I know will always be served

during the holiday season: my mom’s famous grilled salmon — a meal so delicious that I request it

every time I return home.

Salmon, in addition to many other varieties of fish, is a staple of my diet. It is a type of food that I

never thought twice about consuming, because I knew it was not only packed with healthy fats and

omega-3 fatty acids, but was also very delicious.

It was not until I came across old pictures of my sixth-grade class field trip to a Northern California

fish hatchery that I began to think more about the fish I was consuming, considering how “natural” the

salmon was that my family purchased at our local supermarket.

After researching the process that occurred before salmon was served on my plate, my perspective

on fish drastically changed, as I was exposed to a world where fish were not natural or fresh, but

rather, for the most part, farmed and dangerous.

I bet you did not know that

69 percent of the salmon sold in the U.S. is farmed, not wild — raised in packed aquaculture farms,

floating feedlots that are home to more than 1 million fish crammed into a small cages (“Farmed

Salmon vs. Wild Salmon,” Oct. 9, healthcastle.com).

I’m sure you were unaware that there are currently more than

2 million aquaculture lots located off of the West Coast, and that the fish in these farms are

constantly doused with antibiotics and exposed to pesticides to prevent disease and infection (“What

is wrong with salmon farming,” Oct. 9, raincoastresearch.org).

I can almost guarantee that you have not once considered the health and ecological implications that

arise due to the current popularity of aquaculture farming. It is creating new forms of disease among

other marine animals and humans, including increased heart disease and bioaccumulation of toxins.

The emergence of aquaculture in today’s world creates more harm than good, making a fish that was

once very healthy, not so nutritious. Lacking high levels of omega-3 fatty acids, as a result of

exposure to pesticides, aquaculture salmon are not conducive to the same health benefits of their

wild kin.

READ ENTIRE NAPA VALLEY REGISTER ARTICLE HERE

http://napavalleyregister.com/news/opinion/mailbag/farmed-and-dangerous-the-dish-about-fish/article_d1c909d4-3b71-11e2-af6b-001a4bcf887a.html

http://healthcastle.com/

http://raincoastresearch.org/

http://napavalleyregister.com/news/opinion/mailbag/farmed-and-dangerous-the-dish-about-fish/article_d1c909d4-3b71-11e2-af6b-001a4bcf887a.html



Food Safety Agency Should Protect Public, Not Cover up Virus for Salmon

Farming Industry

December 1 2012

The federal agency embroiled in the recent XL Meats tainted beef scandal is at it again - this time leading efforts to cover up a potentially catastrophic farmed salmon flu-like viral outbreak on BC's coast. Charged with ensuring your food is safe to eat, the Canadian Food

Inspection Agency (CFIA) increasingly appears to be acting as a political arm of the Harper Government and an inept custodian of Canadian trade which will do our export business far more harm than good in the long run.

A little over a week ago, it became apparent that the CFIA is working hard to discredit and de-certify one of the two labs in the world recognized by the World Animal Health Organization (OIE) as experts in detecting a deadly salmon virus, known as ISAv. The lab in question, run out of Atlantic Veterinary College at the University of P.E.I. by Dr. Fred Kibenge, diagnosed the ISAv outbreak that devastated the Chilean aquaculture industry several years ago, causing $2 Billion in damage. Such is his scientific credibility that when the fish farm industry was experiencing unexplained losses of their fish in Chile in 2007, they went to Kibenge to test for ISAv.

Recently, Dr. Kibenge has been testing farmed and wild salmon samples from BC as he investigates a potential similar outbreak here. His findings were instrumental in forcing the re-opening of the Cohen

Commission into disappearing sockeye last year, where he went before Justice Cohen as a key witness. That the Commission took Dr. Kibenge's testimony and research as seriously as it did - reflected in its ultimate findings released a month ago - should be of particular note to the CFIA as they

attack his lab and credibility.

During the same judicial proceedings, internal emails revealed these CFIA senior staff acting, as the Commission's lead lawyer suggested, more like hockey players high-fiving each other after beating their opponent than scientists and civil servants serious about getting to the bottom of a viral mystery which threatens the environment and economy of BC - even the salmon farms themselves.

The emails followed the telephone press conference the CFIA hosted to rebuke the first discovery of ISAv in wild salmon on BC's coast by independent salmon biologist Alexandra Morton and SFU Professor Rick Routledge. I was on that call and appalled by the lengths they went to dismiss and discredit this groundbreaking new finding. I asked the CFIA's spokespeople where the Precautionary Principle fit in their approach. Evidently it receives nowhere near the prominence Justice Cohen accords it.

In one of the emails that surfaced at the Cohen Commission, dated November 9, 2011, Joseph Beres, an inspection manager at the CFIA, wrote to colleague Dr. Con Kiley and other senior DFO and CFIA staff who had appeared on the conference call:

READ ENTIRE CANADIAN ARTICLE HERE

http://thecanadian.org/item/1829-food-safety-agency-should-protect-public-not-cover-up-virus-for-salmon-farming-industry-cfia-isav-kibenge


http://thecanadian.org/item/1751-xl-meats-too-big-for-food-safety-rick-mercer-video-nails-it

http://www.inspection.gc.ca/about-the-cfia/acts-and-regulations/eng/1299846777345/1299847442232

http://www.inspection.gc.ca/about-the-cfia/acts-and-regulations/eng/1299846777345/1299847442232

http://thecanadian.org/item/1222-kristi-miller-cohen-commission-salmon-virus

http://thecanadian.org/item/1222-kristi-miller-cohen-commission-salmon-virus

http://thecanadian.org/k2-video/item/1791-video-justice-cohen-gets-tough-on-fish-farms-inquiry-sockeye-report-released-damien-gillis

http://thecanadian.org/k2/item/1226-winning-salmon-pr-war-cohen-commission-gillis

http://thecanadian.org/k2/item/1101-us-senators-demand-action-salmon-virus-while-bc-counterparts-go-into-denial-mode-damien-gillis

http://thecanadian.org/k2/item/1101-us-senators-demand-action-salmon-virus-while-bc-counterparts-go-into-denial-mode-damien-gillis


http://thecanadian.org/media/k2/items/cache/f62a17f794a03b17a2684f0886667d26_L.jpg

http://thecanadian.org/media/k2/items/cache/f62a17f794a03b17a2684f0886667d26_L.jpg



Eco-Washing McFarmed Fish

McDonald's Sells MSC-Certified Fish - Farmed Salmon Next? by Don Staniford

Here's a taste of things to come – if Marine Harvest, WWF and the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) have their way we'll be soon be seeing McDonald's serving ASC-certified farmed salmon burgers alongside the MSC-certified whitefish sandwich unveiled today to celebrate World Oceans Day (see article).

If you think that's a leap of the imagination too far then think again –McDonald's in Norway have already served McLaks salmon burgers and farmed salmon wraps in partnership with Marine Harvest.

In 1997, McDonald's were sued when "four people, including two McDonald's employees, were hospitalized after eating tainted McLaks salmon burgers at a restaurant in Lorenskog, located in the outskirts of Oslo".

McDonald's Norway confirmed that the food poisoning materialized from a "corrupted" consignment of salmon fillets delivered by the Norwegian fish firm West Fish, based in Alesund. Separate legal actions against McDonald's were filed by the four people who claimed they became sick after consuming McLaks burgers.

"At first the McLaks tasted very good, but after some minutes my mouth and throat became numb, and I experienced internal spasms," said Geir Sundberg, one of the four filing suit against McDonald's.

Advertising Age reports under "1997 Ad Follies":

"In Norway, McDonald's pulled the McLaks salmon burger off the market after four customers were treated for food poisoning. McLaks had been a hit with health-conscious Norwegians, and McDonald's had been considering expanding the product to Sweden and Denmark"

For more details read "McDonald's sued over McSalmon burger sickness".

Not learning their lesson, McDonald's teamed up with Marine Harvest a decade later in 2007 and launched a farmed salmon wrap with an ad campaign showing a 'Laksewrap' (Salmon wrap) leaping out of the water with a M shape and the Marine Harvest logo underneath. Marine Harvest Canada blogged about it via 'Marine Harvest teams up with McDonalds' and even the Norwegian Embassy in the United States blogged "McSalmon, Please!".

"It is very exciting to cooperate with McDonalds and launch such a healthy and delicious product at the fast food chain", said Arne Hjeltnes, Communication Director in Marine Harvest.

For more details read: "Marine Harvest teams up with McDonalds" and "McDonalds launches Marine Harvest salmon wrap".

Now WWF are now funding the Aquaculture Stewardship Council and are represented on the supervisory board (Jose Villalon of WWF US is the chairman of the board). WWF also funded the MSC. Marine Harvest meanwhile pay WWF Norway 800,000 NOK per year and are also on the Steering Committee of WWF's 'Salmon Aquaculture Dialogue'. WWF last month published a final draft of farmed salmon standards which will be handed over to the ASC once finalized and later this year could see the certification of farmed salmon as sustainable. Marine Harvest and McDonald's are waiting in the wings.

If you're not lovin' the idea of ASC-certified McSalmon burgers sourced from Marine Harvest please sign onto a letter to WWF opposing the certification of farmed salmon:

http://www.superheroes4salmon.org/blog/stop-certification-farmed-salmon-sustainable-and-responsible

And sign onto a petition to WWF and the ASC: http://www.change.org/petitions/stop-the-certification-of-farmed-salmon-as-sustainable-and-responsible

http://www.pacificfreepress.com/opinion/8922-eco-washing-mcfarmed-fish.html

http://www.seafoodsource.com/content.aspx?id=4294967764

http://adage.com/article/news/1997-ad-follies/69732/

http://adage.com/article/news/mcdonald-s-sued-mcsalmon-burger-sickness/12455/

http://marineharvestcanada.wordpress.com/2008/10/02/marine-harvest-teams-up-with-mcdonalds/

http://marineharvestcanada.wordpress.com/2008/10/02/marine-harvest-teams-up-with-mcdonalds/

http://www.norway.org/ARCHIVE/business/businessnews/mclaks/

http://www.thefishsite.com/fishnews/4937/mcdonalds-is-launching-salmon-wrap-with-salmon-from-marine-harvest

http://www.aftenposten.no/english/business/article1835119.ece

http://www.fishupdate.com/news/fullstory.php/aid/8314/McDonalds_launches_Marine_Harvest_salmon_wrap__.html

http://www.fishupdate.com/news/fullstory.php/aid/8314/McDonalds_launches_Marine_Harvest_salmon_wrap__.html

http://www.worldwildlife.org/what/globalmarkets/aquaculture/council-faqs.html#6

http://www.ascworldwide.org/index.cfm?act=tekst.item&iid=2&iids=10&lng=1

http://www.ascworldwide.org/index.cfm?act=tekst.item&iid=2&iids=10&lng=1

http://www.worldwildlife.org/what/globalmarkets/aquaculture/dialogues-salmon.html



http://www.change.org/petitions/stop-the-certification-of-farmed-salmon-as-sustainable-and-responsible

http://www.change.org/petitions/stop-the-certification-of-farmed-salmon-as-sustainable-and-responsible



Tell Your Representative to Support Safe Seafood

SAFE Seafood Act will protect consumers and the oceans

Seafood is one of the most popular foods in the US, but consumers often have no way to know for

sure exactly what they are eating or where it came from. Studies show that for some commonly

swapped types of seafood, up to 70% may be mislabeled.

H.R. 6200, the SAFE Seafood Act, will help protect consumers and the oceans from seafood fraud.

By requiring traceability from bait to plate and strengthening enforcement against fraud, this act will

help ensure that the food on your plate is exactly what's on the menu.

Seafood fraud hurts. Mislabeled seafood can pose health risks to consumers, and illegal or

unsustainable fish are sold under false labelling, hurting conservation efforts.

Tell your Representative to fight seafood fraud by co-sponsoring the SAFE Seafood Act (H.R.

6200) today.



The Truth Behind Farmed Salmon

It turns out that farm-raised salmon, touted as inexpensive fare for heart-healthy diets, may not be

such a good mealtime addition after all. The journal Science published an article detailing an

exhaustive analysis of some 700 farm-raised salmon. Most had levels of dioxin-cancer-causing

chemicals that are the by-product of various industrial processes-as much as 11 times higher than

those found in wild salmon. The best explanation for the big dose of dioxin is that farm-raised fish are

eating badly themselves-food pellets mostly derived from ground-up fish. A less-diverse diet than wild

salmon eat, it allows concentrations of chemicals to pass easily to farmed salmon.

IT'S THE SALMON FARMS, NOT THE RISKS OF DIOXIN IN FARMED SALMON, THAT WE

OUGHT TO BE WORRIED ABOUT.

Farm-raised salmon were largely unheard of 20 years ago. But after getting their start in northern

Europe and then spreading to places such as Chile and British Columbia, Canada, "salmon farms"

grew rapidly. Today they account for some 60 percent of salmon worldwide-1.4 million metric tons in

2002, which is a lot of salmon steaks. The abundance of farmed salmon has helped make a fish that

once was largely a luxury item (or an expensive canned fish) into a commonplace meal in homes and

restaurants.

Farmed salmon bring their own set of troubles in their wake. For starters, aquaculture is a dirty

industry. As many as 600,000 salmon may be raised in a single net-enclosed pen-itself usually

installed in a protected fjord or inlet. Although progressive farmers rotate "crops" of fish between

pens, the sea floor under the enclosed salmon becomes covered with fish excrement and uneaten

food, creating a dead zone where nothing can live or grow. By some estimates, the salmon farms in

British Columbia pump out as much fish faeces as the human equivalent from a city of 500,000.

The Solution: Ask for wild caught Salmon or Alaskan King Salmon next time you go shopping.

http://www.foodmatters.tv/articles-1/the-truth-behind-farmed-salmon



Can a Sustainable Salmon be Farmed?

November 23, 2012

Is Sobeys lice-infested product an anomaly, or par for the course?

Not very appetizing - sea louse-infested salmon from Sobey's [Photo: Facebook]

Halifax, NS – The rise of consumption in today's world is due to the rapid growth of the world's

population, yet even more so with the rise of the philosophy of the “more is better” consumption

culture. This fast, inhumane, pace of consumption is exhausting Canada's natural resources as well

as the environment as a whole.

While wild fish stocks have largely collapsed, aquaculture development has recently been proven to

be a revitalizing social and economic force, albeit potentially non-sustainably. Today, the growth in

aquaculture production in Nova Scotia has far outpaced local human population growth. This has

created a crisis between Nova Scotia communities and large-scale industries which have recently

received support by the government.

In the past few months alone we have witnessed a great uprising of more than 100 communities and

groups against the expansion of open-net pens in Nova Scotia. And as an indicator of the

questionable quality of the product being produced, last month, on October 18th, 2012, one of

Canada's national grocery retailers, Sobeys Inc., removed their Atlantic farmed salmon supply from

most of its Maritimes stores. The farmed salmon supply was found to contain a great amount of sea

lice. So far, the company has refused to give out any information regarding the suppliers and has

http://halifax.mediacoop.ca/story/can-sustainable-salmon-be-farmed/14610



promised customers to take greater inspection measures in the future to ensure the supply of better

quality salmon.

Yet the questions remain: Is it actually possible for Sobeys and other Canadian grocery stores to

supply a better quality of farmed salmon? Is it possible today to have open-net pen sustainable

salmon farming? And why has salmon-farming become such a political issue, both in Nova Scotia

and elsewhere?

“Sustainable aquaculture is possible, however not in open-net pens,” says Marike Finlay, president of

preservation of eastern shores. “Salmon-farming in open-net pens is outrageous to the community in

Nova Scotia. It is located in shallow waters, where water current is not enough [to ensure

environmental sustainability].”

The technology of open-net pens has been shown to contribute to the destruction of coastal habitat

and ecosystems. It also contributes to disease as well as parasite transmission to wild populations.

But for big, profit-driven, corporations, having the net pens close to shore has its “benefits”. These

include; ease of access from shore bases; proximity to staff accommodation; reduction in costs of

transport of feed and stock; and ability to keep sites under regular surveillance.

Because these nets are open in the water, all chemicals and pesticides that are dumped in the nets to

treat any diseases will eventually be carried away to other species living on the ocean grounds, which

includes Nova Scotia's last sustainable wild fishery; lobster.

“The application of chemicals to kill sea lice is destroying the lobster industry,” says Finlay. The

lobster industry, which has largely rallied behind the call for a provincial moratorium on open-net pen

salmon farming, agrees.

According to Andrew Black, member of the board of governors and executive committee of the

Diocese of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, “If the conditions are so bad that lobster won't live

near salmon farms, it is clear that the regulations aren't protecting habitats.”

READ ENTIRE HALIFAX MEDIA CO-OP ARTICLE HERE

Salmon Bluuuuuues

Performed during the Wild Salmon Warrior Arts Festival

Hosted by Musqueam First Nation

http://halifax.mediacoop.ca/story/can-sustainable-salmon-be-farmed/14610

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10151252275970983&set=o.111365508874859&type=2&theater



AquaBounty Hoping to Serve DNA-Altered Salmon on US Plates

Frankenfish “as safe as Atlantic salmon from open pen feedlots” (FDA)

Watch ABC News report here Related report from Aberdeen Daily World

Above: Both of these Atlantic salmon are eighteen months old. The one above has been

genetically engineered with genes from Atlantic salmon, chinook salmon and a type of eel for

continuous, rapid growth. Many are concerned that adequate testing of the GE product will not

have been conducted and analyzed prior to making these altered fish available in US markets.

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/aquabounty-hoping-serve-dna-altered-salmon-us-plates/story?id=17878998

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/aquabounty-hoping-serve-dna-altered-salmon-us-plates/story?id=17878998

http://thedailyworld.com/sections/newswire/northwest/will-fast-growing-fish-ever-wind-your-plate.html


Wild Game Fish Conservation International Energy production and wild game fish: Oil, Coal, Hydropower, Natural Gas, Wind

Sea Change: Action needed on ocean acidification

As part of the 2012 Marne Resource Committee (MRC) Coastal Summit, four blue ribbon panel

members will present findings and recommendations to the public on Dec. 8 at the Cranberry

Museum in Long Beach.

In 2005, oyster hatcheries in Washington and Oregon noticed their larvae were dying in large

numbers. Alarmed at the possibility of a virus, they took extensive and expensive anti-bacterial

measures, but to no avail. By 2007, the hatcheries were recording mortalities of up to 80 percent. The

oyster seed business was on the brink of collapse and nobody knew why.

A year later, scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Oregon State

University identified ocean acidification as the culprit. Once the hatcheries were monitoring their water

and taking counter-measures, production began to rebound. Taylor Shellfish Farms had its best year

ever in 2011. But adaptation is a temporary fix; we must tackle the root cause.

Around the world, 70 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) are released into the air every day mainly

through burning coal, oil, and natural gas. More than a quarter of this CO 2 is absorbed by the

oceans, where it forms carbonic acid.

This rapidly changing chemistry endangers the base of the sea’s ecology, the food web, and its prime

nurseries, coral reefs and estuaries. Shellfish, and other species needing calcium carbonate to build

their shells or skeletons, are especially vulnerable.

Acidification is a looming threat to the environment, economies, and food supply around the world.

Acidification affects jobs and livelihoods throughout the Northwest, especially in Washington, which

produces 85 percent of the West Coast’s shellfish. The industry directly or indirectly employs 3,200

people in our state and brings more than $270 million to our economy. Shellfish farming is the largest

employer in Pacific County and the second largest employer in Mason County, with a combined

annual payroll of $27 million.

But not only oysters are in peril. Since acidification affects many marine species, Washington’s

seafood industry, which generates an estimated 42,000 jobs and $1.7 billion annually, is potentially at

risk.

To confront the threat of acidification, last February Governor Christine Gregoire appointed a 28-

member blue ribbon panel to identify actions to protect the state’s marine resources. Washington

became the nation’s first state to convene such a group.

Both of us had the honor and responsibility of serving on the panel. Our report, released November

27, contains 42 recommendations covering six areas

READ ENTIRE DAILY WORLD ARTICLE HERE

http://thedailyworld.com/sections/opinion/columnist/sea-change-action-needed-ocean-acidification.html

http://thedailyworld.com/sections/opinion/columnist/sea-change-action-needed-ocean-acidification.html


Wild Game Fish Conservation International Oil – Drilled, Fracked, Tar Sands

The Keystone XL Tar Sands Pipeline Is far from a Done Deal

November 19, 2012

There has been a lot of speculation that

there will be a quick decision to approve

the northern segment of the Keystone

XL tar sands pipeline in the media this

week. It started only days after

President Obama was re-elected with

Canadian Natural Resources Minister

Oliver predicting that the pipeline would

be approved quickly following the

election. TransCanada, the company

that has proposed the pipeline, is also

predicting a quick approval (something

they have done numerous times in the

past). These predictions have been

wrong and ignore the facts. President

Obama made clean energy and

environmental protection a concern in

his first term and we expect it will remain

and even increase as a priority. The

Keystone XL tar sands pipeline is clearly

counter to an agenda that promotes

clean energy and fighting global

warming.

Optimistic statements by the oil industry

and the Canadian government that this

pipeline will be approved have been

made in the past and have been proven

wrong.

These guys are bad prognosticators. They've said this before. Repeatedly. And they were wrong.

The pipeline is not going to get quick approval now that the election is over. And predictions that

President Obama will approve the northern segment of Keystone XL ignore the process and

American expectations on climate.

READ ENTIRE ENERGY COLLECTIVE ARTICLE HERE

US President, Barak Obama

http://theenergycollective.com/danielle-droitsch/144756/keystone-xl-tar-sands-pipeline-far-done-deal

http://fuelfix.com/blog/2012/11/13/energy-alliance-official-keystone-approval-likely-soon/

http://www.nrdc.org/energy/keystone-pipeline/

http://www.nrdc.org/energy/keystone-pipeline/

http://www.foxbusiness.com/news/2012/11/09/transcanada-expects-keystone-xl-approval-after-obama-re-election/

http://www.foxbusiness.com/news/2012/11/09/transcanada-expects-keystone-xl-approval-after-obama-re-election/


http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2012/05/189300.htm




'Wall of opposition' to tar sands pipelines in B.C. grows stronger

DECEMBER 14, 2012

VANCOUVER -- The 'wall of

opposition' to tar sands pipelines

across British Columbia got

stronger Thursday, as First

Nations, environmental

campaigners and municipal

politicians gathered for a special

public ceremony at the Hyatt

Regency Hotel.

The event was a celebration and

a reaffirmation of the Save the

Fraser Declaration, a historic

statement of unity that prohibits

tar sands exports across

Indigenous lands.

The Declaration, now signed by over 130 First Nations, "bans tar sands pipelines and tankers, as a

matter of Indigenous law, from First Nations territories forming an unbroken chain from the U.S.

border to the Arctic Ocean -- and spanning the entire length of B.C. from north to south."

The B.C. Métis Federation, as well as the Tahltan Central Council and the Tahltan Band Council

added their signatures to the Declaration.

Members of the Yinka Dene Alliance, the Tsleil-Waututh First Nation, Assembly of First Nations

(AFN) National Chief Shawn A-in-chut Atleo, Assembly of First Nations Grand Chief Edward John of

the First Nations Summit and other First Nations' representatives took part as well.

To mark the occasion, Mayor Gregor Robertson announced that December 13th had been officially

designated as "Save the Fraser Day" by the City of Vancouver. Mayor Robertson called the proposed

pipeline and tankers projects part of a "frightening and unsustainable" future, adding "A great majority

of this city is opposed [to the pipelines] and will stand strong to make sure these projects do not

impact us, do not undermine our environment, our economy and our future."

Earlier this year, the City of Vancouver and neighbouring Burnaby passed resolutions against the

proposed expansion of the Kinder Morgan pipeline which, if built, would result in a massive growth of

oil tanker traffic in Vancouver harbour.

http://rabble.ca/news/2012/12/wall-opposition-tar-sands-pipelines-bc-grows-stronger

http://yinkadene.ca/index.php/resources/save_the_fraser_declaration2012



Cost of worst-case tanker spill outweighs rewards of Northern Gateway: UBC study

December 12, 2012

PRINCE RUPERT - The financial costs of a

worst-case scenario tanker spill off the north

coast of British Columbia could outweigh the

economic rewards of the proposed Northern

Gateway pipeline for the region, says a study

by the UBC Fisheries Centre.

The study, funded by World Wildlife Fund

Canada, looked at the potential losses to

commercial fisheries, tourism, aquaculture and

port activities in the area in the event of a

tanker accident.

Using the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill as an

example, researchers calculated various

scenarios — from a spill with no impact to a

high-impact spill of 257,000 barrels of crude —

over 52 kilometres of coastline that includes

Haida Gwaii and Porcher Island, near Prince

Rupert.

“The study highlights that if a tanker spill occurs, the economic gains from the Enbridge Northern

Gateway project to the North Coast region would be wiped out by the costs of the spill,” said Rashid

Sumaila, director of the fisheries centre.

Ocean-based industries directly employ about 10 per cent of the population of the North Coast. When

indirect benefits are included, they account for approximately 30 per cent of regional employment.

Total losses due to oil contamination could range from $90 million to $300 million in lost output in

other ocean industries, thousands of jobs, and up to $200 million of lost gross domestic product, said

the report, released Wednesday.

That compares to total economic benefits from the project for the region of $628 million in direct

output, up to 8,000 jobs and $293 million in GDP.

Northern Gateway officials said the study is deeply flawed, largely because it compares economic

benefits that are certain to occur with spill costs that are highly improbable.

“Northern Gateway has put in place the most comprehensive suite of marine safety and emergency

response measures ever proposed in Canada,” Todd Nogier, company spokesman, said

Wednesday.

“The reality is simply that, because of the preparedness and mitigation efforts of the project, these

impacts would not be of such a scale as represented in this report.”

READ ENTIRE VANCOUVER SUN ARTICLE HERE

A group of protesters gathers in the rain outside

the Northern Gateway hearings in Prince Rupert

on Monday. The financial costs of a worst-case

scenario tanker spill off the north coast of British

Columbia could outweigh the economic rewards of

the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline for the

region, says a study by the UBC Fisheries Centre.

http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/native+leaders+plan+declaration+banning+pipelines+tankers+oilsands/7684726/story.html#ixzz2EuV282LB





Video: Oil in Eden – The Battle to Protect Canada’s Pacific Coast

This is out of place

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aO4s4P7eFk4&feature=share



Oil Pipeline Politics: Canada’s Tar Sands

Can Popular Protest Stop the Tar Sands Leviathan?

December 11, 2012

Petroleum giant Enbridge Inc. has taken huge strides in recent weeks to complete its plan to transport tar sands oil to eastern Canada and from there to foreign markets. Already assured of support from the Harper government, the company is rapidly lining up further backing from provincial politicians and industry players, including a key trade union. And it is fast-tracking the regulatory approval process.

Enbridge’s project entails reversing the flow of an existing pipeline circuit across southern Ontario to Montréal, Quebec and from there through New England states to Portland, Maine. At present imported oil is carried from Portland to Sarnia, Ontario, where existing refineries already process dirty tar sands oil piped from Alberta. Enbridge also plans to increase the pipeline’s capacity from 240,000 barrels per day to 300,000 bpd.

The Enbridge project is of vital importance for Big Oil and its major clients. Imported oil now costs $20 to $30 per barrel more at the world price than Canadian-produced oil. And with massive investments in tar sands operations, the petroleum giants urgently need to gain access to new markets. They face the prospect of declining demand and prices in the United States, the current destination for almost 100 per cent of Canada’s oil exports.

And plans to build new pipelines to the west coast, from where the oil would be shipped through hazardous coastal waters to Asia, have encountered powerful opposition from communities throughout British Columbia, led by First Nations communities directly in the path of the pipelines.

Trailblazing

Enbridge’s eastern pipeline reversal project, originally called “Trailblazer,” aroused widespread opposition from environmental groups in both the U.S. and Canada when it was initiated in 2008. It was officially abandoned in 2009, the company citing “a lack of commercial support.” However, Enbridge then broke Trailblazer into phases, and on July 27 of this year, the National Energy Board of Canada approved Enbridge’s Phase I application to reverse the flow of its Line 9 pipeline between Sarnia and Westover, Ontario, near Toronto. A separate application is being prepared for the Montréal-Portland phase. And on November 29, Enbridge filed for approval of the Westover-Montréal Phase II. Like the successful application for Phase I, Phase II will no doubt be approved under section 58 of the National Energy Board Act, which exempts the company from the more rigorous environmental and infrastructure standards for new pipelines.

READ ENTIRE GLOBAL RESEARCH ARTICLE HERE

http://www.globalresearch.ca/oil-pipeline-politics-canadas-tar-sands/5315119

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enbridge

http://www.neb-one.gc.ca/clf-nsi/rthnb/pplctnsbfrthnb/nbrdgln9brvrsl/nbrdgln9brvrsl-eng.html

https://www.neb-one.gc.ca/ll-eng/livelink.exe/fetch/2000/90464/90552/92263/790736/890819/890501/A3D7I0_-_Cover_Letter_to_NEB_-_Line_9B_Reversal_and_Line_9_Capacity_Expansion_Project_Application.pdf?nodeid=890242&vernum=0&redirect=3

http://www.enbridge.com/ECRAI/Line9ReversalProject.aspx

http://www.enbridge.com/ECRAI/Line9BReversalProject.aspx

http://www.globalresearch.ca/oil-pipeline-politics-canadas-tar-sands/5315119



Pipeline proposal a sign tar sands oil is headed to Maine

December 1, 2012

But the company behind it denies it has

any plans to ship the controversial crude

oil out of Canada.

Maine environmental groups sounded

an alarm Thursday about the possible

impacts here of a Canadian energy

company's application to reverse the

flow of a pipeline and move heavy crude

oil from the western provinces to

Montreal.

The groups said the application by

Enbridge signals that the company

plans to bring tar sands oil into Maine,

through a pipeline that runs from

Montreal to the South Portland

waterfront.

The flow of oil in that line would have to

be reversed also, as it now moves oil

from Maine to Canada.

The Calgary, Alberta, company filed an application Wednesday with Canada's National Energy Board

asking for approval of three requests: a flow reversal of the company's "Line 9" pipeline from

Westover to Montreal, to enable the pipeline to carry oil from west to east; permission to transport

heavy crude from western Canada; and an increase in the flow of the pipeline by 25 percent, to

300,000 barrels per day.

The petition to the Canadian energy board, an independent regulatory agency created by the

government in 1955, is the most recent in a series of steps to streamline the flow of crude oil -- both

lighter crude and heavy tar sands -- from Western Canada to Montreal.

The application does not include a request to transport past Montreal, said Graham White,

spokesman for Enbridge.

"The focus of the application is the Montreal refineries," White said in a phone interview Friday.

"There is no proposal or plans to go past Montreal."

Further, there are no projects or plans to work with the Portland Pipeline Corp. to carry tar sands

from western Canada across Maine, he said.

Rather, the company "is equipping the line to carry processed and upgraded" product within Canada.

READ ENTIRE PORTLAN PRESS HERALD ARTICLE HERE

http://www.pressherald.com/news/nationworld/groups-pipeline-proposal-a-sign-tar-sands-oil-is-headed-to-maine_2012-12-01.html

http://www.pressherald.com/news/nationworld/groups-pipeline-proposal-a-sign-tar-sands-oil-is-headed-to-maine_2012-12-01.html



Keystone Conflict: Nebraska Firm Reviewing Tar Sands Project Has Ties to

Pipeline Builder

December 7, 2012

When Nebraska residents showed up for their final chance to speak out about the proposed Keystone XL pipeline on Tuesday night, they were greeted at every turn by smiling employees of HDR Engineering, Inc., uniformly decked out in khaki pants and blinding white Oxford shirts embroidered with the company's corporate logo. HDR, an engineering and consulting firm based in Omaha, was hired by the state to conduct an environmental impact assessment of the $7 billion project, which, if approved, would transport toxic crude oil from the Alberta tar sands fields across Nebraska's environmentally sensitive Sandhills and the largest freshwater aquifer in North America.

Conflict-of-interest concerns have plagued the Keystone project from the beginning. Now it turns out that HDR has a very cozy relationship with the company it was supposed to evaluate. For starters, HDR was hired by TransCanada in 2009 to help build a $1.2 billion natural gas-fired power plant in Ontario. In a press release, a company executive called landing the Ontario project "a significant win for HDR." Then in 2011, HDR undertook a feasibility study for TransCanada's renewable energy development group. These facts were far from hidden. As part of the selection process for the Keystone job, HDR let the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality know about its links to TransCanada.

What's more, HDR's own website says one of its missions is to "help oil and gas clients overcome the challenges [of increasing government regulation and oversight and harsh physical and political climates] and exploit those opportunities." Among the services its provides to pipeline companies is "helping them through the environmental planning and permitting process." HDR promises "one-stop shopping," so these companies "can focus on what they do best -- delivering oil."

Yet Nebraska's environmental regulators went ahead and hired HDR anyway.

"Even a simple Google search shows the too-close-for-comfort relationship between HDR and TransCanada," says Jane Kleeb, the executive director of anti-pipeline group Bold Nebraska. "You simply cannot have a fair and balanced environmental review when the contractor hired does work for the oil and gas industry. It would be like hiring Bold Nebraska to conduct the review and the hearing."

HDR officials did not return calls for comment this week. But when the company applied for the Keystone job, it assured Nebraska officials that the company could be objective. Even though it had worked with TransCanada twice before, HDR wrote in its disclosure statements: "Both of these work efforts were of limited scope, have been completed, are the only recent work assignments with TransCanada, and were complete[ly] unrelated to the Keystone XL pipeline."

Two other firms applied for the Keystone contract, which the Nebraska Legislature specifically said should go to a company with no conflict of interest. Olsson Associates of Lincoln disclosed that it had worked for a contractor on the Keystone XL pipeline -- possibly referring to a hydrology study for the Lewis & Clark Natural Resources District that was consulted as part of the rerouting process -- but not for TransCanada. EA Engineering Science and Technology Inc., also in Lincoln, did not reveal any conflicts, but didn't get the job.

READ ENTIRE HUFFINGTON POST ARTICLE HERE

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/onearth/keystone-conflict-nebrask_b_2259241.html


http://omaha.com/article/20111223/NEWS01/712239922

http://www.hdrinc.com/about-hdr/news-and-events/news-releases/2009-11-16-hdr-secures-major-power-project-in-canada

http://www.hdrinc.com/markets/energy/oil-and-gas

http://boldnebraska.org/




Second shipping incident in two days heightens concerns

Enbridge should pay heed, pipeline critics say

November 24, 2012

A second ocean-going vessel has run into

trouble on B.C.'s north coast in two days,

creating further fodder for critics seeking to

block the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline

project.

The deep sea cargo ship, Tern Arrow, lost

engine power in heavy seas and 40-knot winds

near Laredo Sound south of Kitimat on

Thursday afternoon, said Dan Bate,

spokesman for the Canadian Coast Guard.

The Bahamas-registered 188 metre ship drifted

for almost three hours before establishing

emergency power at 5 p.m. and heading to

open water, Bate said Friday.

Two days earlier, a loaded container ship

changed course to avoid a small fishing boat

and hit a sandbar about six nautical miles from

Prince Rupert.

The ship was pulled free of the sandbar by a tugboat at high tide Wednesday morning. There was no

leak of oil and no injuries.

Pacific Wild's Ian McAllister, who lives on Denny Island on the central coast, said the two events

bring a strong dose of reality to an Enbridge advertising campaign designed to allay public concerns

about the pipeline project.

"As that campaign is rolling out, (we have) two near shipping disasters on the same part of the coast

where these oil tankers are proposed to transit," he said. "Enbridge's analysis of shipping-disaster

potential really needs to be revisited."

Enbridge spokesman Ivan Giesbrecht said Northern Gateway's marine plan includes a "number of

safety provisions that heighten safety not only for tankers but all marine traffic in the channels."

A laden tanker would have two tugs - one tethered and one escort - compared with one escort tug for

unladen tankers.

"Our plan also includes additional navigational aids and heightened emergency first response

capabilities at various points along the channel routes," he added.

The ship that ran aground Tuesday night was piloted by a B.C. coastal pilot, an experienced mariner

whose job is navigating large vessels into harbours and through coastal waters.The ship that lost

engine power on Thursday afternoon was carrying bulk goods and was bound for Portland, Bate

said. Two pilots would have joined the ship at Kitimat and disembarked at Pine Island Pilot Station,

he added.

Tern Arrow narrowly escapes hitting Price Island

after losing engine power west of Bella.

http://www.vancouversun.com/Life/Second+shipping+incident+days+heightens+concerns/7605625/story.html#ixzz2DCmuKAyX



Embattled oil producers quietly eye rail option

December 14, 2012

On a clear day, the waters that roll into Prince Rupert’s industrial port offer a clear view to open seas that stretch to the other side of the world. Only steps from those waters lie train tracks that connect this distant northern port with the heart of North America, including the oil sands.

Those tracks offer exporters a more direct connection to Asia than any other place in North America outside Alaska.

It’s an advantage of proximity that has already brought coal, grain and containers to these shores. Now, some believe Canada’s energy industry should do the same, arguing that rail may have a clearer route to Pacific oil exports than Northern Gateway, the $6-billion Enbridge Inc. project that has been embroiled in controversy.

After all, trains elsewhere in North America are now moving hundreds of thousands of barrels a day, including to refineries on the West Coast. There is little reason crude from those same trains could not be loaded onto ships. Canadian rail lines have examined the idea; in the U.S., at least two Pacific terminals are developing plans to export oil brought west by rail.

“Pipelines can’t touch the capacity of the railway,” said Alf Nunweiler, a former B.C. northern affairs minister who spent 42 years working for CN. The CN rail line into Prince Rupert is 75 per cent empty, according to the local port authority. And it’s already built, unlike a pipeline that would have to travel through northern British Columbia’s challenging terrain.

Mr. Nunweiler used an argument from history, pointing to the role railroads played in developing the Canadian west, to make the case for moving oil by trains. “The railway is what was required then, and it is required now,” he said.

From the earliest days of its “pipeline on rails,” CN has discussed the possibility of Pacific exports; as recently as last year, a CN spokesman told the Vancouver Sun that the West Coast exports are “currently identified as an opportunity.” In northern British Columbia, however, anger over Northern Gateway has made oil such a poisonous subject that few will now discuss it. In an e-mailed statement, spokesman Mark Hallman said “CN policy is not to engage in speculative discussions.”

He added: “CN is not moving crude oil to Canada’s west coast ports; there are no terminals in place at those ports to unload crude oil from rail cars to ocean vessels for export.”

Environmental groups, however, have begun raising an alarm, accusing the Prince Rupert port of asking local residents what they might make of oil shipments. This week, as federal hearings into Gateway moved to Prince Rupert, Forest Ethics ran a full-page local newspaper ad warning of the risks oil shipments by rail might pose to wildlife. The port is not keen to discuss the possibility.

READ ENTIRE GLOBE AND MAIL ARTICLE HERE

Port of Prince Rupert, B.C.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/energy-and-resources/embattled-oil-producers-quietly-eye-rail-option/article6338051/

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/energy-and-resources/embattled-oil-producers-quietly-eye-rail-option/article6338051/



Refiners, railroads gear up as oil boom resonates in South Sound

November 27, 2012

When recent headlines proclaimed that the United States was poised to become the world’s largest oil producer by 2017, the import of that news may have seemed distant and abstract.

Yes, the oil fields of North Dakota, Montana and Texas are alive with new activity. But for Northwest residents, the effects are not something they see every day.

But that is quickly changing, in businesses from Olympia to the Canadian border.

The arrival in Tacoma last week of a 103-car train from North Dakota was a sign of just how swiftly the sudden abundance of oil in this country is shifting business even in an area 1,200 miles distant from the booming oil fields.

That BNSF Railway train was the first of what will ultimately become weekly trains bringing oil to Tacoma from the new fields opened up by hydraulic fracturing technology in the country’s northern Great Plains.

The train’s arrival and the construction of a new $8 million rail yard at the Tacoma Tideflats refinery of U.S. Oil and Refining Co. is indicative of a shift in the source of crude shipments to Puget Sound refineries.

Marcia Nielsen, U.S. Oil spokeswoman, said the refinery is shifting some of it feedstock procurement from its traditional sources in Alaska to the Great Plains because of better availability and price.

Consider these facts:

• Alaska’s crude production peaked at 2 million barrels a day in the ’70s. In March this year, that Alaskan production had fallen to 567,481 barrels a day.

• Meanwhile in North Dakota, March production of crude oil rose to 575,490 barrels a day, surpassing Alaska and putting North Dakota behind only Texas in overall crude oil production in the U.S.

• Because of the quadrupling of production in the Bakken and Three Forks shale formations in the Dakotas and Montana over the past five years, the usual means of transporting oil – pipelines – has not kept up to the demand.

• Railroads are filling the gap in crude oil transport capacity, creating long trains typically numbering more than 100 cars to carry that crude oil to refineries. Train transport is more expensive than pipeline movement, about $16 a barrel on longer trips, but it takes only months to get the crude oil trains rolling versus years to build new pipelines.

• Oil companies are building new loading facilities in the Great Plains to fill the 700-barrel tank cars with crude oil. Refiners such as U.S. Oil are spending millions to create new rail yards and unloading facilities to handle the new shipments at the refinery and export end of the train routes.

• The surge in production in the new oil fields is forcing crude prices downward, said Tim Hamilton, executive director of Automotive United Trades Organization, a service station operators group, and providing an alternate supply for Puget Sound refineries.

U.S. Oil reportedly has been receiving oil from North Dakota for months, but only in smaller batches that could be more easily handled on existing trains. Now, with the construction of the new yard and unloading facilities, the refinery will be handling regular unit trains of oil.

The Tacoma refinery isn’t the only one to make changes in the mix of where it gets its oil. Tesoro recently completed a $55 million, four-track rail yard near its Anacortes refinery 70 miles north of Seattle. That yard has the capacity of receiving up to 50,000 42-gallon barrels of crude oil a day to feed the 120,000-barrels-per-day refinery.

READ ENTIRE OLYMPIAN ARTICLE HERE

http://www.theolympian.com/2012/11/25/2331352/refiners-railroads-gear-up-as.html?storylink=addthis#.ULTuyDTUAUo.facebook

http://www.theolympian.com/2012/11/25/2331352/refiners-railroads-gear-up-as.html?storylink=addthis#.ULTuyDTUAUo.facebook



Two companies want to export oil from the Harbor

November 26, 2012

Preliminary efforts by two

different companies to begin

exporting crude oil from the Port

Grays Harbor have sparked initial

opposition from the citizens group

Friends of Grays Harbor and

members of Citizens for a Clean

Harbor, the group formed last

spring to oppose a coal export

terminal on the Harbor.

Members of both groups say they

have numerous questions about

an ongoing study of the Port’s

Terminal 3 for a proposed crude

oil rail-to-ship export facility.

They also want to know more about a similar proposal to export crude oil through the Port and

Westway Terminals, which currently exports methanol from four tanks already at its site off Port

Industrial Road. Westway already has applied for a permit with the City of Hoquiam as the lead

agency, and the company said in its application that it hopes to begin exporting crude oil from rail to

ship by November 2013.

A seven-point memo from FOGH’s Arthur “R.D.” Grunbaum said the group feared an oil export facility

at Terminal 3 along with the Westway proposal would dramatically increase railroad traffic if

permitted, and does not “take seriously the risk of spills or spill containment.”

Grunbaum also questioned what would happen in the event of a spill or accident, and noted the rail

cars have to travel over a number of sensitive waterways with salmon habitat before they even get to

the Harbor and the terminal in Hoquiam.

“It seemed as if they did not take seriously the risk of spills or spill containment and the devastation a

spill would cause in the Harbor or along the rail route,” he said after a briefing with the development

company eyeing Terminal 3. “There are 100 streams, tributary and river crossings between Chehalis

and the Port property, 27 of which span major fish migration passages.”

Grunbaum notes that the official from US Development Group, who outlined the project for Port

commissioners last week, indicated the trains would be 120 tanker cars long, with two trains each

day.

“That means there will also be two empty trains exiting daily,” Grunbaum said.

READ ENTIRE DAILY WORD ARTICLE HERE

MACLEOD PAPPIDAS | THE DAILY WORLD

Rail runs into the Westway Terminals bulk storage facility at the Port of Grays Harbor. Westway has begun working toward a plan to export crude oil, possibly beginning in November of next year.

http://thedailyworld.com/sections/news/local/two-companies-want-export-oil-harbor.html

http://thedailyworld.com/sections/news/local/two-companies-want-export-oil-harbor.html



Coal

Coal ports are bad idea for both Washington and China

Guest Opinion: The proposed coal terminals across the Northwest are a bad idea for communities

on both sides of the Pacific Ocean.

December 13, 2012

Like many other cities, Seattle, Edmonds and Marysville are alarmed at the prospect of massive coal

trains and their effects on communities. Compounding it all, tracks are already reaching capacity or

nearing it.

As leaders of locally-based water quality

organizations in both Washington state and

China, we fight every day to protect the health

of our respective watersheds. We are linked by

our affiliation through the Waterkeeper Alliance

and now by a common threat: a massive

planned expansion of dirty coal, mined from

Montana and Wyoming and shipped to Asia

through five proposed Northwest ports. To

safeguard our communities, the current

scoping process must reflect the true

environmental and human health costs of

extracting, transporting and burning the dirty

fuel.

Coal is the most destructive and dirtiest of all

carbon-based fuels. Its extraction, burning and

even its transport come at a terrible cost in

toxic pollution, human health and climate

change.

This cost is borne out by increases in cancer, asthma, lung disease and neurological disorders in the

affected communities.

Coal is also the dirtiest of fossil fuels when it comes to climate change and its evil twin, ocean

acidification, which threatens Washington’s shellfish industry and the entire ocean food web. There is

simply no path to controlling carbon that involves continuing to burn coal at current levels. It is

mathematically impossible, which is why expanding coal burning and exports is pure insanity.

Washington and Oregon recently became the first states in the U.S. to begin phasing out the burning

of coal energy for electricity, a move that has been widely celebrated as a big win for clean air and

healthy communities, and which will curtail the worsening effects of climate change.

READ ENTIRE CROSSCUT ARTICLE HERE

A BNSF freight passes alongside Bellingham's

popular Taylor Dock walkway.

http://crosscut.com/2012/12/13/op-ed/111965/coal-ports-are-bad-idea-both-washington-and-china/

http://crosscut.com/2012/12/13/op-ed/111965/coal-ports-are-bad-idea-both-washington-and-china/



Asia coal export boom brings no bonus for US taxpayers WASHINGTON -- U.S. miners who are booking big profits on coal sales to Asia are enjoying an accounting windfall to boot.

By valuing coal at low domestic prices rather than the much higher price fetched overseas, coal producers can dodge the larger royalty payout when mining federal land.

The practice stands to pad the bottom line for the mining sector if Asian exports surge in coming years as the industry hopes, a Reuters investigation has found.

Current and former regulators say their supervisory work has lagged the mining industry as it eyed markets across the Pacific. They say they will now give the royalty question a close look.

Most Powder River Basin coal is sold domestically, where prices have been depressed by a glut of natural gas and regulations meant to curb pollution.

But Asian economies rely on coal to sustain growth, so the ton worth about $13 near the Powder River Basin mines last year fetched roughly 10 times that in China.

After deducting costs like shipping by sea and rail, that ton of Powder River Basin coal sold in China last year would have returned about $30 to the miners, several industry analysts estimate.

Luther Lu, director at China-based Fenwei Energy Consulting, said the figure was closer to half that, with miners up against other costs that would have cut into their margin.

Whatever the take-home for miners, several royalty experts said, the taxpayer is due a share of the final sale price overseas.

READ ENTIRE NBC REPORT HERE

A haul truck works a coal seam at a mine in the Powder River Basin in Wyoming in this undated photo. U.S. taxpayers are set to miss out on billions of dollars in royalty payments in coming years as a larger share of the black rock pulled from the coal-rich Powder River Basin in Wyoming and Montana is shipped to Asia.

http://openchannel.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/04/15676862-asia-coal-export-boom-brings-no-bonus-for-us-taxpayers?lite

http://openchannel.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/04/15676862-asia-coal-export-boom-brings-no-bonus-for-us-taxpayers?lite



McGinn orders economic review of coal train proposal

December 12, 2012

It's shaping up to be one of the most

controversial proposals in Washington

state, pitting some labor unions against

environmentalists.

The dispute involves a plan to ship U.S.

coal to Asian markets from Northwest

ports, bringing up to 18 coal trains per

day through Seattle and other Puget

Sound cities.

Having all that coal pass by doesn't sit

well with the owner of Seattle's Great

Wheel, Kyle Griffith. Now that the

Alaskan Way Viaduct is coming down,

Griffith said he fears a new shadow will

fall on his tourist attraction.

"It would be a shame if we take one wall down and replace it with another. A wall of coal trains," he

said Wednesday.

Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn on Wednesday said he is commissioning a study on the economic

impact of the trains.

McGinn said he wants to know if more coal trains will block freight traffic to and from the Port of

Seattle. "If local manufacturers can't transport their goods, these are impacts we have to look at,"

McGinn said.

Some labor unions and businesses have formed a group to support of coal terminals and trains. They

say the coal business would bring solid jobs to the area.

Environmental groups, meanwhile, believe the United States should be doing more to wean the world

off burning coal, a major contributor to pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Others note that

coal spilled into the waters of the Puget Sound could threaten a delicate ecosystem.

On Thursday, all sides will come together at the Convention Center in Seattle as the federal

government holds an environmental assessment hearing. The meeting is scheduled for 4:00 p.m.

Related stories:

Seattle Times

Q13 FOX News

KING 5 NEWS (Seattle Hearing – Washington Coal Terminals )

KOMO 4 NEWS (Seattle Hearing – Washington Coal Terminals )

KIRO 7 NEWS (Seattle Hearing – Washington Coal Terminals)

Video report: The first in a series by KING 5 News in

Seattle, WA to expose concerns associated with

proposed export of US coal to Asian markets via NW

ports.

http://www.king5.com/home/McGinn-orders-economic-review-of-coal-train-proposal-183272391.html

http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2019892324_coalhearing13m.html

http://q13fox.com/2012/12/12/mayor-mcginn-no-coal-trains-through-seattles-waterfront/

http://www.king5.com/news/local/Plan-to-ship-coal-through-Seattle-draws-hundreds-to-downtown-183428411.html

http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Final-hearing-in-Seattle-on-coal-export-terminal-183433671.html?tab=video&c=y

http://www.kirotv.com/videos/news/both-sides-of-coal-train-controversy-share-views/vkL2F/

http://www.king5.com/home/McGinn-orders-economic-review-of-coal-train-proposal-183272391.html



Arctos Anthracite Project (formerly known as Mount Klappan Anthracite

Metallurgical Coal Project)

The Arctos Anthracite Project (formerly known as Mount Klappan Anthracite Metallurgical Coal Project) is one of the world’s premier metallurgical coal projects and the only known significant Canadian deposit of anthracite – a key ingredient in steel and metal processing. The project is owned by the Arctos Anthracite Joint Venture, a joint venture between Fortune (80%) and Posco Canada Ltd. (“POSCAN”) (20%), a subsidiary of Korea’s POSCO – one of the world's largest steel producers. POSCAN acquired its interest in 2011 by paying $30 million to Fortune, $20 million of which was contributed to the joint venture to fund future work on the property. POSCAN is responsible for funding 20% of the capital and operating costs for the project and will receive 20% of the coal in-kind. POSCAN is anticipated to make initial cash payments to Fortune and contributions to the joint venture totaling $188 million.

Fortune engaged Deloitte & Touche Corporate Finance Canada (“Deloitte”) as its financial advisor to help identify strategic investors for the Arctos project, including the successful first stage partnership with POSCO. Deloitte has been re-engaged to attract a second stage partner to help Fortune finance its share of mine construction costs. The focus is on Asia and companies with a strategic need to secure reliable sources of metallurgical coal.

The Arctos project consists of 16,411 hectares of coal exploration licenses in northwest British Columbia, 330 km northeast of the Pacific Ocean port of Prince Rupert. The licenses straddle the BC Railway right-of-way and largely completed rail bed, 150 km north of the current terminus of track at Minaret where the Canadian National Railway Limited (“CN”) is currently operating. Fortune and CN are working together to upgrade the existing railway and extend it to the mine site in order to enable us to transport its coal to the Ridley Coal Terminal at Prince Rupert and export to the overseas steel industry

READ ENTIRE PROJECT DESCRPTION AS PUBLISED ON FORTUNE

MINERALS WEBSITE

http://www.fortuneminerals.com/Projects/Arctos-/Arctos-Anthracite-Project/default.aspx






Civic politicians demand public inquiry on expanding coal exports from B.C.

ports

December 6, 2012

Neptune Terminals on Burrard Inlet in North Vancouver is proposing to expand metallurgical coal

capacity to 18 million tonnes from 12 million tonnes.

Port Metro Vancouver is coming under increasing pressure to hold a public inquiry over coal terminal

expansion plans that could turn the port into North America’s largest exporter of coal.

Elected officials in Vancouver, New Westminster and Delta say they are concerned that the

proposals are being considered by port authorities through an internal review without adequate public

consultation.

“We wouldn’t dare do something of this nature without going to full public consultation; every single

piece of property that is re-developed, everything we do in this city has gone to public consultation.

And they can do this without even batting an eyelash or talking to anybody apparently, except to

some of our staff,” said New Westminster councillor Bill Harper.

New Westminster is immediately across the Fraser River from Fraser Surrey Docks, which wants to

develop a new terminal capable of exporting from four million to eight million tonnes of coal a year

from the U.S. Midwest to feed thermal coal power plants in Asia. Dust and rain run-off are issues that

concern Harper.

The second proposal is from Neptune Terminals in North Vancouver, to expand its current

metallurgical coal capacity from 12 million tonnes to 18 million tonnes a year. That would bring the

port’s total coal export capacity — including Deltaport — to 49 million to 53 million tonnes a year.


http://www.vancouversun.com/business/resources/Civic+politicians+demand+public+inquiry+expanding+coal/7663567/story.html





Ship crashes into dock at Westshore Terminals, spilling coal into water

December 7, 2012

METRO VANCOUVER -- A large bulk

carrier docking at Westshore Terminals

in Roberts Bank destroyed a coal

conveyor system early Friday morning,

knocking out the largest of the port’s two

berths and spilling an undetermined

amount of coal into Georgia Strait.

The mishap has put the berth out of

service for an indefinite period of time,

affected the port’s ability to export coal,

disrupted customer deliveries and

caused a yet-to-be-determined effect on

the waters off the Fraser delta.

The loss of the berth, which handles

ships with a cargo capacity up to

260,000 tonnes, is a significant blow to

Westshore, which is North America’s

largest coal exporting port. Westshore

has one remaining berth, which can

handle ships with a capacity of 180,000

tonnes.

The mishap happened at 1 a.m. when the bulk carrier Cape Apricot, with a capacity of 180,000

tonnes, slammed into a trestle, the only link between the berth and the terminal, destroying more

than 100 metres of it. The ship went right through the causeway, taking a road, the coal-carrying

conveyor belt, and electric and water lines with it.

“We’ve got a ship there that’s stranded now. We can’t get to it,” said Westshore spokesman Ray

Dykes.

Dykes did not know how much coal was spilled but estimated that about one third of a railcar load

went into the water.

“Whatever was on the belt when the ship went right through the belt – and right through the

causeway – that went into the water,” he said.

Yoss Leclerc, Harbour Master for Port Metro Vancouver, said he was at the scene by 5 a.m. and

determined there were no injuries. No oil was spilled. He said the cause of the mishap remains

unknown but the Transportation Safety Board is investigating. The ship had a pilot on board.

He said emergency and environmental agencies were contacted and that Port Metro Vancouver has

already started a cleanup of the spilled coal. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans is the lead

agency on the spill response. Calls to the Vancouver regional office were not returned Friday.


A large bulk carrier docking at Westshore Terminals in

Delta's Roberts Bank crashed into a berth early Friday

morning, knocking out a section of trestle connecting the

berth to the terminal and spilling an undetermined

amount of coal into Georgia Strait.

Read more:

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Ship+crashes+into+dock+We

stshore+Terminals+spilling+coal+into+water+with+video/7667184/

story.html#ixzz2ERJpRfo2

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Ship+crashes+into+dock+Westshore+Terminals+spilling+coal+into+water+with+video/7667184/story.html#ixzz2ERKTbk4X

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Ship+crashes+into+dock+Westshore+Terminals+spilling+coal+into+water+with+video/7667184/story.html#ixzz2ERKTbk4X

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Ship+crashes+into+dock+Westshore+Terminals+spilling+coal+into+water+with+video/7667184/story.html#ixzz2ERJpRfo2





Metro Vancouver dike improvements could cost $9.5 billion by 2100: new

report

December 11, 2012

METRO VANCOUVER - Combating

rising sea levels due to global warming

could cost $9.5 billion in flood-protection

improvements in Metro Vancouver —

including sea gates at False Creek and

Steveston — by 2100, according to a

report released Tuesday by the B.C.

government.

The report, Cost of Adaptation - Sea

Dikes and Alternative Strategies, covers

the Metro Vancouver coastal shoreline

and the Fraser River downstream of

Port Mann Bridge — an area with more

than 250 kilometres of shoreline.

The $9.5-billion cost estimate includes

design, project management, land

acquisition, environmental mitigation,

impacts on utilities and pump stations

and earthquake-resistant construction

methods.

The Delcan report singled out three areas in the region for potential special protective measures:

- False Creek: A $25-million sea gate

would allow the movement of water and

boats through during normal water

levels but would be closed during storm

conditions to limit sea levels and reduce

the height of shoreline defences needed

around the perimeter of False Creek.

- Steveston: Use Shady Island as part of a breakwater/barrier with a sea gate to protect a densely

developed waterfront with historic buildings at an estimated cost $10 million.

- Mud Bay, Surrey: Sea gates at the mouths of the Nicomekl and Serpentine rivers at a cost of $10

million each, along with a "managed retreat" or gradual decommission of development in the area.

Other options include: new or expanded dikes, including secondary dikes; floodwalls, made perhaps

of concrete or steel where there is insufficient room for dikes; breakwaters or barrier islands to

dissipate wave energy; greater restrictions, including building code standards, related to buildings in

flood-prone areas; and better flood-warning and response systems.


Combating rising sea levels due to global warming

could cost $9.5 billion in diking improvements by

2100 in Metro Vancouver, according to a new report

released Tuesday by the B.C. government.

Editorial Comment:

Seriously?

All this expense and reduced property values while

North America is expanding amounts of coal, oil

and natural gas exports to Asian markets – This is

not rocket science folks.

http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Metro+Vancouver+dike+improvements+could+cost+billion+2100+report/7682197/story.html#ixzz2EoXEkj5X






Clallam County board briefed on ocean acidification

December 11, 2012

PORT ANGELES — It would take a global

reduction in carbon dioxide emissions to

reverse the effects of ocean acidification,

members of the Clallam County Marine

Resources Committee told county

commissioners Monday.

But there are ways to help at the local and

state level — pollution control, a reduction in

stormwater runoff and investment in more

water monitors — to protect shellfish and other

species from potentially lethal changes in

ocean chemistry, committee members Ed

Bowlby and Andrew Shogren said.

“We have to tackle the global aspect, but when

possible, when appropriate, to try to tackle it

locally to mitigate this onslaught that we can't

do anything about,” Bowlby said.

“That's a different aspect. That's going to keep occurring.

“But we can start trying to minimize local contributions within the watershed, the stormwater runoffs,

that can cause local ocean acidification.”

After researchers linked significant oyster production failures to acidification, Gov. Chris Gregoire

appointed a panel of scientists and lawmakers to study acidification in the Puget Sound and Strait of

Juan de Fuca.

The panel released its recommendations in a Nov. 27 report, which contained several “key early

actions.”

The recommended actions include:

-- Reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

-- Reduce land-based contributions to acidity, namely pollution.

-- Adapt to the impacts of ocean acidification by developing vegetation systems in upland habitats

and monitoring water at hatcheries.

-- Invest in the state's ability to monitor and investigate the effects of corrosive seawater.

-- Inform and educate stakeholders, decision makers and the public about acidification.

-- Maintain a sustainable and coordinated focus on ocean acidification.

READ ENTIRE PENINSULA DAILY NEWS ARTICLE HERE

Washington state governor Christine Gregoire

signs an order addressing ocean acidication on

November 27 at the Seattle Aquarium.

http://www.peninsuladailynews.com/article/20121211/NEWS/312119993/clallam-county-board-briefed-on-ocean-acidification

http://www.peninsuladailynews.com/article/20121211/NEWS/312119993/clallam-county-board-briefed-on-ocean-acidification



Washington Could Boost Coal Exports Despite Green Governor

November 26, 2012

Washington State will have perhaps the nation's

greenest governor when Jay Inslee, an early visionary

of America's clean energy economy, takes the helm

in January.

Inslee, a congressman since 1999, was pushing for

policies to spur investment in solar panels, wind

turbines and electric car batteries long before it was

mainstream.

Now, he will take office as one of the most

controversial battles over the nation's energy and

environmental future is raging in his backyard—

whether to make the Pacific Northwest a hub for

exporting coal to Asia.

Companies are angling to build two export facilities in Washington State from which 100 million tons

of coal would be shipped to China, Japan and South Korea a year—about the same as what the

United States exports now from East Coast and Gulf ports. They've applied for permits and are in the

beginning stages of a complex state and federal approval process. In Oregon, three more proposals

are underway.

What Inslee might do depends on who you ask.

Environmentalists and other critics say Inslee is their best chance to block the coal ports, even

though he has yet to take a position on them. Inslee won't have veto authority, but he could push

rigorous environmental reviews that could slow and complicate the permitting process or impose so

many conditions that it would be difficult for developers to build the terminals.

Proponents say they aren't worried. Job creation was a tenet of Inslee's campaign in a state where

the unemployment rate hovers above the national average. And the projects would create thousands

of high-paying construction jobs. "Hopes are still high" for his backing, said Lauri Hennessey, a

spokesperson for the Alliance for Northwest Jobs and Exports, which comprises about 40 coal

companies, transportation firms, labor unions and regional business councils.

The outcome of the five proposals has implications for the entire U.S. energy economy. Coal

production would ramp up as coal-fired plants are being phased out in favor of cheaper natural gas

and carbon-free renewable energy. If they're all built, U.S. coal exports would more than double from

today's levels, according to developers' projections and federal data.

READ ENTIRE BLOOMBERG ARTICLE HERE

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-26/washington-could-boost-coal-exports-despite-green-governor.html

http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20120227/primer-us-clean-energy-economy-pew-brookings-green-jobs-van-jones-republicans-china-obama-solyndra

http://createnwjobs.com/

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-26/washington-could-boost-coal-exports-despite-green-governor.html



Debate over coal exports leaves out some communities along route, critics charge

December 9, 2012

PASCO - While proposals to turn

green-leaning Washington state

into a major exporter of coal to

China have caused an uproar in

coastal communities, the heated

debate is largely absent from

some other places along the

industry's expected trade route to

Asia.

The state and federal agencies that are conducting an environmental review of five proposed coal-

export terminals in the region aren't planning to give residents of one of Washington state's major

population centers a chance to comment on the project publicly, even as such meetings take place in

similar-sized or smaller communities elsewhere.

As a result, officials and residents in south central Washington aren't exactly sure what they stand to

gain or lose.

In the Tri-Cities, a cluster of towns along the Columbia River with a combined population of 190,000,

the few local officials who knew about the projects said they weren't concerned.

"We've just kind of learned to live with the train delays," said Mike Harris, a deputy fire chief in Benton

County, which includes Kennewick, the largest of the three cities.

But the Yakama Nation, which has lands in south central Washington where residents are three

hours from any of the scheduled meetings, would like more information on what the projects might

mean for tribal communities.

"Having a closer meeting would definitely give people an opportunity to wrap their arms around

what's being proposed," said Emily Washines, a spokeswoman for the tribe.

U.S. coal operators, facing declining domestic demand, want to build as many as five export

terminals in the Northwest to ship coal to China and other global markets where demand is stronger.

Supporters, including business and labor groups, say jobs and the economy are at stake and urge

quick approval.

But these proposals face strong resistance from environmental groups and Indian tribes that say a

tidal wave of coal shipments will bring more noise and pollution and will disturb tribal fishing grounds

and cultural sites.

READ ENTIRE BELLINGHAM MERALDE ARTICLE HERE

The BNSF Railway Co. hump yard in Pasco, Washington would likely see more traffic if a proposed coal shipping agreement is reached.

http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2012/12/09/2795284/debate-over-coal-exports-in-pacific.html#storylink=cpy





Almost 1,200 coal plants proposed globally

November 20, 2012

Amid talk of a decline of coal in the United States, particularly in West Virginia, globally, just short of 1,200 coal-fired power plants are proposed for construction worldwide.

According to a new report from World Resources Institute, there 1,199 coal plants proposed worldwide. That represents a total electric capacity of 1,401,268 megawatts. How much is that?

"If all of these projects are built, it would add new coal power capacity that is almost four times the current capacity of all coal-fired plants in the United States." the World Resource Institute states.

All of those plants have been proposed by about 483 power companies.

Just 36 of the proposed plants documented by WRI are in the United States, ranking it seventh in the world for proposed coal plants.

China, meanwhile currently has 336 proposed coal plants while India is proposing 455 coal-fired power plants. Together, China and India account for more than three quarters of worldwide proposed coal plants.

The Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Laos, Morocco, Namibia, Oman, Senegal, Sri Lanka, and Uzbekistan have proposed coal plants despite limited or no coal production within their borders.

The WRI is concerned about the potential environmental impact of the proposed coal-fired power plants.

"Not all of these projects will necessarily be approved and developed — the report only looks at proposed new plants," the WRI stated. "However, this research shows a significant — and troubling — interest in coal development globally."

The WRI calls Chinese development on the back of coal-fired electricity an "economic miracle" and emphasized the need for cheap, available electricity.

"Energy is a universal need, and new energy development is critical in the developing world in order to lift people out of poverty and empower them to enjoy a higher quality of life," the WRI states. "However, the choice of energy sources is a tough one, as developing countries must seek low-cost options. Coal-fired plants are often considered such an option, even though strong evidence of coal's toll on the climate, environment, and human health suggests otherwise."

Coal from West Virginia and Central Appalachia have faced decreasing domestic demand but also increases in coal exports to places such as China.

The full report is available on the WRI website.

http://www.statejournal.com/story/20147077/almost-1200-coal-plants-proposed-globally

http://pdf.wri.org/global_coal_risk_assessment.pdf



Those Wind Turbines are Such Eyesores

Santa’s sleigh was weighed down with lumps of coal for those on his

“Naughty List”

Original art courtesy of Anissa Reed



Gateway Pacific Terminal at Cherry Point Proposal

Pacific International Terminals, a subsidiary of SSA Marine, has proposed building a deep-water marine terminal at Cherry Point in Whatcom County. The proposed Gateway Pacific Terminal would handle import and export of up to 54 million dry metric tons per year of bulk commodities, mostly exporting coal.

In a related project, BNSF Railway Inc. has proposed adding rail facilities adjacent to the

terminal site and installing a second track along the six-mile Custer Spur.

Permitting

Pacific International Terminals has submitted development applications to Whatcom County and other agencies.

In 1997, Whatcom County issued a shoreline substantial development permit and a major development permit for construction and operation of

the terminal. Because of changes to the size and scope of the proposal, the county has determined that a new shoreline permit is required for the project. The project must undergo a full environmental review before the company can obtain a new shoreline permit or other permits required for the project.

Environmental review

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the state Department of Ecology and Whatcom County will conduct a coordinated environmental review of the Pacific International and BNSF applications under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA).

The agencies have determined that the proposed export terminal and associated rail expansion require an environmental impact statement (EIS). The lead agencies are responsible for identifying and evaluating how the proposed project would affect the environment. Ecology will ensure that the environmental reviews consider potential statewide effects of the project.

Steps in the environmental review process and estimated timeline:

February 2012 - Determine if there will be impacts: As co-leads in the state environmental review process, Ecology and Whatcom County have confirmed this and expect to issue a determination of significance. That determination will be used to launch the scoping process.

March 2012 - Have an informational meeting: The co-lead agencies conducted a meeting Tuesday, March 20, 2012, in Bellingham to explain the environmental review process, the agencies’ roles and responsibilities, the public's opportunities to engage in the process, and to answer questions. See the video of the meeting, from the Center for New Media. Click here for the presentation.

VIEW ENTIRE DEPARTMENT OF ECOLOGY’S GATEWAY PACIFIC

TERMINAL WEBSITE HERE

http://www.ecy.wa.gov/geographic/gatewaypacific/

http://www.co.whatcom.wa.us/pds/plan/current/gpt-ssa/index.jsp

http://www.epa.gov/compliance/nepa/

http://www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/sea/sepa/citizensguide/citizensguide.htm

http://www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/sea/sepa/faq.htm#_Toc431007939

http://www.ecy.wa.gov/geographic/gatewaypacific/Spring_We_are_here.jpg

http://vimeo.com/39008487

http://www.ecy.wa.gov/geographic/gatewaypacific/20120320_presentation.pdf





Hydropower

Feds: New move to break Columbia River salmon impasse

December 11, 2012

The Obama administration wants two neutral, university-based environmental mediators to tackle the

20-year impasse over restoring Columbia and Snake River salmon runs by doing a “situation

assessment” and hearing out the river system’s irrigators, grain producers, barge operators, ports,

greens, fisheries interests, tribes and other “stakeholders.”

“We want to ensure our existing and future recovery plans are complete and integrated,” Barry Thom,

deputy regional administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, wrote in a

letter to the river’s competing, often-litigating interests.

It’s a move born out of failure and frustration. Successive administrations have produced five

“biological opinions” on how to improve once-mighty, now-imperiled salmon populations in the

Columbia River system — particularly salmon runs that spawn far up the Snake River in Idaho.

One by one, the plans were rejected by now-retired U.S. District Judge James Redden. The latest

opinion — an Obama administration plan that closely resembled a Bush administration plan — was

turned down because of its vague assumptions about restoring fish habitat.

NOAA has chosen the Oregon Consensus Center and the William D. Ruckelshaus Center to come

up with an assessment by late summer of 2013. They are being asked, in Thom’s words, to consult

with “a broad array of regional participants over the next several months.”

Snake River dams are the key, hitherto intractable issue. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built

four dams during the 1960s and 1970s. The dams made Lewiston, Idaho — 435 miles upstream from

the Pacific Ocean — a barge port for export of grain overseas.

By turning river to reservoir, however, they increased — from six days to a month — the time it takes

for young salmon to reach the ocean. Fish populations have been decimated. Four species of Snake

River fish — sockeye, spring and summer chinook salmon, and steelhead — are now listed as

endangered or threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act.

The salmon spawn as far distant as Redfish Lake in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains. One year, only a

single adult sockeye salmon — christened “Lonesome Larry” — returned to spawn. A weir near the

lake became a kind of shrine to the return of salmon, with candles and drawings and signs with such

messages as “SPAWN YOUR BRAINS OUT” and “SPAWN UNTIL YOU DROP.”

“Idaho has habitat, need salmon,” read a bumper sticker championed by Idaho’s then-Gov. Cecil

Andrus. The vast Salmon River system in Idaho, where Lewis and Clark once caught salmon, is

undammed. Downstream, however, salmon must run a gantlet of four Snake River and four

Columbia River dams.

READ ENTIRE SEATTLE BLOG POST HERE

http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattlepolitics/2012/12/11/feds-new-move-to-break-columbia-river-salmon-impasse/

http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattlepolitics/2012/12/11/feds-new-move-to-break-columbia-river-salmon-impasse/



The extraordinary effort to save sockeye salmon

November 17, 2012

Snake River sockeye are rebounding, but the extraordinary effort comes at a cost to the public - nearly

$9,000 per fish.

After 20 years and more than $40 million spent, the new direction for Snake River sockeye focuses on

rebuilding population rather than just preventing extinction. But will it work?

By Lynda V. Mapes

Seattle Times staff reporter

REDFISH LAKE CREEK, Idaho —

A vermilion slash in clear, cold

water, the Snake River sockeye

in this mountain stream is one of

nature's long-distance athletes,

travelling at least 900 miles to get

here.

That this fish can make such a

journey — the longest of any

sockeye in the world — is

remarkable.

But it's more incredible that this fish is still around at all.

Down to just one known fish — dubbed Lonesome Larry — in 1992, state, tribal and federal fish

managers have painstakingly preserved the species in captivity ever since.

Twenty years and $40 million later, they have a new goal. Not just mere survival for Snake River

sockeye, but rebuilding the run to at least 2,500 wild fish, free of any hatchery influence, making the

epic journey all the way from the Pacific across a time zone to the high mountain lakes of Idaho.

To appreciate how big a step that is, consider this: It's taken fish managers in six federal, state and

tribal agencies to get this far. They oversee the lives of these fish, plotting their genetics on

spreadsheets, mixing their gametes in plastic bags, and whisking them in various life stages around

the Pacific Northwest in plastic shipping tubes, barges, trucks and planes, using five different facilities

in three states to hatch, incubate and rear them, in both fresh water and salt.

READ ENTIRE SEATTLE TIMES ARTICLE HERE

http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2019705443_captivefish18m.html

http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2019705443_captivefish18m.html



Chehalis River Dam Recommendations to Washington State Governor – Christine Gregoire

November 26, 2012

Dear Governor Gregoire,

We appreciate the significant commitment you’ve made regarding the ongoing efforts to reduce Chehalis River basin flood-related damage and loss of life. We recently had the opportunity to share our concerns regarding these efforts with Washington State Senator Karen Fraser and Thurston County Commissioner Karen Valenzuela:

The proposed Chehalis River dam has yet to be designed and scoped. Once completely designed with comprehensive benefit and cost estimates, this total project will likely result in a benefit to cost ratio much less than 1.0. We predict that it will be many decades (if at all) before construction of this proposed dam could begin given the project cost (that we fully expect to be greater than one billion in today’s dollars), public input processes, congressional hearings, permitting processes (state and federal) and expected legal action by stakeholders (treaty tribes and tribal commissions, conservationists, white water enthusiasts, hunters, fishers, and others)

In the meantime, residents, business owners and visitors to the Chehalis River basin are left with no effective solutions to flood-related damage.

Wild Game Fish Conservation International has recommended the following via resolutions to the Chehalis River Basin Flood Authority:

Immediate and permanent moratorium on steep slope clear cut logging throughout the Chehalis River basin.

Adequate enforcement throughout the Chehalis River basin of existing regulations associated with logging practices

Review existing logging regulations and modify them as needed to incorporate current science

Immediate and permanent moratorium on floodplain development throughout the Chehalis River basin

Flood Authority-sponsored studies to be peer reviewed via University of Washington or Washington State University.

Now we respectfully recommend that further efforts and expenses associated with this project be immediately curtailed given what has been discovered over the past five years regarding the benefits and costs associated with building and maintaining the Chehalis River dam. To continue exploring this costly and ineffective project at taxpayer expense would

be a miss use of these dollars at a time when there are many projects on the table, which would help in mitigating flood damage

If efforts do continue regarding the proposed Chehalis River dam, we respectfully recommend a change in the process going forward. It is time for professionals in various disciplines, i.e. hydrologists, geologists, fisheries, and so forth to be responsible for developing a strategic plan to reduce flood risk and damage in the basin. Such a plan would have to include adequate scoping, benefit/cost analysis, engineering and so forth. These professionals are available; they work for the state and conduct research in our universities. The Flood Authority has worked hard, but it does not have the resources available to it to figure out how to proceed, other than a piece meal approach.

We further recommend that the OFM rather than the Flood Authority be responsible for letting the contracts to do this work. This is not to eliminate elected officials and citizen involvement. It is an attempt to provide them with the best information that is available. In the end, we think that this will lead to better decisions about which efforts are likely to give the biggest bang for the buck, especially when taking into account the limited financial resources that various governmental entities have available.

In closing, Governor Gregoire, we respectfully recommend that an effective and responsible course of action be developed, funded and implemented by Washington State to address Chehalis River basin flood-related issues. .

Thank you, Governor Gregoire.

Sincerely,

Bruce Treichler and James Wilcox Wild Game Fish Conservation International

Washington Governor, Christine Gregoire



New Floating Surface Collector at the Baker Hydroelectric Project is a Model for Innovative Fish Passage (with video)

Salmon and steelhead travel between

freshwater rivers and the Pacific Ocean as part

of their life cycle. In northwest Washington's

Baker River, a tributary to the Skagit River,

salmon and steelhead face several challenges

on their journey to the sea. These include the

loss of critical habitat, poor water quality, and

predation. Their biggest challenge, however, is

the barrier created by two large hydroelectric

dams. The Lower and Upper Baker Dams,

owned and operated by Puget Sound Energy,

power approximately 60,000 northwest

Washington homes annually, but they also

block natural fish passage on the Baker River.

To facilitate fish passage, NOAA Fisheries engineers worked closely with Puget Sound Energy to design an innovative fish passage system, known as the floating surface collector.

The collector is a 130-foot by 60-foot barge that is moored in Baker Lake, upstream of the Upper Baker Dam. Soft guide nets extend out to each side of the lake, from top to bottom, leading migrating juvenile salmon into the facility. Once there, fish are held in specially designed tanks and transferred to an evaluation station where scientists collect information and data on collection effectiveness, migration size and composition, and fish health. After evaluation, fish are transported by tank trucks below the lower dam and held for a brief period in stress-relief ponds before continuing their seaward journey. Upstream migrating adults are diverted into a trap facility downstream from the lower dam and transported via tanker truck upstream of the dams to spawn.

NOAA Fisheries is responsible for ensuring that hydroelectric facilities do not compromise the survival and recovery of listed species. Puget Sound Chinook, coho, and steelhead migrate through this area and are protected under the Endangered Species Act; Chinook and steelhead are both listed as threatened species, while coho salmon is identified as a species of concern. NOAA Fisheries is evaluating the effectiveness of the floating surface collector to ensure that the biological needs of migrating salmon and steelhead are met. Results indicate that the new collector design is benefiting migrating fish.

Earlier versions of the collector, known as gulpers, have been used at the dams since the 1960s, but these models were smaller and less effective at attracting large numbers of salmon and steelhead. One unique characteristic of the new collector is its ability to adjust to variations in water levels behind the dam, known as forebay fluctuations. The Upper Baker forebay is capable of fluctuating as much as 50 feet. The new structure accounts for this fluctuation and makes the transition from the net into the collector much smoother for the fish by allowing them to follow surface currents. In the five years that the Upper Baker floating surface collector has been in place, the number of adult fish returning to spawn has increased dramatically.

READ ENTIRE NOAA ARTICLE HERE

View an animated video that explains how the

floating surface collector works.

New%20Floating%20Surface%20Collector%20at%20the%20Baker%20Hydroelectric%20Project%20is%20a%20Model%20for%20Innovative%20Fish%20Passage

New%20Floating%20Surface%20Collector%20at%20the%20Baker%20Hydroelectric%20Project%20is%20a%20Model%20for%20Innovative%20Fish%20Passage

http://www.nwr.noaa.gov/story1.cfm



Metro Vancouver eyes adding hydro generators at reservoir dams

‘This is like free, green power,’ says North Van Mayor Darrell Mussatto

November 29, 2012

Cleveland Dam in North Vancouver is one of two Metro dams that could be equipped with hydro

generators.

Metro Vancouver will vote Friday on plans to create hydroelectric power at its Seymour and Capilano

dams.

Officials say adding turbines and generators to the existing dams at those two regional reservoirs

could power thousands of homes and generate millions of dollars in revenue each year for Metro.

“We want to take the excess spill and generate power,” said Darrell Mussatto, mayor of North

Vancouver City and chairman of Metro’s utilities committee. “This is like free, green power.”

If Metro directors vote yes, staff would prepare applications to the provincial government for water

licences.

READ ENTIRE VAANCOUVER SUN ARTICLE HERE

http://www.vancouversun.com/travel/Metro+Vancouver+eyes+adding+hydro+generators+reservoir+dams/7630636/story.html

http://www.vancouversun.com/travel/Metro+Vancouver+eyes+adding+hydro+generators+reservoir+dams/7630636/story.html



Scientists raft down newly freed Elwha River to track sediment flows

November 25, 2012

OLYMPIC NATIONAL PARK — Researchers

donned rain gear and climbed into a raft earlier

this month to study sediment released from

behind the massive dams that once straddled

the Elwha River to see how it will affect salmon

spawning.

During the week of Nov. 5, a team of scientists

from several federal agencies floated down the

newly released Elwha River to study how

sediment flowing down the river is changing

the river’s bed and the bottoms of what used to

be lakes Aldwell and Mills.

Scientists monitoring the $325 million federal project to restore the Elwha River to its wild state are

keeping an especially close eye on the coarse sediment because the river’s once-famed salmon runs

rely on that material for spawning, Olympic National Park spokeswoman Rainey McKenna said.

“For many of the fish species, this is the kind of habitat they need,” she said.

The 11-member team — comprising scientists from Olympic National Park, the federal Bureau of

Reclamation, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries, U.S. Geological Survey

and the University of Washington — started their surveying work at the former Lake Mills, which is

almost completely drained now that the once-210-foot-tall Glines Canyon Dam has been knocked

down to about 60 feet.

Andy Ritchie, Olympic National Park’s hydrologist for the Elwha restoration project and one of the

scientists on the sediment team, said researchers eventually will compare the sediment level results

to surveys taken before the dams were removed to gauge exactly how the sediment is changing the

layout of the river beds and old lake beds.

The team used research-grade GPS devices and other equipment to measure how much coarse-

grain sediment is in the pools that make up the remains of Lake Mills, McKenna explained.

The team did the same at the former Lake Aldwell two days later, McKenna said.

The lake has been gone since demolition of Elwha Dam, built a century ago without fish ladders 5

miles from the river’s mouth, was finished in March after removal of the dams that formed the two

lakes — the cornerstone of the restoration project — began in September 2011.

READ ENTIRE PENINSULA DAILY NEWS HERE

http://www.peninsuladailynews.com/article/20121125/news/311259989/scientists-raft-down-newly-freed-elwha-river-to-track-sediment-flows

http://www.peninsuladailynews.com/article/20121125/news/311259989/scientists-raft-down-newly-freed-elwha-river-to-track-sediment-flows



Groups go to court to fight release of Elwha River hatchery fish

November 25, 2012

PORT ANGELES — Four conservation groups have ramped up their efforts to prevent the releases

next spring of hatchery-bred steelhead and coho salmon smolts during the ongoing $325 million

Elwha River salmon restoration project.

The groups filed requests last week in federal District Court in Tacoma for a preliminary injunction

and a partial summary judgment to prevent the releases, saying the plans should be reviewed for

compliance with the federal Endangered Species Act, or ESA, and that they would harm species

listed as threatened under the act.

In their request for an injunction, the groups want to halt a planned April release of about 175,000

steelhead smolts and about 425,000 hatchery coho salmon smolts from the Lower Elwha Klallam

hatchery into the Elwha River, much of which is in Olympic National Park.

“The large-scale releases of hatchery fish proposed to occur this spring will have severely deleterious

effects on the wild fish population and their recovery potential,” said the injunction request, adding

that several species are protected under federal law.

The releases would do “irreparable harm” to those species — Puget Sound bull trout, Puget Sound

chinook and Puget Sound steelhead — that will be “significant and enduring,” the groups claim.

Port Angeles attorney Stephen Suagee, who is general counsel for the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe,

said the plans provide “more than adequate biological protection for native natural and wild fish.

Suagee, who said Friday he was still examining the injunction and partial summary judgment

requests, added that hatchery fish are key to the river’s revival.

Next spring is also the target period for finishing the removal of Glines Canyon Dam — Elwha Dam

was completely demolished by March — to open up the river and its tributaries to regeneration of the

river’s severely depleted and once-prodigious fish populations.

Wild Fish Conservancy, The Conservation Angler, the Federation of Fly Fishers Steelhead

Committee and the Wild Steelhead Coalition filed suit in District Court in February to halt the

releases.

The organizations named Olympic National Park, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric

Administration Fisheries Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and representatives of the Lower

Elwha Klallam tribe as defendants.

The Department of the Interior, the tribe collectively and tribal Natural Resources Director Doug

Morrill and hatchery manager Larry Ward individually should be found in violation of the ESA,

according to the summary judgment request.


PORT%20ANGELES%20—%20Four%20conservation%20groups%20have%20ramped%20up%20their%20efforts%20to%20prevent%20the%20releases%20next%20spring%20of%20hatchery-bred%20steelhead%20and%20coho%20salmon%20smolts%20during%20the%20ongoing%20$325%20million%20Elwha%20River%20salmon%20restoration%20project.


Wild Game Fish Conservation International Natural Gas

B.C.’s gas export plans on same scale as Alberta’s oilsands, Premier Christy

Clark says

December 13, 2012

VICTORIA — Premier Christy

Clark says her government’s plan

to export liquefied natural gas to

Asia is British Columbia’s

economic equivalent to Alberta’s

oilsands.

In a year-end interview with The

Canadian Press, Clark said

B.C.’s LNG development

ambitions will transform the

economy, but the province must

act quickly before the opportunity

evaporates like gas into the

atmosphere.

Clark, who has spent the last

year describing her “bold” and

“audacious” plan to turn B.C. into

Canada’s job-creation engine,

said British Columbians will still

be cashing in on the benefits of

LNG exports 50 years from now.

“Think about it in these terms:

what oil has been to Alberta since

the 1970s-’80s is what LNG is

going to be for British Columbia,

nothing less than that,” said

Clark.

“Energy output from LNG will

likely be as big as the total

energy output today from the

oilsands,” she said.

Experts in the LNG industry do

not completely agree with Clark’s

Alberta oilsands comparison.,


An artist's rendering of the Kitimat LNG liquefied natural gas

export facility proposed by Apache Corp., EOG Resources Inc.

and Encana Corp. for Bish Cove, near the coastal community

of Kitimat, B.C. The facility would process 700 million cubic

feet per day of natural gas for export on tankers starting in

2015.

Editorial Comments:

A few concerns to consider:

• The LNG ships will be sharing Douglas Channel with

225 roundtrips by Northern Gateway ships and others.

• It’s about the money: province must act quickly, fast

tracked

• we don’t carry the environmental burden

http://www.vancouversun.com/business/export+plans+same+scale+Alberta+oilsands+Premier+Clark+says/7693662/story.html

http://www.vancouversun.com/business/export+plans+same+scale+Alberta+oilsands+Premier+Clark+says/7693662/story.html

http://www.vancouversun.com/business/

http://www.vancouversun.com/business/export+plans+same+scale+Alberta+oilsands+Premier+Clark+says/7693662/story.html#ixzz2Eyeb5pLt



Moratorium on coal bed gas drilling in ‘Sacred Headwaters’ ends Tuesday

December 16, 2012

The region — dubbed the Sacred

Headwaters by first nations and

environmental groups — was the focus

of years of demonstration, road blocks

and conflict over Shell Canada’s plans

to explore for gas.

The B.C. government granted Shell an

eight-year gas exploration and drilling

tenure in 2004, but in 2008 slapped a

two-year moratorium on any exploration

activities. The moratorium was extended

another two years, but ends Tuesday.

Smithers mayor Taylor Bachrach said

the B.C. government and Shell have an

opportunity to demonstrate leadership

by putting the Klappan region off-limits

to coal-bed methane drilling.

“The question on people’s minds is, ‘What is going to happen now?’ ” Bachrach said of the

moratorium’s expiry.

He noted the community is generally supportive of natural resource development in mining and

forestry, but has concerns with this particular project.

Iskut Band Council chief Marie Quock stressed the First Nation has not changed its position on gas

drilling in the Klappan region.

“We are opposed to any development in that area,” Quock said.

B.C. Minister of Energy and Mines Rich Coleman was unavailable for comment.

Ministry officials said internal discussions on the moratorium are underway with Shell and First

Nations but would provide no details.

Shell Canada was also tight-lipped about the future of its tenure in northwest B.C., about 1,100

kilometres north of Vancouver as the crow flies.

The company would not say whether it plans to stay or abandon its tenure, or discuss talks on the

moratorium.

“There are no plans for any exploration activities, and we continue to talk to the various parties

involved,” said Shell Canada spokesman David Williams in the only statement he would provide.


Northwest B.C. communities, first nations and

environmental groups are bracing for a B.C. government

decision on a four-year moratorium that ends Tuesday

on coal-bed gas drilling in the Klappan area.

http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Moratorium+coal+drilling+Sacred+Headwaters+ends+Tuesday/7706895/story.html#ixzz2FHq86qHD

http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/

http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Moratorium+coal+drilling+Sacred+Headwaters+ends+Tuesday/7706895/story.html#ixzz2FHq86qHD



B.C. First Nation members evict gas line surveyors, set up pipeline road block

The Unis’tot’en clan says it is opposed to all pipelines slated to cross through its territories

November 21, 2012

Pipeline activity has been halted by aboriginal protest.

KITIMAT, B.C. — Members of a First Nation in

northern British Columbia have evicted

surveyors working on a natural gas pipeline

project from their territory and set up a

roadblock against all pipeline activity.

A group identifying itself as the Unis’tot’en clan

of the Wet’suwet’en Nation said surveyors for

Apache Canada’s Pacific Trails Pipeline were

trespassing.

“The Unis’tot’en clan has been dead-set against all pipelines slated to cross through their territories,

which include PTP (Pacific Trails Pipeline), Enbridge’s Northern Gateway and many others,” Freda

Huson, a spokesperson for the group, said in a statement.

Editorial Comment:

We at Wild Game Fish Conservation International

support the ongoing efforts in BC to protect wild

fish and their habitats from irresponsible practices

such as these proposed pipelines, open pen

salmon feedlots, run of the river hydropower

projects, coal transportation and mineral mining. -

BC is known worldwide for her natural beauty - not

for pimping her out to the highest bidder.

http://www.vancouversun.com/business/energy/First+Nations+evict+natural+pipeline+surveyors+northern/7590215/story.html#ixzz2CvCQqPkK



“As a result of the unsanctioned PTP work in the Unist’ot’en yintah, the road leading into the territory

has been closed to all industry activities until further notice.”

Huson was not available for comment.

It’s unclear what road is blocked, or where. The group said its territory is along the Clore River,

located west of the Williams Creek Ecological Reserve about 30 kilometres southeast of Terrace.

Company spokesman Paul Wyke confirmed Wednesday that surveyors were asked to leave the

area.

“We had some surveyors in the area last evening and they were asked to leave traditional territory by

a small group of members from the Unis’tot’en, and they complied,” Wyke said.

“We understand that there are some members of the Unis’tot’en that have expressed some concerns

with the proposed PTP project, and we continue to consult with First Nations along the entire

proposed pipeline right-of-way.”

Wyke said the company will continue ongoing consultations with aboriginal groups. The project has

the support of 15 of 16 aboriginal groups along the route, he said.

The blockading group said the province does not have the right to approve development on their

traditional lands, which lie northwest of Kitimat, the future home of an Apache Canada liquefied

natural gas plant and the tanker port for the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline.

Officials with the Wet’suwet’en, a First Nation comprised of five clans — none of which is identified as

the Unis’tot’en on their official website — did not return calls seeking comment.

The Wet’suwet’en have issued statements opposing the pipeline but discussions continue with the

company.

British Columbia has become a battleground between oil and gas development and the rights of First

Nations.

Many aboriginal groups whose traditional territories stand between the booming Alberta oil sands and

ports that could take their product to Asia view court-recognized rights as a trump card to

development projects.

The proposed Northern Gateway project, which would deliver diluted bitumen from the Alberta oil

sands to a tanker port in Kitimat, has taken the brunt of opposition, but critics of oil sands

development and tanker activity off the B.C. coast are widening the scope of their dissent.

A proposal by Kinder Morgan to twin an existing oil pipeline from Alberta to the Vancouver area is

also attracting opposition as the project moves toward a formal application.

The $1-billion Pacific Trails Pipeline would deliver natural gas from northern B.C. and Alberta to the

LNG terminal for shipment overseas.

The pipeline, owned by Apache Corp., Encana (TSX:ECA) and EOG Resources, passed an

environmental assessment in 2008. Construction was slated to begin this year and the pipeline is

expected to be operational in 2015.



Gas pipeline may sidestep review

November 25, 2012

Federal environmental assessment not guaranteed on B.C. pipeline with 320 water crossing

TransCanada’s planned 650-

kilometre natural gas pipeline to

Kitimat would cross about 320

watercourses including the

habitat of more than 100 species

at risk, such as white sturgeon,

woodland caribou and marbled

murrelet, company documents

show.

But under Conservative

government changes to

environmental laws, there’s no

guarantee the Coastal GasLink

project will undergo a federal

environmental assessment.

“It’s a travesty of the public trust,” said Otto Langer, retired head of habitat assessment and planning

for the federal fisheries department in B.C. and Yukon. “If we can’t have an environmental review on

a project of this sort, this is proof we have gutted Canada’s environmental protection.”

The federal government is soliciting public comment on whether a federal assessment is warranted

for the Coastal GasLink project.

Céline Legault, spokeswoman for the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, said that even if

the project is not subject to a federal environmental assessment, “all applicable federal legislative,

regulatory and constitutional requirements must be fulfilled.”

TransCanada has also submitted its project description to Victoria in advance of an official

assessment by the B.C. Environmental Assessment Office.

Langer dismissed the notion of a provincial assessment because the B.C. government is “giving the

green light everywhere” to projects and that its environmental review process is too soft on industry.

“It’s pretty sad,” he said. “I don’t know how we slipped down this slope so quickly … and I don’t know

where it will all end.”

B.C.’s Environmental Assessment Office reported in August it had conducted assessments of 162

projects in the last 20 years. Only two were refused outright — Kemess North copper-gold mine in

2008, and the Ashcroft Ranch landfill project in 2011.

Coastal GasLink’s 1.2-metre-wide pipeline would extend from near Groundbirch, a community 40

kilometres west of Dawson Creek, to a proposed liquefied natural gas facility near Kitimat.


http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/pipeline+TransCanada+British+Columbia+guarantee+envrironmental/7608045/story.html#ixzz2DJhTTHQG

http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/pipeline+TransCanada+British+Columbia+guarantee+envrironmental/7608045/story.html#ixzz2DJhTTHQG



Natural gas minimizes market for coal – Watch Video

http://www.washingtonpost.com/video/thefold/natural-gas-minimizes-market-for-coal/2012/11/27/953767f6-38cc-11e2-b01f-5f55b193f58f_video.html



Resource industry is engine for B.C.’s economic growth, says Premier Christy Clark

November 28, 2012

B.C. could lead Canada in economic growth by harnessing its natural resources and

expanding its export capacity, Premier Christy Clark told industry leaders at a fundraising

dinner Wednesday. (File photo)

B.C. could lead Canada in economic growth by harnessing its natural resources and expanding its

export capacity, Premier Christy Clark told industry leaders at a fundraising dinner Wednesday.

She told almost 500 people who paid $350 apiece for the sit-down dinner in downtown Vancouver

that her government is moving to get three liquefied natural gas plants exporting to East Asian

markets by 2020, with the first one opening in 2015.

“It’s self-interest that moves us forward,” Clark said, opening her speech by saying this self-interest

motivates entrepreneurs and businesses to raise British Columbians’ collective prosperity.

On the same night NDP leader Adrian Dix was speaking at a B.C. Federation of Labour convention in

Vancouver, Clark linked him to federal party leader Thomas Mulcair’s “Dutch disease” comments,

which see Western Canada’s resource development as harming the economies of Ontario and

Quebec.

“They change the rules as they go along and they literally scare jobs out of British Columbia, and

they scare our kids to another province to find a job,” Clark said.

Clark said the Liberals have reduced a backlog in mining permits by 80 per cent to pave the way for

17 new and expanded mines by 2015. She said her government has also opened up China’s market

to B.C.’s wood products, noting trade was up nearly 20 per cent from last year.

The dinner was expected to gross $175,000.

Editorial Comment:

The Honorable Christy Clark

(BC Premier) once again

proposes pimping out

Beautiful British Columbia to

the highest bidder at the

expense of BC’s natural

resources and those who

rely on them – these ill-

advised, short term financial

gains are having irreversible,

long term devastating

impacts.

http://www.vancouversun.com/Resource+industry+engine+economic+growth+says+Premier+Christy+Clark/7625135/story.html#ixzz2Dap124Wx

http://www.vancouversun.com/Resource+industry+engine+economic+growth+says+Premier+Christy+Clark/7625135/story.html#ixzz2Dap124Wx

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/metro/

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/metro/



Wind

U.S. Offers Wind-Power Leases Offshore Three Atlantic States

November 30, 2012

The Obama administration will offer leases

next year for wind-energy development off the

coasts of Massachusetts, Rhode Island and

Virginia, the Interior Department said.

The agency, which oversees energy

development in federal waters more than 3

miles from shore, set aside 277,550 acres

divided into two wind-energy areas on the

outer continental shelf, according to a

statement today. The two areas are estimated

to support more than 4,000 megawatts of wind

power, enough for 1.4 million homes, Interior

said.

The auctions will be the first competitive sales for wind energy on the outer continental shelf, where

no projects are yet operating, according to the agency. The sales differ from leases previously

awarded to Cape Wind Associates LLC and NRG Energy Inc. (NRG) for projects in Massachusetts

and Delaware because those areas were deemed non-competitive by Interior, enabling a single

developer to negotiate the leases in each case.

Developers that have shown interest in leases in the two areas include European energy companies

Iberdrola SA (IBE) and Electricity de France SA, U.S. utility holding company Dominion Resources

Inc., closely held developers Deepwater Wind LLC and Apex Wind Energy Inc., as well as Energy

Management Inc., Cape Wind’s parent, according to Interior’s website.

The Virginia area will be auctioned as a single lease encompassing 112,800 acres about 23.5

nautical miles off the southern coast of the state and is expected to support a project of as large as

2,000 megawatts, according to the statement. The annual rent for the space will be $338,397,

according to lease documents.

Sale Timing

The second area will be auctioned as two leases covering about 164,750 acres about 9.2 nautical

miles south of the Rhode Island coastline, Interior said. A north and south zone will encompass

97,500 acres and 67,250 acres and require yearly rent payments of $292,494 and $201,756,

respectively, according to lease documents. Both are expected to support projects of as much as

1,000 megawatts, Interior said.

The sale will be conducted next year after a 60-day comment period that will end in February,

according to the statement.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-30/u-s-offers-wind-power-leases-offshore-three-atlantic-states-1-.html

http://topics.bloomberg.com/wind-energy/

http://topics.bloomberg.com/massachusetts/

http://topics.bloomberg.com/virginia/

http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/NRG:US

http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/IBE:SM

http://www.boem.gov/Renewable-Energy-Program/State-Activities/Index.aspx

http://www.boem.gov/uploadedFiles/BOEM/Renewable_Energy_Program/State_Activities/Commercial%20Lease%20OCS-A%200483.pdf

http://topics.bloomberg.com/rhode-island/





Forest practices and wild game fish

U.S. Supreme Court will decide how logging roads will be regulated

December 2, 2012

GRANTS PASS, Ore. — The U.S. Supreme

Court will decide whether to switch gears on

more than 30 years of regulating the muddy

water running off logging roads into rivers.

At issue: Should the U.S. Environmental

Protection Agency keep considering it the

same as water running off a farm field or start

looking at it like a pipe coming out of a

factory?

The case that will be heard Monday in

Washington, D.C., was originated by a small

environmental group in Portland, Ore.: the

Northwest Environmental Defense Center.

Suit in D.C.

It sued the Oregon Department of Forestry

over roads on the Tillamook State Forest that

drain into salmon streams.

The lawsuit argued that the Clean Water Act

specifically says water running through the

kinds of ditches and culverts built to handle

stormwater runoff from logging roads is a point

source of pollution when it flows directly into a

river and requires the same sort of permit that

a factory needs.

“We brought this out of a perceived sense of unfairness,” said Mark Riskedahl, director of the center.

“Every other industrial sector across the country had to get this sort of permit for stormwater

discharge,” and the process has been very effective at reducing pollution.

Stirred up by trucks

The pollution running off logging roads, most of them gravel or dirt, is primarily muddy water stirred

up by trucks.


Editorial Comment:

Wild Game Fish Conservation International and

our associates support responsible reforms to

forest practices in an effort to reduce flood

related risks to people and impacts to natural

resources. This long overdue legislation will go a

long way to accomplishing both.

http://www.peninsuladailynews.com/article/20121202/NEWS/121209987/us-supreme-court-will-decide-how-logging-roads-will-be-regulated

http://www.peninsuladailynews.com/article/20121202/NEWS/121209987/us-supreme-court-will-decide-how-logging-roads-will-be-regulated



Forest industry group presents trade-off plan for Wild Olympics; plan would

free national forestlands for tree harvests

November 28, 2012

PORT ANGELES — A forest industry group Tuesday presented a plan for opening up 143,150 acres

of Olympic National Forest to aggressive logging.

The North Olympic Timber Action Committee said it would support proposed Wild Olympics

legislation that would preserve 126,000 acres in the national forest and make that land off-limits to

logging if the harvest plan for the other areas of the national forest were approved.

North Olympic Timber Action Committee Executive Director Carol Johnson and Green Crow

timberland company Chief Forester Harry Bell presented the plan at a Port Angeles Business

Association breakfast meeting.

A map of affected areas, which include portions of Clallam and Jefferson counties, was presented at

the meeting and will be available on the NOTAC website, www.notac.org, by Dec. 7.

About two dozen parcels, mostly in Clallam, Jefferson and Grays Harbor counties and to a lesser

extent in Mason County, would be subject to harvesting of up to about 60 percent to 70 percent —

but no traditional clearcuts — in return for NOTAC’s support of the Wild Olympics Wilderness and

Wild and Scenic Rivers Act of 2012.

“What we are saying is that we can accept [the legislation], but to accept that, we want these acres to

become available to provide timber,” Bell said.

“Virtually all the areas picked for wilderness would never be harvested anyway under the current

[Northwest Forest] plan.”

The acres in NOTAC’s plan mostly ring the southern and eastern edges of the 633,000-acre national

forest in areas that include south of Sequim near the Dungeness River, east of the Duckabush River,

south of the Hamma Hamma River and south of the Quinault and Queets rivers.

Parcels also are clumped together southeast and northeast of Beaver in Clallam County’s West End.

Connie Gallant of Quilcene, an organizer of the Wild Olympics Campaign— whose earlier proposal

became the basis of the legislation — expressed doubt her group would accept a trade-off of support.

She said Tuesday she had not read the harvest proposal and had not been sent a copy of it.

“To do an acre-by-acre thing, no, our coalition would not be supportive of that if that’s what they are

proposing,” Gallant said, adding that the group is urging an increase in funding for habitat thinning in

the national forest.

Gallant had been invited to the PABA breakfast meeting at which the plan was presented but said

she was unable to because she works during the day and already has made presentations to PABA.

Of the more than 30 participants at the breakfast, none included supporters of the Wild Olympics

legislation who spoke up.


http://www.peninsuladailynews.com/article/20121128/news/311289992/forest-industry-group-presents-trade-off-plan-for-wild-olympics-plan


http://www.notac.org/




Jury Decides Logging Company Not Responsible for 2009 Glenoma Landslides

December 14, 2012

It's a Wash: Jury Rules in Favor of Logging Company; Glenoma Landslide Victims ‘Very, Very

Disappointed’

Multinational logging company Menasha was

not negligent in their logging practices, and

therefore should not be held financially

accountable for the 2009 landslide that

damaged more than a dozen Glenoma

properties, a Lewis County Superior Court jury

ruled on Friday morning.

Their decision — returned after several hours

of deliberations — followed a six-week trial in

which 23 residents of Glenoma sought

approximately $5.7 million in damages.

During the trial, the Glenoma plaintiffs asserted

that a "steep and unstable slope" was created

by Menasha when the company logged 116

acres of timber directly above their residences.

On Jan. 7, 2009, jams — formed by logging

debris that accumulated water — exploded into

violent flash floods that damaged the plaintiffs'

property and caused them bodily injury and

emotional distress, the plaintiffs said.

In a pretrial brief, attorneys for the plaintiffs

asserted that Menasha knew that clear cutting

in Glenoma would increase the risk of

landslides by at least 200 percent.

"In assessing the degree of risk it was willing to

take, Menasha knew that there were homes

directly below this unit, sitting vulnerably in

harm's way," the document states. "Menasha

took that risk and now Menasha — not the

innocent homeowners below — should

shoulder the consequences."

But, the defense countered, Menasha followed all logging rules and regulations as set forth by

Washington state — including those intended to prevent mudslides.

READ ENTIRE CHRONCLE ARTICLE HERE

A landslide is seen along U.S. Highway 12 near

Glenoma after heavy rain in January 2009

Editorial Comment:

“an area historically prone to

landsliding”

State and local officials continue to permit steep

slope logging and land development in areas prone

to landslides and flooding. Enforcement of existing

regulations is lacking; they are often ignored.


continues to work toward a moratorium on steep

slope clearcuts and a moratorium on floodplain

development.

http://www.chronline.com/news/article_74f0800a-4668-11e2-9a42-001a4bcf887a.html


http://www.chronline.com/content/tncms/live/




Mining and wild game fish

Giant Strip Mine Threatens Alaska's Iconic Bristol Bay

Pick the worst place on the planet for a giant strip mine, in the heart of America’s wildest and

most productive ecosystem. That’s exactly where one is planned.

November-December 2012

What possibly could unite these

diverse and in some cases

adversarial players in outrage

and action: 700 businesses; 700

hunting and angling groups; 77

commercial fishing groups; 200

chefs and restaurant owners; the

National Council of Churches,

representing 45 million people;

major newspapers; leading

jewelry retailers; and ultra-

conservative legislators?

It would be a plan to gouge and

hack the Bristol Bay watershed of

southwest Alaska with the

continent’s biggest strip mine.

A vestige of what America used to be survives here. The region is the size of Ohio, with a population

of 7,500. It is changeless and timeless, laced by pristine rivers that rush and dawdle through forests

never logged and un-scarred tundra that alternately blazes with wildflowers and glistens with snow.

There are no access roads. You enter by plane or helicopter, threading between jagged, ice-clad

peaks. The vastness and wildness start to sink in after you’ve flown for, say, two hours and seen no

hint of human defilement.

Everything about Bristol Bay takes someone’s breath away. For me it’s the beauty, the fishing, and

especially the wildlife. For folks like John Shively, CEO of the Pebble Limited Partnership, it’s the

$500 billion worth of copper, gold, and molybdenum in the “Pebble Deposit” under the headwaters of

the world’s two most productive salmon rivers—the Kvichak and the Nushagak.

All of North America’s five species of Pacific salmon and their cousins, steelhead trout, thrive in

Bristol Bay’s fresh and saltwater, and all are imperiled in the contiguous states. The region sustains

earth’s biggest sockeye salmon population and produces half of all global salmon sales, bringing in

$310 million annually to Alaska. That resource can last forever if the state doesn’t swap it for a quick

fix of finite metals.

READ ENTIRE AUDUBON MAGAZINE ARTICLE HERE

Bristol Bay, Alaska: pre-Pebble Mine

http://www.audubonmagazine.org/articles/conservation/giant-strip-mine-threatens-alaskas-iconic-bristol-bay

http://www.audubonmagazine.org/articles/conservation/giant-strip-mine-threatens-alaskas-iconic-bristol-bay



Bristol Bay Tribes’ Fight to Fend off Pebble Mine Highlighted in National Geographic

November 19, 2012

National Geographic’s In Focus

feature this week scrutinizes

Bristol Bay and the proposals by

a two-conglomerate outfit calling

itself the Pebble Partnership to

dig a two-mile-wide open-pit mine

in some of the most fertile salmon

spawning grounds in the world.

The story highlights the push by Northern Dynasty Minerals of British Columbia and Anglo American,

a London-based conglomerate, to dig the 1,700-foot-deep pit and accompanying underground

operations, build a mill to crush and separate metals, and create tailings ponds that would be far

larger than the mines themselves, National Geographic reports.

Further, the companies say, this will not threaten habitat and wildlife. The yield: 80 billion pounds of

copper and 110 million ounces of gold.

The fight against this mine is longstanding, and has gone all the way up to the federal government,

with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issuing a draft report last May that assessed

the effects of such development on the Bristol Bay watershed area. At minimum, National

Geographic reported, the project would entail the destruction of 55 to 87 miles worth of so-far-

untouched streams and 2,500 acres of wetlands—and that doesn’t even begin to address the

potential for disaster if any of the tailings ponds were to leak its acidic water and heavy metals into

salmon spawning grounds.

More recently, a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report issued on November 9 has

brought scrutiny of the mining proposal before the public eye once again. The report corroborated the

earlier findings, and its release may mark a watershed moment in the way Alaska balances natural

resource exploitation with environmental preservation. The report, the culmination of requests that

nine tribal governments sent to the EPA in 2010 asking for an examination, angered state and

industry officials because it leapfrogged over them, the first time this had been done.

“The battle may have reached the final stage, or at least a turning point in how Alaskans resolve

disagreements over the exploitation of natural resources, long the backbone of the state economy,”

National Geographic said.

Indian Country Today Media Network last year reported extensively on the Bristol Bay mining

proposal and the wilderness and livelihoods it would infringe upon.

http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2012/11/19/bristol-bay-tribes-fight-to-fend-off-pebble-mine-highlighted-in-national-geographic-146479

http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2012/11/19/bristol-bay-tribes-fight-to-fend-off-pebble-mine-highlighted-in-national-geographic-146479



“If you love salmon, you hate Pebble Mine”

Kaleb Walker, of Kaleb's Katch, shows off his

latest catch from the Bristol Bay, Alaska, waters.

If you love to eat wild salmon, especially delicious sockeye, then you hate Pebble Mine.

Pebble Mine is a proposed open-pit mine located in the headwaters of the Kvichak and Nushagak

rivers, two of the eight major rivers that feed Bristol Bay — a pristine Alaskan watershed with the

most productive sockeye salmon rivers on the planet. It supports $500 million in commercial and

sport fishery. The mine, on the other hand, with intentions of digging up the second-largest deposit of

copper, gold and molybdenum ever discovered, has an estimated value of more than $300 billion.

Pebble Mine — if approved — would be one the world's largest open-pit mines, and even more

concerning, it would require the world's largest dam to contain the mine's toxic waste, an estimated

2.5 to 10 billion tons of it. Complicating the huge, sludgy containment pond (as if that's not bad

enough) is the fact that Bristol Bay is a seismically active region, and independent scientists have

questioned whether the dam could withstand the force of a massive earthquake, such as the 9.2

quake that devastated Anchorage in 1964, according to Save Bristol Bay.

Like I said, if you love salmon, you hate Pebble Mine.

http://www.vaildaily.com/article/20121202/AE/121209967/1078&ParentProfile=1062



Teck liable for river cleanup in Washington state

Ruling against B.C. company notes decades of heavy metal disposal

December 15, 2012

Teck Resources treated the

Columbia River as a free waste

disposal system for decades,

said a Washington state judge

who has ruled the Canadian

company is liable for the cost of

cleaning up the contamination of

the river south of the border.

In a decision announced late

Friday, Judge Lonny Suko ruled

that, "for decades Teck's

leadership knew its slag and

effluent flowed from Trail

downstream and are now found

in Lake Roosevelt, but

nonetheless Teck continued

discharging wastes into the

Columbia River."

Suko noted an admission from the

company that it "had been treating Lake

Roosevelt as a 'free,' 'convenient'

disposal facility for its wastes."

The decision gives the U.S.

Environmental Protection Agency the

ability to force Teck to pay for the clean-

up, and potentially for any ongoing

damages and losses that result from the

ongoing contamination. That issue has

yet to be determined by the court.

Suko found that from 1930 to 1995, Teck

intentionally discharged at least 9.97

million tons of slag that included heavy

metals such as lead, mercury, zinc and

arsenic.

READ ENTIRE CBC ARTICLE HERE

Teck Mining Company's zinc and lead smelting and refining

complex is pictured in Trail, B.C.

Editorial Comment:

Given the history of these old smelters, one would

expect that the airborne toxins from this facility

contaminated the soil and water for miles in all

directions. This will be a multi-billion dollar

environmental mess to rectify.

Alexandra Morton:

“Dear Marine Harvest, Cermaq and Grieg: Take a

look at this and start thinking about what the US might

do if your viruses are found in the Columbia River,

Elwha, Lake Washington.... Think about how the

courts might perceive your behaviour on the stand at

Cohen. You too are dumping raw waste into Canada

that will reach the U.S.”

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2012/12/15/teck-resources-washington-ruling.html?cmp=rss

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2012/12/15/teck-resources-washington-ruling.html?cmp=rss



Wild game fish management

Small fish, big opportunity

November 20, 2012

Sometimes the environmental

challenges facing our oceans seem so

large that it’s hard to know where to

start solving them. Changes in climate,

degradation of habitat and rising

demand to feed an ever-growing world

population are just a few of the daunting

ocean-related problems our nation

faces.

Over the past several months, however,

a collection of conservationists, anglers

and others have come together to urge

federal policymakers to safeguard the

array of species that serve as the

foundation for a healthy marine

ecosystem. And, to their credit, regional

fishery managers on both coasts

heeded the message these advocates

delivered: If we want to protect the

oceans, it makes sense to start small.

Species such as menhaden, sardines

and herring — commonly known as

forage fish — are the lifeblood of a

healthy ocean.

Swimming together in dense schools, these oil-rich fish feed on microscopic plants and animals and

then become nourishment for larger wildlife as a crucial link in the marine food web.

These fish account for more than one-third of all ocean species caught around the world. But unlike

catches of cod or tuna, most of the forage fish that is caught is not consumed by people.

Take menhaden, for example. Giant schools once ranged along the Atlantic coast, feeding whales

and seabirds and commercially important fish. But menhaden populations have plummeted 90

percent in just the past 25 years and remain at a record low. Despite their declining numbers,

hundreds of millions of menhaden are still hauled in and ground up to be used in fertilizer, pet and

livestock feed, and dietary supplements for people.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=F

Nvjx8xsB_E Managing Forage Fish Video

http://thedailyworld.com/sections/opinion/columnist/small-fish-big-opportunity.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=FNvjx8xsB_E





This removal of forage fish can have significant impacts on coastal ecosystems. Studies have found

that the amount of menhaden in the diets of striped bass, ospreys and bluefish has declined. And on

the Pacific coast, the decrease of forage fish has been linked to diminished salmon runs, losses in

seabird populations, and the unnecessary death of marine mammals. In fact, in 2009 scientists

documented 80 percent mortality among pups in a population of sea lions off the coast of California

when females left them for a week at a time in search of food.

According to a report issued this year by a panel of 13 eminent ocean scientists, forage fish are twice

as valuable left in the water as they are caught in a net because of the vital role they play as food for

commercially valuable predators such as tuna and cod. In other words, it’s important for federal

fishery managers to ensure that there are enough of them to feed everything else in the sea.

That’s why conservation and fishing organizations - including the Pew Environment Group — have

urged the federal government to step up protection of forage species in the Atlantic and the Pacific.

In the Atlantic, we are calling on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to follow the

expressed will of regional fishery councils and implement new protections for menhaden and river

herring. And on the West Coast, we are asking NOAA officials to fulfill the Pacific Fishery

Management Council’s June commitment to forestall fishing for certain forage species until there is

proof that catching such forage fish will not harm the overall ecosystem.

Even though the regional fishery councils endorsed these common-sense objectives and earned

broad public support, those commitments mean nothing until NOAA implements the policies.

Unfortunately, agency officials have been slow to embrace the councils’ direction.

America’s oceans offer a tremendous economic asset and cultural legacy. Whether you enjoy fishing

on the water, eating a sumptuous seafood meal, or watching whales and seabirds, all of these

activities depend upon a thriving and healthy marine ecosystem.

Forage fish nourish other wildlife and sustain important commercial and recreational fisheries. If

we’re going to protect our oceans as a whole, we must make sure that healthy populations of these

smaller prey species remain in the water to support the entire food web.

Peter Baker ([email protected] ) and Paul Shively ([email protected] ) of the Pew

Environment Group are both are avid anglers who work to conserve fish in New England and along

the West Coast, respectively.

mailto:[email protected]




Ending Overfishing - video

Ending Overfishing

Despite an increased awareness of overfishing, the majority of people still know

very little about the scale of the destruction being wrought on the oceans. This film presents an unquestionable case for why overfishing needs to end and

shows that there is still an opportunity for change. Through reform of the EU‘s Common Fisheries Policy, fisheries ministers and members of the European

Parliament can end overfishing. But only if you pressure them.

http://vimeo.com/ocean2012/endingoverfishing



Canada’s 2.5 million protected lakes and rivers have been reduced to 82!



Ban anglers from catching salmon in spring, urge fish farm experts

December 11, 2012

ANGLERS should be banned from

catching salmon in conservation areas

during spring because authorities are

breaching key legislation to protect the

fish, Scottish experts have claimed.

Fisheries and salmon farming

consultants Callander McDowell have

submitted a complaint to the European

Commission alleging that the Scottish

Government and the fishery boards

have failed to meet EU laws on

preserving Atlantic salmon stocks.

More than 46,000 wild spring salmon

have been caught and killed in the 11

rivers designated as Special Areas of

Conservation since the EU Habitats

Directive came into force in 1992.

Although the directive does not outlaw the sport, it states that such “exploitation” of stocks must be

within conservation limits.

Dr Martin Jaffa, of Callander McDowell, said: “Threatened stocks of wild salmon are being

slaughtered in the name of sport and this is happening in specified conservation areas.

“The Scottish Government has abrogated its conservation responsibilities by passing them on to the

district salmon fishery boards, who have in turn abused them by not restricting catches of a

vulnerable spring stock.”

The alleged breaches listed include failing to restrict the length of the angling season and not

encouraging greater consumption of farmed salmon “to negate the need to kill wild fish”.

The Scottish Salmon Producers’ Organisation said the complaint echoed the views of other

respected scientific experts.

Chief executive Scott Landsburgh said: “Dr Jaffa raises a number of important points regarding the

range of impacts on wild salmon, the high levels of natural mortality at sea and the need for statutory

conservation limits on vulnerable stocks.”

READ ENTIRE SCOTSMAN ARTICLE HERE

Scott Lansburgh, Chief Executive of the Scottish

Salmon Producers Organisation

http://www.scotsman.com/news/environment/ban-anglers-from-catching-salmon-in-spring-urge-fish-farm-experts-1-2684923





Young coho get 'flu shot' in unique program

December 07, 2012

About 40,000 young coho are getting their flu shot in a trial inoculation for native coho salmon at Quinsam River Salmon Hatchery in Campbell River.

And it could help fisheries managers understand why coho returns have dropped to one per cent of outmigrating salmon from the 10 per cent of the 1980s.

The coho received their injections at the Fisheries and Oceans Quinsam Hatchery in Campbell River in hopes of improving their survival rate in the Salish Sea (Strait of Georgia). The inoculation is for vibriosis a pathogen that researchers believe is especially prevalent in the spring when the young coho are released into the wild. It is thought that the higher than average spring water temperatures that are occurring from climate change, makes the disease more prevalent in the marine environment, and could be one of the factors that are adversely affecting ocean survival of coho salmon, said Dave Ewart, Watershed Enhancement Manager, Oceans, Habitat and Enhancement Branch, South Coast Area, Quinsam River Hatchery.

"Two years ago we met as a group including our Fisheries support and assessment biologists, and veterinarians from DFO and the Centre for Aquatic Health Sciences," Ewart said. "We were looking at things the hatchery could do as a trial to try and improve coho survival, or at least learn what's happening to them after we let them go."

The group was keen at looking at a disease called vibriosis which is a bacterial disease that occurs naturally and is common in the marine environment. It is known to affect juvenile salmon in the early marine phase of their lives, and is triggered in the spring by warmer water. For coho salmon, migration from fresh water to the ocean occurs in May, when normally, temperatures in the estuary and near shore environments are warming.

READ ENTIRE COURIER-ISLANDER ARTICLE HERE

Alexandra Morton:

“This is horrifying....really Marine Harvest is donating

money to inject wild salmon with a vaccine so they

can survive? If we could use Miller's genomic profiling

lab we could find out what these fish are up against.

Have they been tested for the salmon flu? ISA virus?

How about piscine reovirus? Or Salmon Alpha virus?

This is like the work in Norway where injecting the

smolts with de-lousing drugs helped them survive. We

have to move these industrial feedlots, with their

industrial pathogens away from the wild salmon.

Please we cannot drug our way through this.”

Geoff Gerhart

Well in some circle this would be called blood money.

The fish farm companies obviously do not have any

idea how wild Salmon work as well as their drugs.

Every last one of Coho fry would have to be

vaccinated for this crazy idea to work. This is also

admitting to have caused these diseases to happen in

the first place. They should have to get all their farms

out of the ocean and clean up all their crap from all

their sites. Then the nut bar or nut bars who came up

with the idea to vaccinate the Coho fry should be put

in jail. Horrifying is just the beginning of how to

describe such an idea.

http://www2.canada.com/courierislander/news/story.html?id=165bc784-9d60-489a-b53c-e32002668385

http://www2.canada.com/courierislander/news/story.html?id=165bc784-9d60-489a-b53c-e32002668385



Land-based fish farms now part of aquaculture's future

‘THE time for questioning the importance and viability of closed containment land-based salmon aquaculture is now past, as new technologies demonstrate their productivity, efficiency, and adaptability” this was the key message at a recent workshop in the Wilfred Carter Atlantic Salmon Interpretive Centre, Chamcook, New Brunswick, Canada.

Those in attendance included senior personnel from Atlantic Salmon Trust (AST) and Atlantic Salmon Federation (ASF) along with 78 delegates from Canada, USA and Europe representing state governments; conservation bodies; angling interests and 18 companies involved in developing closed containment (CC) systems.

The purpose of the workshop was to update those present on progress in developing alternative forms of salmon farming and the relevance of CC technologies, especially the land-based options, to global salmon farming.

There was consensus that aquaculture has to be the main provider of fish and sea foods in the future. There is already a multi-million pound industry producing hundreds of thousands of tons of farmed salmon in Norway, Scotland, Ireland, Canada and Chile.

A feature of the workshop was acceptance that new technologies cannot replace existing open cage systems, but will work alongside them, providing an alternative to salmon farms that are shown to be poorly sited, or for retailers wanting production units close to market.

An important issue for ASF and AST is the extent to which CC technologies can provide a “biological firewall” between farmed salmon and wild migratory salmonids. The range of CC systems includes floating modules in the sea and, while these were seen as an improvement on open cage units, land-based systems were more likely to reduce risks.

On the positive side, CC land-based aquaculture would ensure segregation from wild salmon and sea trout. Sites can also be sited close to markets, and control of water quality and temperature made easier to manage along with bio-security, diseases, early maturation and delivery of daily husbandry.

On the not-so-positive side, the new prototypes will have to explain how their capital costs can be justified as well as show an availability of fresh water, cost electricity and deal with consumer resistance.

READ ENTIRE IRISH TIMES ARTICLE HERE

Wild pink salmon infected with sea lice near

a salmon farm in British Columbia.

Photograph: Alexandra Morton.





B.C.’s salmon guardian needs you to listen – before it’s too late

December 2, 2012

He’s 88 and admits to failing health, but Ron MacLeod’s mind remains as sharp as a well-honed fish hook and his passion for protecting salmon is undiminished.

Proof of that lies in a brilliant paper he has just written with long-time colleague Al Wood that he hopes will stir a public outcry against government.

This is an old warrior who is squaring up for one last fight. And politicians will ignore him at their peril.

His paper, “Epic Fail,” chronicles the decline of Pacific salmon stocks and warns that a total collapse – on the scale of the Atlantic cod catastrophe – is in the making, unless things change.

Mr. MacLeod, a former director-general of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, goes beyond doom-saying. He lays out the history of failed government policies that have propelled us to this point, and offers solutions.

In his paper, he urges the public to stop whinging about the way things are and start organizing to force action by government. If we don’t put the heat on politicians, he says, salmon will go over an environmental cliff.

Jarring the political system isn’t going to be easy, he says, but it can be done.

“It’s going to take an emotional outburst from British Columbians,” Mr. MacLeod said. “And if we want change, now is the time … there will be a provincial election next year, and a federal election in three years. … Politicians are open to change if they feel they will lose enough votes.”

As a young boy, Mr. MacLeod went on patrol with his father, a fisheries officer in Tofino. He became a fisheries officer himself in 1956. By the time he retired from the DFO in 1984, he had risen through the ranks to become the director of the department’s operations in the Pacific region – and along with Mr. Wood, he had launched the Salmonid Enhancement Program (SEP) a community-based effort that, over 35 years, has breathed life into hundreds of streams and mobilized thousands of volunteers. Though Mr. MacLeod is retired, he is still actively involved in salmon issues.

Asked if he had ever expected to see salmon stocks fall to the low ebb they are at now, he replied: “Never, never, never.”

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/bcs-salmon-guardian-needs-you-to-listen-before-its-too-late/article5907841/

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/incoming/article5908175.ece/BINARY/Epic+Fail+



Ottawa moves against PEI lab that reported virus in B.C. salmon

November 23 2012

A lab that revealed the first evidence of an infectious virus in British Columbia salmon should be stripped of its international credentials, according to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

In a letter to the World Organization for Animal Health, the CFIA urges the international agency to accept the findings of an independent audit that recommends “suspension of the reference laboratory status,” of the facility.

The lab is run by Frederick Kibenge at the Atlantic Veterinary College-University of Prince Edward Island.

The CFIA has long maintained infectious salmon anemia is not present on the West Coast. If the disease is confirmed by the government, it could lead to export restrictions on B.C. salmon.

The agency has promised to sample nearly 8,000 salmon in B.C. in response to concerns about ISA. But the results of those tests are not yet known, and the CFIA has challenged the validity of Dr. Kibenge’s tests, saying government labs couldn’t replicate his results.

The letter has surprised other experts, who worry the government is trying to silence a scientist whose findings the CFIA disputes.

“This is stunning news,” said Rick Routledge, a professor at Simon Fraser University, who sent the lab samples that showed a ISA virus was present on the Pacific coast. “This comes as a shock. . . my head is spinning. I had no idea they would take it that far,” he said.

Prof. Routledge said the CFIA was “placed in a very awkward situation” when Dr. Kibenge’s lab reported positive hits for the ISA virus in salmon collected at Rivers Inlet, on B.C.’s Central Coast.

Brian Evans, chief food safety officer for the CFIA, has written to the World Organization for Animal Health, or OIE, requesting that the international body act in accordance with the audit findings, and “place the reference laboratory status at the Atlantic Veterinary College in abeyance.”

Alexandra Morton:

“The CFIA has asked the OIE to strip Dr. Kibenge's status

as an ISAv reference lab.

There are only 2 in the world. I guess they are hoping

that when we prove ISAv is in BC that the work will be

ignored.

The CFIA testified at Cohen that proving ISAv is in BC

could close the border to export of farm salmon.

DFO hid ISAv positive test results from the Stolo and the

Cohen Commission.

Kibenge gave those results to the Commission, because

ISAv is a REPORTABLE disease.

It is against the law in Canada to hide results like that!

Influenza-type viruses in feedlots are a dangerous thing

to ignore.

There is no higher authority to take this to. This thing is

rotten to the top - it is up to us.”



Dr. Evans was not available for comment on Thursday and the OIE did not respond to a request for an interview.

Dr. Kibenge’s lab is one of only two facilities in the world recognized by the OIE for its expertise in detecting the ISA virus, outbreaks of which have devastated fish farms in Scotland and Chile.

After Dr. Kibenge’s findings were made public at an SFU press conference in October, his lab was hit with two audits – one in November, 2011, by the CFIA, and a second in August, by an independent panel appointed by the Canadian government and the OIE.

In an interview on Thursday, Dr. Kibenge said he believes the CFIA pushed both audits in order to punish him for his inconvenient findings, which he testified about last year before the Cohen Commission, a recently completed federal inquiry into the decline of sockeye salmon in B.C.

“What they are doing here is essentially punishing me for having testified at the Cohen Commission and trying to suppress the findings that we’ve been finding. It’s an attack on my credibility,” he said. “ I just feel compelled to continue with my research work because there is nothing here that I can see that I’ve done wrong.”

Dr. Kibenge said the initial CFIA audit raised some concerns about his operating procedures, and in response he wrote a detailed letter to the government, in April, stating how he would address those issues. He said the second audit caught him by surprise, but it raised similar issues to the first audit.

The second audit concludes his lab “fell well short of acceptable quality standards.” The first raised concerns about possible cross contamination of samples.

Dr. Kibenge said he stands by his findings .

Alexandra Morton, an independent researcher, said she has found the ISA virus in both farmed and wild B.C. salmon.

“Dr. Kibenge is a recognized expert on the ISA virus,” she said. “What the CFIA is doing to him is really unfair.”

Editorial Comment:

Canada, via the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, is

overstepping its bounds by insisting that Dr. Kibenge’s lab

be stripped of its international credentials.

As witnesses during the Cohen Commission Inquiry last

December, Wild Game Fish Conservation International

founders, Bruce Treichler and Jim Wilcox, heard first-hand

that CFIA equipment and methodologies were subpar AND

that CFIA did not find ISAv in wild salmon because they

were not testing for it.

WGFCI opposes the recommendation by Canada to strip

Dr. Kibenge’s lab of its international credentials – doing so

would be an injustice and further evidence of corporate

greed and government corruption at the expense of wild

salmon, their ecosystems and the cultures and economies

that rely on healthy wild salmon.



Letter to Director General of OIE

December 7, 2012

Dear Dr. Bernard Vallat

I am writing to you in the wake of the anonymous complaint against Dr. Fred Kibenge’s lab at the Atlantic Veterinary College. With this letter I seek to provide the OIE with a glimpse of the documentation on the biological and political state of ISA virus in British Columbia, Canada. While it remains unrecognized, seven labs have detected ISA virus in British Columbia. Kibenge’s is the only non-government Canadian lab and I own the samples. I am appealing to the OIE to watchdog the situation so that our work can be completed.

As noted in the OIE document: Notification of animal and human diseases Global legal basis, the potential negative economic impact of reporting a new pathogen must not delay a country’s disclosure of a reportable virus. Member countries are asked to take every reasonable step to limit the spread of disease. In this case, the potential social, economic and ecological threat of the ISA virus to the northeastern Pacific should likely be recognized and controlled as soon as possible.

Download OIE notification-EN copy copy.pdf (233.6K)

Our understanding of ISA virus in BC has been significantly aided by the recent document production and testimony provided by the federal Cohen Commission into the Decline of the Sockeye Salmon of the Fraser River. The Commission provides documentation on the ISA virus positive test results from seven labs testing wild and/or farmed salmon in BC. Thus, for a window of time, British Columbia has the unprecedented opportunity to work to avoid the characteristically highly virulent outbreak this pathogen is capable of. The only opportunity to control ISA virus in BC is to detect and destroy it in the places most conducive to mutation into an HPR-deleted, highly virulent, made for BC variant. Those places are the high-density environments in salmon farms and hatcheries. To access the Cohen documents cited herein go to: http://www.cohencommission.ca/ Enter the site. On the left-hand side, above “search” enter the word “exhibit” and the numbers I provide below.

It is clear confirmation of ISA virus in BC could have a strong negative impact on Marine Harvest, Cermaq and Grieg Seafoods that make up 95% of the BC salmon farming industry. But it is also apparent from the material below that ISA virus reporting in Canada threatens careers. Counsel for the $26 million Cohen Commission asked a senior DFO scientist if the 2004, ISA virus positive test results for 115 BC salmon were “not disclosed because they were overlooked or were they deliberately set aside and not disclosed.”

READ DR. MORTON’S ENTIRE LETTER TO DR. BERNARD VALLAT

HERE

Dr. Bernard Vallat

Director General

World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE)

http://alexandramorton.typepad.com/alexandra_morton/2012/12/letter-to-director-general-of-oie.html

http://alexandramorton.typepad.com/OIE%20notification-EN%20copy%20copy.pdf

http://www.cohencommission.ca/





Friends of the Earth Canada files petition - questions regarding Canada’s action to strip OIE Lab of credentials

Date: November 23, 2012 Friends of the Earth Canada is filing this petition in light of our concerns around the steps taken by CFIA with respect to the lab based at the Atlantic Veterinary College – University of Prince Edward Island and its chief scientist who has played a leading role in detecting the presence of infectious salmon anemia (ISA) in salmon from British Columbia. In a letter addressed to World Organization for Animal Health, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) asks the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) to suspend the reference laboratory status of a lab at the Atlantic Veterinary College in PEI. Question1. In CFIA’s Expenditure Management Report including Reports on Plans and Priorities for 2012-2013, it notes its work to “get a more complete picture of the health profile of the salmon population in British Columbia” and that the National Aquatic Animal Health Program (NAAHP) “will implement a surveillance initiative targeting both cultured and wild salmon species for infectious salmon anaemia (ISA) infectious haematopoietic necrosis (IHN) and infectious pancreatic necrosis (IPN). This work was to be delivered in collaboration with Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO), the Province of British Columbia and industry. We request from the Minister of DFO and Minister of AAFC and the President of CFIA a report on the status of delivery of this surveillance initiative including its Terms of Reference as they apply to each of wild salmon and cultured salmon populations. In as much as we would expect the early findings from the PEI lab to be instrumental in developing the Terms of Reference, we request the same three parties to report on how the October 2011 findings reported at SFU were assessed and in what manner did the agencies respond or engage with the lab and scientist in question. Question 2 addressed to Minister of AAFC and CFIA – In the course of delivering on its Mission, what is the CFIA’s standard operating procedure with respect to its oversight of of labs dealing with its National Aquatic Animal Health Program. What number of labs would come under this oversight and what is the cycle of inspection reported by CFIA for each of the subject labs. How does CFIA address audit findings first, according to its standard operating procedures, and secondly, with specific reference to its audit of the lab in question in PEI. In particular, what is the basis according to standard operating procedure for recommending withdrawal of certification. Are there preliminary steps or procedures available or in place before such recommendation is made? In the CFIA’s oversight and audit role, how many recommendations to withdraw certification have been made in the last five years? Question 3 addressed to the Ministers of AAFC and CFIA, DFO and Health Canada Is there any investigation and assessment into the potential human health impact from each or all of the diseases referenced in the CIA’s 2012-13 surveillance work – infectious salmon anaemia (ISA) infectious haematopoietic necrosis (IHN) and infectious pancreatic necrosis(IPN). If so, we request a copy of such assessment. Question 4 addressed to the Ministers of AAFC and the CFIA, DFO and the Minister of Trade – Is there an assessment available on potential trade impact for BC cultured salmon should the presence of any of the three diseases be verified or “detected”. If so, we request a copy of such assessment. Question 5 addressed to the Ministers of AAFC and the CFIA, DFO and the Minister of Trade – Is there an assessment of potential impact on international credibility and scientific and economic activity should one of the two labs in the world addressing the diseases in question (infectious salmon anaemia (ISA) infectious haematopoietic necrosis (IHN) and infectious pancreatic necrosis (IPN) be restricted from providing its services to both Canadian and international clients? If so, we request a copy of such assessment. Question 6 addressed to the Ministers of AAFC and the CFIA, DFO and the Minister of Trade – Have the departments or agency undertaken any polls or assessments on the management of public perception of risk and potential health and/or trade impact with respect to the prevalence of the three diseases in wild and cultured salmon. If so, we request copies of results of such polls or assessments. Finally, Friends of the Earth believes the behaviour of CFIA with respect to this particular lab and this particular subject of disease in wild and cultured salmon is reflective of a pattern of behaviour that muzzles and restricts scientists from operating in a way that could only be consistent with CFIA’s own stated Vision and Mission.

READ ENTIRE FRIENDS OF THE EARTH CANADA PETITION HERE

http://foecanada.org/en/files/2012/11/cfia-petition-november23-2012.pdf




Wild Game Fish Conservation International Special Recognition

Four North Islanders to receive Queen's Jubilee medal

November 30, 2012

Anti-fish farm activist Alexandra Morton will be one of four North Island people to receive a Queen's Diamond Jubilee medal next week.

But a press release about the occasion did not mention fish farms or aquaculture at all.

"Alexandra Morton's name has become a household word for many people on the BC coast, for her unrelenting commitment to the wild salmon stocks," said the press release from local MLA Claire Trevena. "As a young marine biologist, Morton moved to the Broughton Archipelago to study orcas. Over time she became concerned with the loss of their principle food, wild salmon, and has since devoted her life to finding the causes.

Her energy and leadership, securing funds for studies and bringing thousands of people out to demonstrate their shared concerns, has brought the issue to the forefront."

Jacquie Gordon, Chief Robert Joseph, Wa Wasden and Morton will receive medals at ceremonies in Campbell River on Dec, 3 and at Alert Bay on Dec. 6.

Trevena, along with MLAs and MPs across the country, were invited to recognize the hard work of people who volunteer their time to make Canada a better place. MLAs were tasked with selecting just four people per constituency.

Trevena appointed a committee to recommend her appointments and she's said she was pleased with their choices which honour the hard work of people who champion the causes of First Nations arts, culture and social welfare, the environment and the arts.

Jacquie Gordon and Chief Robert Joseph will receive their medals on Dec. 3 from 5: 30 to 7 p.m. at the Museum at Campbell River, an award winning facility both played a role in developing.

Chief Joseph spent much of his early career in Campbell River, where he served on the boards of the Union of BC Indian Chiefs and the Nuu-Chah-Nulth Tribal Council. His recent work as Director of the Indian Residential School Survivors Society and Special Advisor to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission continues to have a powerful net impact. Chief Joseph was presented with an honorary law degree at UBC in 2003 in recognition of his outstanding work on behalf of the First Nations.

Jacquie Gordon has dedicated much of her adult life to the arts, giving her time and creative energy to many of Campbell River's arts organizations, from the Tidemark Theatre to the Shoreline Musical Theatre Society. Her most recent role was as chair of the City's Cultural Commission, advising council on the arts. Her greatest source of pride, aside from her family, remains the conversion of the old Van Isle Theatre into the Tidemark as a venue for the performing arts.

Two more awards will be presented at the U'Mista Cultural Centre in Alert Bay on Dec. 6 from 3: 30 to 5 p.m. Honoured with Diamond Jubilee medals will be Wa Wasden Jr. and Alexandra Morton.

Wa Wasden Jr. has made it his life's work and passion to train as an artist and a traditional singer to keep his Kwakwaka'wakw culture alive, and to pass it on to younger generations. He excelled at visual art as a youth and in his late teens he trained as a song keeper, composer and historian under Tom Willie ("MacKenzie") and his wife Elsie. He shares the wealth of those teachings with youth in the Gwa'wina Dancers Cultural Society in Alert Bay.

Don Staniford:

“Congratulations to salmon heroes Alexandra Morton

(right), Chief Robert Joseph and Wa Wasden (left) for

winning the Queen's Diamond Jubilee medal!”

http://www.canada.com/Four+North+Islanders+receive+Queen+Jubilee+medal/7632667/story.html



“Pants on Fire” Recognition: Dr Martin Jaffa, Callander McDowell (Fisheries and salmon farming consultants)

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 January 2013 recipient of the coveted Wild Game Fish Conservation International “Pants on

Fire” honor is: Dr Martin Jaffa, Callander McDowell (Fisheries and salmon farming consultants).

According to Dr. Jaffa: • The Scottish Government and the fishery boards have failed to meet EU laws on preserving

Atlantic salmon stocks. • Threatened stocks of wild salmon are being slaughtered in the name of sport and this is

happening in specified conservation areas. • The Scottish Government has abrogated its conservation responsibilities by passing them on

to the district salmon fishery boards, who have in turn abused them by not restricting catches of a vulnerable spring stock”





Local Conservation Projects

Makah tribe replaces culvert with bridge over Grimes Creek

NEAH BAY –– The Makah tribe

is working to improve salmon

habitat on Grimes Creek in the

Tsoo-Yess River watershed by

replacing a fish-blocking culvert

with a 60-foot-long bridge.

The watershed is home to coho,

chinook and steelhead.

“This particular culvert

replacement has been on Makah

Forestry Enterprise's radar for

some time, and they finally had

the resources to get it done,” said

Ray Colby, water quality

specialist for the Makah tribe.

The culvert had become perched

with a large drop that prevented

salmon from moving upstream in

all but the highest flows.

More than a mile of spawning

and rearing habitat will be

opened to fish, according to Jim

Haney, operations manager for

Makah Forestry Enterprise.

Haney noted there will be an additional project in the future to increase access for fish to a wetland

nearby.

The tribe has worked steadily to improve fish habitat in the Tsoo-Yess River watershed southeast of

Makah Bay.

Projects have included land acquisition from private timber companies.

The 16-mile long Tsoo-Yess is a source of drinking water for the tribe.

It is one of the few river fishing opportunities for Makah tribal fishermen, as well as some non-Indian

sport fishing when the tribe assesses there is enough surplus to open it.

The $70,000 project was funded by the Makah Forestry Enterprise with assistance from Makah

Fisheries personnel to protect fish during the project.

Debbie Ross-Preston

Makah Forestry Enterprises Operations Manager Jim Haney stands, at right, on the new bridge over Grimes Creek

http://www.peninsuladailynews.com/article/20121204/NEWS/312049993/makah-tribe-replaces-culvert-with-bridge-over-grimes-creek



Salmon in China Creek Show Progress in Restoration Efforts

December 4, 2012

Back in January, a single dead salmon seen

along the banks of China Creek near Centralia

College was cause for celebration.

College and city officials said the discovery

was indicative of a returning fish population in

the urban waterway.

These days, it’s live salmon that are bringing

the optimism.

Coho salmon have recently been spotted on a

regular basis in China Creek at the Kiser

Natural Outdoor Learning Lab on the Centralia

College Campus, validating the efforts of the

college and the city of Centralia’s Stream

Team, officials say.

Biology professor Steve Norton said the work

being done on the KNOLL throughout the year

has lead to the visible presence of the fish. He

said he has seen nine this fall so far.

Centralia College cleaned out the section of China Creek that runs through campus last year and

reshaped the banks to create the KNOLL. The lab has been used by the biology, geology and botany

departments along with other science classes.

Norton said the KNOLL gives fish an inviting habitat because natural plants cover the creek and

provide shade, which keeps the water cooler. Also, a specific gravel in the creek allows the salmon to

spawn.

“It’s the classic ‘Field of Dreams’,” Norton said. “If you build it, they will come.”

Norton said the behavior of the coho salmon leads him to believe the female fish have laid eggs in the

gravel of China Creek.

Norton estimates 1,400 to 5,700 eggs have been deposited in the creek. Norton said one to two

percent of the eggs are expected to survive and return a yield to China Creek in several years.

Norton believes the salmon that are spawning in China Creek are from the wild or strays from a

hatchery, but were not born in China Creek.

Centralia Stormwater Operations Manager Kim Ashmore, who organizes the Centralia Stream Team,

said he is encouraged to see the salmon return to China Creek.

Ashmore credited KNOLL and the Centralia Stream Team — a volunteer group that formed in 2009

— with helping restore habitat within China Creek by planting trees and clearing garbage.

When the Stream Team began four years ago, Ashmore said they removed 6,080 pounds of garbage

from China Creek. In August, the team removed 500 pounds of garbage.

Ashmore has a picture in his office that shows city workers in the 1930s using pitchforks to grab

salmon out of China Creek for dinner. Ashmore hopes the work being done along China Creek will

bring the salmon back to those consistent levels.

“Obviously any mitigation projects we can do will help create some of those things salmon like,”

Ashmore said. “The work needs to continue

Salmon%20in%20China%20Creek%20Show%20Progress%20in%20Restoration%20Efforts





Chum salmon make stronger-than-usual return in 2012

Chum salmon spawned in Still Creek,

where salmon have not been seen for

many decades.

Photo credit: Pacific Spirit Photography

This fall, B.C. Lower Mainland residents

and environmental stewards such as

Streamkeepers are reporting strong

returns of chum salmon in many urban

streams, in some cases for the first time

in decades. Fisheries and Oceans

Canada’s Salmonid Enhancement

Program has been working for more

than 30 years with community

volunteers and Streamkeepers to re-

establish self-sustaining salmon runs in

many of these urban streams, where

salmon stocks have been affected by

pollution and urban development.

In Vancouver, observers reported about a dozen chum salmon spawning in Still Creek, where salmon

have not been seen for many decades. The same surprise met people at Stoney Creek in northeast

Burnaby, where many hundreds of chum were counted by local Streamkeepers, and in Squamish,

where local fish enthusiasts observed chum in Loggers Lane Creek for the first time in years, and in

Finch and Mashiter creeks and Quest Channel. On the South Alouette River in Maple Ridge, a record

140,000 chum have been counted, more than five times greater than last year’s 25,000 chum. And in

the Stave River in Mission, local citizens have seen hundreds of thousands of chum spawners where

a few existed just decades ago.

Good numbers of chum salmon have returned to

spawn in Kanaka Creek

These streams have been the focus of habitat

restoration and salmon rebuilding efforts by the

Salmonid Enhancement Program and its many

partners. While the factors influencing salmon returns

are many and complex, this work is making an

important contribution. For example, Fisheries and

Oceans Canada estimates that in 2012, more than

500,000 wild salmon will spawn in fish habitat

throughout the Lower Mainland that has benefitted

from habitat restoration projects by the Salmonid

Enhancement Program.

http://www.pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/sep-pmvs/chum2012-keta2012-eng.htm



In Squamish, a broad and diverse collaborative initiative including Squamish City Council has

invested more than $500,000 in the past seven years to restore Loggers Creek as productive salmon

habitat.

The Tenderfoot Hatchery has released chum salmon into the restored Loggers Creek watershed to

help the species recover and become a self-sustaining population. A series of side channels has also

been built around the Mamquam River, Ashlu River and near the North Vancouver Outdoor School.

Last year, Metro Vancouver installed a new fishway at the Cariboo Dam that makes it easier for

migrating chum salmon to swim upstream past Stoney Creek to the Upper Brunette River watershed,

including Still Creek. This investment, coupled with decades of work by volunteers from the Stoney

Creek Environmental Committee and the Sapperton Fish and Game Club have helped rebuild salmon

runs and improve fish habitat in the Brunette River and its tributaries.

The Stave River has benefitted

from efforts by BC Hydro and its

many stakeholders to improve

water flows released from the

Stave Dam. At the same time, the

Salmonid Enhancement Program

worked with partners to recontour

the river’s gravel bars to take

advantage of the improved water

flows and increase the amount of

available spawning habitat for

salmon.

These are some of the many

efforts underway across British

Columbia by the Salmonid

Enhancement Program, working

in close collaboration with more

than 10,000 volunteers and

Streamkeepers, as well as First

Nations, industry, community and

conservation groups, school

groups, landowners and other

government agencies.

Working together for the benefit of fish, these groups are restoring fish habitat, cleaning up streams,

releasing young salmon into streams, removing barriers to fish migration and raising public awareness

about local salmon populations.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada would like to acknowledge the hard work of all our partners in

contributing to the strong returns of chum salmon.

A side-channel built for spawning and rearing salmon near

the Squamish River estuary. Photo credit: Matt Foy, DFO



Youth Conservation:

Teen takes salmon farm petition to Beehive

December 11, 2012

A Marlborough Sounds teenager has collected 11,000 signatures calling for an end to a proposal to extend salmon farming in her backyard.

Leona Plaisier handed the petition to Green MP Steffan Browning at Parliament today after she was turned down by Conservation Minister Amy Adams, Prime Minister and Tourism Minister John Key, Primary Industries Minister David Carter and Kaikoura MP Colin King, who said they wanted to remain "neutral" in the debate.

The petition was in response to King Salmon's application to extend its farming operation in the Marlborough Sounds, which the Environmental Protection Authority board of inquiry is due to release its draft decision on by the end of the year.

Plaisier grew up in the sounds, where her family restored the Tui Nature Reserve, 38 hectares of land which can only be accessed by boat.

Salmon farming is intensive farming, so waste and feed builds up on the ocean floor, Plaisier said.

She feared that if King Salmon was granted approval, it would also open the door for further marine farming.

INTENSIVE FARMING: Leona Plaisier fears that if King Salmon is granted approval, it would open the door for further marine farming.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/8065222/Teen-takes-salmon-farm-petition-to-Beehive

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/8065222/Teen-takes-salmon-farm-petition-to-Beehive



The G.R.E.E.N. Generation – Olympia Chapter Trout Unlimited Imagine the streams where you live being looked after for generations to come. Great idea – how can we do it?

A giant step in the right direction is to get the future parents of the next generation involved in visiting and appreciating their local streams. And the Olympia Chapter (Trout Unlimited) is doing just that!!

During the week of October 15, a total of more than 900 students went to a total of 36 stream sites throughout Thurston County to monitor water quality and observe the environment.

Those numbers do not count similar efforts undertaken in the Nisqually and Chehalis River basins.

Classes of 4th and 5th grade students took water samples and conducted tests on ph, nitrates, turbidity, and dissolved oxygen. Using temperature readings and subsequent test by high schools and LOTT, they identified dissolved oxygen saturation, biological oxygen demand, fecal coliform and total solids.

Observations were also made of the nature of the stream (pools, runs, and riffles), riparian plants and trees, and noted any human alterations.

Another visit to the same sites will be done in February 2013.

Results then will be compared with the October results and with Optimal Standard values for each test. Discussions will be undertaken as to why their test result met, or didn’t meet the optimal standard and what may account for any differences between the October and February results.

All of this leads to participation at the annual G.R.E.E.N. (Global Rivers Environmental Education Network) Student Congress in March at The Evergreen State College. Here, selected students from all of the watersheds gather to compare and discuss findings as well as participate in skill sessions related to the environment.

Several of our members are involved in the South Sound GREEN program.

YOU can be too!. If you have a stream site (or saltwater site) that is accessible to young students, or you are able to assist with water quality monitoring, call Ron Holtcamp, 360-943-8269.

Students from Southworth Elementary pose with the friendly Chinook salmon.

http://www.thurstoncd.com/south-sound-green.html

http://www.thurstoncd.com/south-sound-green.html


Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 Northwest Youth Conservation and Fly Fishing Academy

For additional information: Please visit website: www.nwycffa.com

Email: [email protected] Telephone: Mike Clancy (360) 753-1259

Jim Brosio (360) 943-9947 Macro Invertebrate Sampling Activity

Fly Casting Instructions

2013 Northwest Youth Conservation &

Fly Fishing Academy

2013 Academy Dates: Sun., June 23 - Sat., June 29. Supported by the Washington Council Trout Unlimited and the Washington State Federation of Fly Fishers. Hosted by Olympia Chapter TU, South Sound Fly Fishers and Puget Sound Fly Fishers. Held on Hicks Lake, Lacey, WA. .

Fishing a Local Pond

ACADEMY FEATURES

Co-educational, ages 12 – 16. Curriculum focuses on conservation, natural

resource stewardship, and fly fishing essentials. Fly fishing classes include fly casting, fly tying, knot

tying, reading water, and water safety. Morning and evening fly fishing activities on

Nisqually Pond and Deschutes River. On-the-water aquatic macro invertebrate sampling

activity. Career discovery opportunities. Faculty and staff include wildlife resource

professionals, northwest fly fishing and fly tying professionals and enthusiasts, and local fishing club volunteers.

Cost, including food and lodging: $275

Application deadline: April 15, 2013

http://www.nwycffa.com/




Academy Application

APPLICATION

Name: _________________________________________________________

Date of Birth: ___________________Age as of June 23, 2013_____________

Address: ________________________________________________________

City: _____________________________State: _________ Zip: ___________

Telephone: Res:_____________________ Cell:_______________________

E-mail: _____________________________________ T-shirt Size: _________

Applicants must also provide the following:

• A written essay on why you would like to attend the Academy and what you expect to learn from it. • A brief letter of recommendation from your school science teacher or counselor including an address and telephone number. Application and recommendation may be sent via postal mail or e-mail.

The Academy is limited to 24 qualified youths, ages 12 through 16. Applicants must not have reached their 17th birthday by April

15, 2013. A committee shall make selections based upon a candidate’s written essay and recommendation from science teacher or

counselor. Tuition fee, including food and lodging is $275. Candidates should not send tuition until notified of selection.

Notifications will be sent out by May 10, 2013. ACADEMY DATES: JUNE 23-29, 2013

Application must be received by April 15, 2013

Print this application page, complete, and send to:

Northwest Youth Conservation & Fly Fishing Academy C/O Mike Clancy

2531 Simon Lane N.E. Olympia, WA 98506

Or e-mail with all required information to: [email protected]

For additional information e-mail to the above address or contact either: Mike Clancy: (home) 360-753-1259, (cell) 253-278-0061; or Jim Brosio: (home) 360- 943-9947

2013 NORTHWEST YOUTH CONSERVATION

&

FLY FISHING ACADEMY

Editorial Comment:

Wild Game Fish Conservation

International is proud to endorse the

2013 Northwest Youth Conservation &

Fly Fishing Academy – a truly unique

opportunity for maturing girls and boys

to learn more about natural resources

stewardship while learning the science

and art of fly fishing from local and

regional experts.



Wild Game Fish Conservation International Please support conservation-minded businesses promoted in Legacy:

Riverman Guide Service – since 1969

Kim Malcom – Owner, Operator

Licensed and Insured Guide

Quality Float Trips – Western Washington Rivers – Steelhead, Salmon, Trout

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Performance Anglers Fishing Tackle

Welcome to Performance Anglers, where customer service is guaranteed! We are Mammoth’s

number one fishing outfitter. Our goal is to make your experience as pleasant as possible. We have

the newest rental gear and fishing accessories at the best prices! Since we are family owned and

operated, we have a special interest in families! Bring your kids in for a great time! We have

"Spruce", the 8-pound Alper’s rainbow trout in a 200-gallon tank for them to watch and enjoy while

getting fitted for gear, and we have "Madison" our mascot Labrador pup to play with them, while

Mom and Dad are shopping! Our staff lives and plays here, and we have the most up to date

information on the local fishing conditions. We also have great local info on where to eat and the best

places for family outings! Our shop is clean, has a relaxing atmosphere, and we guarantee you will

not encounter any grumpy employees. We are happy to have you in our shop, and will do whatever

we can to help you enjoy your stay here in Mammoth Lakes!

http://www.performanceanglers.com/

http://www.performanceanglers.com/images/photos/lrg/matuka.jpg

http://www.performanceanglers.com/images/photos/lrg/madison.jpg



West Coast Wild

Leanne Hodges is a mixed media artist and naturalist living on Quadra Island in the

Salish Sea. Her passion for the BC coast translates into visual narratives of wildlife, indigenous cultures, and our ecological footprint. Leanne's art and advocacy

celebrate both the creative experience and the abundant diversity of life on the inner south coast. Slideshow Bio CV

See more of Leanne’s uniquely-beautiful art

West Coast Wild

http://www.westcoastwild.com/

http://leannehodges.com/leanne-hodges-west-coast-wild-slideshow.php

http://leannehodges.com/PDF/LeanneHodges-bio.pdf

http://leannehodges.com/PDF/LeanneHodges-CV-2011.pdf




Inland Fisheries Ireland – promotion via commercial airliner

Inland Fisheries Ireland

"An Bradan" on the wing over Dublin city. A huge thanks to all who helped to make this project possible.

"An Bradan" will fly the European commuter routes and will promote fishing in Ireland to a huge audience. Anglers travelling onboard "An Bradan" will not be charged for

oversized angling luggage.



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 eco-systems while ensuring cultural values. They also provide a unique, natural resources- based 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

Salmon and Trout Restoration Association of Conception Bay Central, Inc

Save Our Salmon

Sierra Club – Cascade Chapter

Sportsman’s Alliance For Alaska

Steelhead Society of British Columbia

Trout Unlimited

Wild Salmon First



http://www.amrivers.org/

http://www.amrivers.org/

http://www.lighthawk.org/

http://www.salmonaresacred.org/

https://www.facebook.com/STRACC

https://www.facebook.com/STRACC

http://www.wildsalmon.org/

http://cascade.sierraclub.org/

http://www.sportsmansalliance4ak.org/

http://www.steelheadsociety.org/

http://www.tu.org/

http://www.wildsalmonfirst.org/



Featured Artists:

Leanne Hodges – Coastal Grizzly and the Chum Run Connection

Artist, photographer and Owner West Coast Wild Art Studio

Leanne Hodges is a mixed media artist and

naturalist living on Quadra Island in the Salish Sea.

Her passion for the BC coast translates into visual

narratives of wildlife, indigenous cultures, and our

ecological footprint. Leanne's art and advocacy

celebrate both the creative experience and the

abundant diversity of life on the inner south coast





Jeannie Williams Wallen - Sacramento River King Salmon

Photo taken and submitted by Jeannie Williams Wallen

Concord, California

“Photo of the day!! Sacramento River King Salmon stacked up and ready to spawn! I took this photo near the Nimbus Hatchery on the American River. Enjoy!” - Jeannie

Williams Wallen

About Jeannie:

California Huntress and "Fish On Ista" !! <*)):::::::><

Native Californian and a True Huntress and Fly Fisher Lady,

Award winning Nature Photographer and Artist. I'm a Booking

Agent/Hunting Consultant for Hunting Trips World Wide. Let me

help you realize Your Dream Hunt! Contact me if you want to

hunt in Africa, Alberta, Europe and South Dakota.

https://www.facebook.com/messages/jeannie.williamswallen





Holly Arntzen and Kevin Wright - Music video: Merry, Merry Fishmas

Original Art by Anissa Reed

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=6UTQllJJWN8



Featured Fishing Photos:

A gorgeous wild British Columbia winter steelhead

Photo submitted by Kara Knight

Revelstoke, British Columbia, Canada



Wild salmon and trout require clear, cold, disease-free streams for successful spawning and rearing

Photo submitted by Flyfishers’ Arte / Richard Mayer © 2006 Ladner, British Columbia, Canada

Editorial Comment:

Richard Mayer’s photograph above captures the essence of why Wild Game Fish Conservation

International and our associates around planet earth are committed to the restoration and

protection of these critical habitats from the impacts due to irresponsible practices presented in

Legacy: open pen salmon feedlots, energy development (oil, coal, natural gas, hydropower, wind

turbines), forestry, land use and fisheries management.

Wild game fish require specific habitats in each stage of their lives, It’s vitally important that we

each work together to ensure that our future generations are able to enjoy wild game fish and their

ecosystems.



Music and slide video: “Fish On” song (iFishVideos)

Video submitted by Denny Clemons

Elma, Washington

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=29b5XguRRZU



Winter Whopper

Photo submitted by Julia Contaldi, Performance Anglers

Mammoth Lakes, CA

Julia Contaldi: “20 inch Rainbow hen caught on a #12 red midge we tie here at the shop..er...office..whatever!”

http://www.performanceanglers.com/



Video games?

Photo submitted by Kyle McClelland – Guide and owner: XXL Chrome Chasing

Fife Lake, Michigan

Kyle McClelland with a beautiful winter steelhead taken from Michigan's Upper Peninsula!! You can read more on his XXL Chrome Chasing Facebook page.

www.facebook.com/XxlChromeChasing

The fish was caught float fishing

http://www.facebook.com/XxlChromeChasing

http://www.facebook.com/XxlChromeChasing



First Steelhead – Thompson River Chrome

Photo submitted by Mathew Moisley

Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Be safe while enjoying the great outdoors

Two people in hospital after

bear attack near Kimberley

KIMBERLEY — A man and woman

have been airlifted to a Calgary hospital

after surviving a bear attack near

Kimberley.

Conservation officer Joe Caravetta said

Monday the attack happened late

Sunday afternoon in a remote area.

"Both victims were badly injured and

distraught," he said. "They each had

several bites to the legs, groin, head

and arms."

READ VANCOUVER SUN ARTICLE

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/people+hospital+after+bear+attack+near+Kimberley/7610865/story.html






Smith River (Montana) – trout on the fly in “Big Sky”

Photos submitted by Bruce Treichler

Co-founder, Wild Game Fish Conservation International Olympia, Washington

Bruce Treichler, WGFCI




Even the youngsters “bring home the bacon”

Sometimes dad and mom must provide for the youngsters



Community Activism, Education and Outreach:

Public seminar: VERTICAL JIG FISHING FOR SALMON

OLYMPIA CHAPTER OF TROUT UNLIMITED January 23, 2013 7:00PM

NORTH OLYMPIA FIRE STATION 5046 BOSTON HARBOR ROAD NE

Rudnick with jig caught salmon Jigs

Program: Vertical Jig Fishing for Salmon in Saltwater

The public is invited to the January 23rd meeting of the Olympia Chapter of Trout Unlimited

for a presentation by Terry Rudnick, refreshments, and fishing equipment raffle. Terry’s color

slide presentation is on up-to-date vertical jig fishing for saltwater salmon. You will learn

about techniques, locations, and appropriate gear to use in Puget Sound and the Pacific

Ocean for vertical jig fishing for salmon.

Bio: Terry Rudnick.

Terry Rudnick is a freelance outdoor writer / photographer / speaker specializing in Pacific

Northwest fishing, hunting and boating subjects. Since beginning his career more than 30

years ago, he has had over 1,000 articles and photos published in more than two-dozen

regional and national publications. Terry will have available and sign copies of his book

Washington Fishing. An enthusiastic and entertaining speaker, he has given more than 200

slideshows and seminars. Besides his more than two-dozen awards for writing and

photography, Rudnick has received the national Silver Trout Award for Communications from

Trout Unlimited and the Ken McLeod Journalism Award from the King County Outdoor Sports

Council.



Listen to radio Interview: Row over salmon farm in Galway

GIVE A GIFT TO THE ENVIRONMENT - BOYCOTT SMOKED FARM SALMON THIS CHRISTMAS

Spread the Word - Download Printable Stickers and Posters

DID YOU KNOW THAT:

LICE from farmed fish KILL wild SALMON: ‘Recent peer reviewed international scientific literature on the

impacts of sea lice on salmonids show them to have devastating effects on wild salmon, accounting for up to

39% of salmon mortalities.’ [Inland Fisheries Ireland]

ESCAPES from fish farms alter wild salmon GENETICS: ‘Interaction of farm with wild salmon results in

lowered fitness, with repeated escapes causing cumulative fitness depression and potentially an extinction

vortex in vulnerable populations.’ [Proceedings of the Royal Society B]

FARMED SALMON DAMAGE YOUR HEALTH: For farmed salmon from northern Europe, consumption

should be limited to no more than one meal every 5 months in order to not exceed an elevated risk of cancer of

more than 1 in 100,000. [USA EPA]

SALMON FARMS HURT TOURISM: One salmon caught in an Irish river is worth €423 to the local

economy. Angling is worth €230m annually to the national economy. [Hotel Federation of Ireland/Inland

Fisheries Ireland]

UNDER ORGANIC STANDARDS: the following chemicals and medicines may be used on caged salmon

and so this product may contain traces of: Alphaject 3000, Norvax Compact 4 and Compact PD,

Cypermethrine, Emamectin benzoate, Deltamethrine, Tricane meselate, Oxytetravcyclin, Bronopol,

formaldehyde, and chloramine, the artificial anti oxidant ethoxyquin [EQ], and has been shown to have

absorbed from the environment dioxins, PCBs, polybrominated diphenyl ethers, and pesticides, including

toxaphene and dieldrin.

FOR MORE FISHY FACTS VISIT THE REFERENCE PAGE

READ ABOUT THE PROPOSED GALWAY BAY MEGA FARM

SUPPORTING ORGANISATIONS

http://www.rte.ie/news/morningireland/player.html

http://www.wildfish.ie/downloads.html

http://www.wildfish.ie/



http://www.wildfish.ie/references.html

http://www.wildfish.ie/megafarm.html

http://www.wildfish.ie/supporters.html



Gathering in Dublin, Ireland to protest Norwegian-owned, open pen salmon feedlots (Video: Interviews with local fishermen by Don Staniford, Global

coordinator, GAAIA)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04w1xf-eT6Q






Petition to: Stephen Harper - Prime Minister of Canada: Recognize a Healthy Environment as a basic Human Right in Canada

Nearly 100 countries formally recognize a healthy environment as a basic human right. Humans depend on clean air to breathe and clean water to drink to have good quality of life. Severe pollution has been scientifically linked to respiratory and heart disease as well as cancer. However, Canada is one of a handful of countries who's government has yet to recognize this fundamental right for its citizens.

We call on the Prime Minister and the federal government of Canada to stand up for our right to a healthy environment. While the federal government has stated that they plan to harmonize tougher vehicle emissions standards with the U.S., more can and needs to be done to preserve our environment. We ask for tougher standards for industrial emissions and tougher regulations for energy sector practices to avoid accidents. Also, we ask government to respect Canada's pristine wilderness areas and the rights of First Nations and leave these areas untouched for future generations.

Most of all, Canada's federal government must acknowledge that a healthy environment is a fundamental human right.

It's time for all Canadians to call on the federal government to make the right of a healthy environment a binding law in Canada!

http://www.change.org/petitions/stephen-harper-prime-minister-of-canada-recognize-a-healthy-environment-as-a-basic-human-right-in-canada

http://www.change.org/petitions/stephen-harper-prime-minister-of-canada-recognize-a-healthy-environment-as-a-basic-human-right-in-canada



Keystone XL pipeline protest in Washington DC - Video

Thanksgiving is traditionally a time to celebrate the positive things in life, to cherish friends and family and individual accomplishments. But in a rapidly-warming world chock-full of violent storms, severe droughts and extreme weather events, common traditions can be turned upside down. Just ask residents of the northeast struggling to make ends meet after Superstorm Sandy blasted through their communities and destroyed holiday plans for thousands.

It's part of the new world order of extreme weather events that scientists warn will be more common if we don't begin to dramatically cut climate-altering carbon pollution now. But there is reason to be optimistic this holiday season that we are finally reaching the tipping point in terms of taking action in the U.S. People re-elected a president who vows to fight climate change and aggressively push the country toward clean energy solutions necessary to cut carbon pollution. Polls show more and more Americans believe climate change is real and that we need to make our environment more sustainable.

So when 350.org’s Bill McKibben brought the popular “Do the Math Tour” to Washington this past weekend, it was a perfect time to renew the call to stop the massive Keystone XL pipeline project that would bring a river of dirty tar sands crude to refineries in the Gulf. Scientists have longed warned that super carbon-rich tar sands oil of Canada could have massive impacts on the global weather patterns and sensitive ecosystems.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=FrPuW5kOfU8

http://www.nrdc.org/globalwarming/climate-change-impacts/

http://www.nrdc.org/hurricane-sandy.asp?gclid=CK6c8vSr4LMCFQ-e4Aod3G8Axw

http://www.suntimes.com/news/world/11585476-418/scientists-warn-of-climate-change-onslaught.html

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/14/us-usa-obama-climate-idUSBRE8AD1IU20121114

http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnzogby/2012/11/14/after-sandy-poll-shows-gop-faces-growing-environmental-divide-with-voters/

http://350.org/

http://www.350.org/

http://www.350.org/

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/29/idUS257590805720110829

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/29/idUS257590805720110829



No Tar Sands Keystone XL Pipeline



CASTING A VOICE - 5 MINUTE TEASER

"Casting a Voice" is a fly fishing conservation

film, using the perspective of anglers to

examine the risks facing one of British

Columbia's most precious resources - wild fish.

The proposed Northern Gateway pipeline

project would run through some of the most

abundant wild salmon and steelhead waters

left on the planet. The Skeena River and its

tributaries remain a rare stronghold for healthy

populations of anadromous fish, while wild fish

stocks have declined elsewhere.





Please vote today to support Williston Lake Trout Project (British Columbia, Canada)

https://www.facebook.com/WillistonLakeTrout

https://www.facebook.com/WillistonLakeTrout



Save Bristol Bay campaign – 38,000 and growing

Save Bristol Bay is a project of Trout Unlimited. With staff in Juneau, Anchorage and

the Lower 48, we work to protect one of the world’s most productive salmon fisheries.

Learn more at http://SaveBristolBay.org/ Twitter @SaveBristolBay

Paul Shibley: “Arctic char caught in the Ugashik narrows. Keep the Bristol

Bay's waters clean and pure enough for the salmon, char and trout.”

http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2FSaveBristolBay.org%2F&h=dAQFFVcKh&s=1



Protect our Sacred Headwaters, Salmon and Health of our Future Generations

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/protect-our-sacred-headwaters



Get Out Migration – slide show

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=2BRDFn_tIvA



Please donate to support Dr. Morton’s continued research

“After much technical difficulty a new and improved donation site is working... test it at: http://www.gofundme.com/FishFeedlotsOut”

Thank you for your generous financial support.

Alex





Want Wild Salmon – Please sign this petition

http://www.change.org/NoSalmonFarmLeases





Turn up the Volume – “The Fish Farm Fight”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkRtj-7y9SQ&feature=player_embedded



Get salmon feedlots out of the ocean – Please contribute today

http://www.salmonaresacred.org/



Evict Salmon Farms – NOW!



Premier Christy Clark: Do not renew salmon farm leases

Petition by Alexandra Morton Sointula, Canada

We are in a race against an epidemic in our ocean, and government has given the viruses a head start. I have read the salmon feedlot disease records and I am working with an international team of scientists, testing 1,300 salmon in British Columbia.

The explosive Cohen Commission Report released on October 31 details the risks of the salmon farming industry recommending they cease to operate if risk is found to be greater than minimal. Deaf to this, the government of British Columbia is considering the renewal of salmon farm leases. We have to shut off the source of this viral spill, these leases must not be renewed. I started a petition to stop the province from renewing these leases.

The Cohen Commission recommended salmon farms be prohibited if research finds more than minimal impact. We already have the science saying wild salmon decline everywhere there are salmon farms -- this is a lot more than just minimal impact. During the press conference Judge Cohen himself concluded "that the potential harm posed to Fraser River sockeye salmon from salmon farms is serious or irreversible."

Potentially irreversible! We cannot let these salmon farm leases be renewed. The government is already concerned about the Spring election and has not done nearly enough to protect our wild salmon, something British Columbian's hold near and dear.

Stopping the leases would be a major step towards protecting our wild salmon that are at great risk.

Please sign my petition and share it far and wide.

To: Premier of British Columbia (Premier Christy Clark)

Dear Premier Clark;

There is growing evidence of exotic viruses spilling out of salmon feedlots, infecting passing wild salmon. Justice Bruce

Cohen just released recommendations of his 3 -year, $26 million federal inquiry into the Decline of the Fraser Sockeye,

one of the world's largest wild salmon runs. Cohen cites risk of government favouring the interests of the salmon farming

industry, he recommends fish farm siting regulations be expanded to include protection of wild salmon migration routes.

Incredibly, Cohen calls for a freeze on farm salmon production where the Fraser sockeye migrate and that if research

shows that salmon farms are having more than minimal impact on wild salmon, that the industry be prohibited from

operating on the Fraser sockeye migration route.

The Province of British Columbia is poised to renew many salmon farm leases in the next few weeks. While Cohen's

mandate was only the Fraser sockeye, they are no different from other wild salmon province-wide.

Premier, surely you do not want to risk the wild salmon of eastern Pacific in the face of these strong warnings by this

federal inquiry. The Fraser River First Nations will have to be consulted now as salmon they have rights to are migrating

through the effluent of exactly the salmon farms, Justice Cohen is saying must be prohibited if more than minimal risk is

found.

You cannot renew the salmon farm leases throughout BC in good faith.

Deny salmon farm license renewals.






Eastern Shore citizens to lead March on Province House demanding aquaculture moratorium

December 3, 2012

Hundreds of citizens from throughout Nova Scotia are expected to converge on Province House this Friday, according to a news release from the Association for the preservation of the Eastern Shore.

The group was formed in 2011 to pressure the Dexter government to review its policies regarding the placement of industrial-sized, open pen net aquaculture sites in Bays and Harbours on the Eastern Shore and elsewhere in the province

APES will be joined by members of the Atlantic Coalition for Aquaculture Reform, Mayday Shelburne County, St. Mary's Bay Coastal Alliance, Friends of Port Mouton Bay and others just after noon in the Grand Parade and will march to Province House, where the legislature will be sitting.

There, the APES will be depositing its responses to the Environmental Assessments posted as part of Snow Island Salmon's application for open pen salmon feedlots in Shoal Bay and Spry Harbour with the Minister of the Environment.

APES is calling for a stepped up level of Environmental Assessment, one that would require an independent inquiry, says the news release.

The group continues to call for a moratorium on all new open pen salmon feedlot licenses "until

community-based inquiries can determine that no harm will come to our environment, quality of life, and

existing industries such as the lobster fishery and tourism."

APES is also calling for the separation of the Ministries of Aquaculture, Fisheries and Environment, contending that, "because they are currently in a conflict of interest with each other when held by the same minister, Sterling Belliveau."

"There is no way an objective Environmental Assessment can occur when the Minister of the Environment is also the Minister of Aquaculture and a strong proponent of open pen salmon feedlots," the release adds.

The reason for the march and moratorium demand now, adds the release, "is that the licensing of Snow Island Salmon's two proposed open pen salmon feedlots in Shoal Bay and Spry Harbour could occur at any time."

APES members feel that a provincial election could be looming and that Eastern Shore MLAs Sid Prest and Jim Boudreau could lose their seats, given the strength of opposition to open pen net farming in their constituencies.

APES believes that the protest march could "send a message to the NDP government that licensing open pen salmon feedlots along the Eastern Shore will be political suicide."

http://www.southcoasttoday.ca/content/eastern-shore-citizens-lead-march-province-house-demanding-aquaculture-moratorium

http://www.southcoasttoday.ca/content/eastern-shore-citizens-lead-march-province-house-demanding-aquaculture-moratorium



Moratorium on new licenses for open pen finfish aquaculture in Nova Scotia

The Association for the Preservation of the Eastern Shore has joined

more than 116 organizations from across Nova Scotia to ask for an

immediate moratorium on new licenses for open pen finfish aquaculture

licences in the province.

The Association for the Preservation of the Eastern Shore (APES) is an

organization consisting of hundreds of concerned residents and business

people from a variety of sectors on the Eastern Shore, including the

Sheet Harbour Chamber of Commerce, tourism operators, people in the

building trades, fishermen and international marketers of lobster and

other wild catch species, as well as representatives of various parks and

wilderness groups.

In particular, we are concerned that three proposals by

Scottish company, Loch Duart, and its Nova Scotia

subsidiary, Snow Island Salmon, do not meet basic

minimum standards set out by the aquaculture industry

itself in consultation with the provincial and federal

governments (Stantec 2009, Hargrave 2002). In

addition, we see that an overwhelming number of peer-

reviewed national and international scientific studies

readily and repeatedly show a variety of serious

environmental harms directly attributable to such poorly

sited enterprises, and, as a consequence, may put a

number of existing and potentially healthier sustainable

industries on our shore at risk.

Finally, we have a number of concerns about what the lack of opportunity for citizen input and true public consultation in

this process.

For these reasons, APES calls on the provincial government of Nova Scotia to establish a 5-year moratorium on open pen

finfish aquaculture until the process for granting or renewing licences is transparent and repaired of its flaws, and until

independent objective science and economic analysis can show that there will be no harm to existing industries and the

coastal and estuarine environments of Nova Scotia.

To read a more detailed summary of reasons for taking such a precautionary approach to open cage finfish aquaculture,

see the attached "Statement of Precautionary Principles" and other documents in this section.

What can you do? Sign the petition! Or look under the "To do" section of this website for other suggestions for things you

can do or about how you can get involved.

http://nsapes.ca/moratorium






Petition - No Salmon Farms at Sea

Many more jobs, intact ecosystems and local economies benefit from wild salmon than ever will be realized with salmon artificially produced in open pen feedlots. Wild Game Fish Conservation International and our associates worldwide oppose plans to site these open pen salmon feedlots in uniquely-productive marine environment.

http://www.nosalmonfarmsatsea.com/how-you-can-help/petition/



Don't let the salmon farm industry destroy Ireland

Don Staniford and fellow wild salmon warriors in Galway Bay off the Island of Inisheer, Ireland

Elly Edwards:

“Don't let the salmon farm industry destroy Ireland!

Keep Galway Bay free of the feckin fish farms!”



Opposition mounts to super-sized fish farm in Galway Bay

December 10, 2012

THE Irish ballad The West’s Awake, by Thomas Davis came to mind of late following the devastating news that Bord Iascaigh Mhara (BIM) had lodged a proposal for a supersized salmon fish farm off Inis Oirr in Galway Bay.

Angling organisations, anglers, stakeholders, hoteliers, restaurateurs, islanders and west coast citizens are “up in arms” and rallying in large numbers in opposition to this outrageous proposal.

Take, for example, my report of Oct 29th in which I said the off-shore location for the proposed farm was a “step in the right direction”.

I was immediately contacted by an islander who, quite rightly, takes issue with this assumption.

Living on Inis Oirr, he said the location is just “one land mile” opposite the beach, “which is one of our greatest tourism assets”. Any visible (or otherwise) pollution from the farm would have a devastating effect on the livelihood of many islanders.

He is also surprised that one of the biggest flaws in the Environment Impact Study (EIS) was overlooked, in which the proposed project is regarded as a “deep sea” initiative. “There is no area in Galway Bay that could, in maritime and fisherman’s terms, be considered as deep sea,” he said.

“This may seem a small issue but given the size and potential impact on the surrounding area, such details are of paramount importance. Neither I nor any self-respecting fisherman would consider the waters a mile off our shores as anything but shallow,” he said.

In Galway anglers have united to fight the salmon farm proposed by BIM for Galway Bay. The proposed facility, reputed to be one of the largest open-pen salmon farms in the world containing 3.6 million salmon, has the potential to cause massive pollution to the bay, and to wipe out salmon and sea trout stocks in local rivers.

Galway Against Fish Farms (Gaff) condemned the way in which this project is being promoted by BIM.

READ ENTIRE IRISH TIMES ARTICLE HERE

Sea-liced pink salmon smolt from Broughton

Archipelago, British Columbia, Canada.

In the words of Orri Vigfusson from Iceland who has

done more for salmon conservation than anyone

else on this planet: “An Ireland, Norway, Scotland or

Canada without wild Atlantic salmon in their famous

rivers is a future too empty to contemplate. They

would be rivers and countries that would have lost

their souls.”




Kids involved in protest outside Norway's Embassy in Dublin, Ireland Stop Norwegian-owned companies from killing wild salmon!



Boycott smoked Atlantic salmon

"Anglers, environmentalist, tourism and water sports interests are considering launching a campaign to ask the public to boycott smoked salmon this Christmas to support their campaign against salmon farms along the Irish Coast," said Friends of the Irish Environment in a press release (25 November). "‘Not buying smoked salmon for Christmas would be giving a gift to the environment’, one of the protestors said."

Speaking at the public meeting in Bantry Bay (23 November), Don Staniford said: "People across the world are rising up like a wild salmon against Norwegian-owned filthy feedlots. There can be no compromise in the defence of wild salmon - and that means fighting Marine Harvest's expansion plans in Bantry Bay, Galway Bay and Clare Island."

Don Staniford, GAAIA

http://donstaniford.typepad.com/my-blog/2012/11/the-fightin-irish-take-on-fish-farms.html

http://www.friendsoftheirishenvironment.net/

http://www.friendsoftheirishenvironment.net/



No to salmon farms in Ireland

NO to Salmon Farms, let’s protect our Natural Salmon and Sea Trout. They are trying to put a huge salmon farm on the West Coast of Ireland and more on the Cork Coast. If this happens it will destroy our naturally occurring salmon and sea trout.



Fish farming’s ‘public enemy No 1’ to boost Bantry campaign

November 20, 2012

An international activist dubbed salmon farming’s "public enemy number one" is set to boost the campaign against two major fish farming projects off the south and west coasts.

Anti-fish farming campaigner Don Staniford is expected to draw a large crowd to a protest meeting in Bantry on Friday, the Save Bantry Bay group said.

The local action group was set up to oppose Marine Harvest expansion plans in Bantry Bay.

The fish farm company wants to develop a 100-acre site at Shot Head and has lodged an application for a foreshore and aquaculture licence with the Department of the Marine.

Save Bantry Bay is fighting the project, citing concerns about the farm’s impact on water quality, wildlife, angling, fishing, tourism, shipping navigation and water sports.

But the campaign group is now also harnessing growing opposition to a Bord Iascaigh Mhara proposal for a super salmon farm in Galway Bay which it says would double the national production of farmed salmon.

The group has invited Mr Staniford to address Friday’s meeting as it steps up its campaign. Mr Staniford has been described by the aquaculture trade media as salmon farming’s "public enemy number one". He was recently cleared by British Columbia’s Supreme Court of defamation charges after he ran a series of shock ads linking cancer from cigarette smoking to cancer from farmed salmon.

He will be joined at the meeting by Elena Edwards of the Canadian Wild Salmon First campaign and by Dr Roderick O’Sullivan, the author of the first study on salmon farming in Ireland in 1989.

A spokesperson for Marine Harvest said it had no comment to make ahead of the meeting.

Save Bantry Bay say they expect people to travel from Cork, Donegal, Dublin, Galway and the Aran Islands to the meeting.

More than 200 residents attended their last protest meeting in Glengarriff this summer.

Save Bantry Bay chairman Kieran O’Shea said they also had a "very encouraging response" from a leaflet drop to 7,000 residents on the Beara Peninsula and to 179 letters it sent to TDs, local councillors and senators.

The group’s letter to TDs cited not only European legislation intended to protect wild salmon, but the loss of fishing grounds, increased pollution, the negative effect on the local shellfish industry on the six local salmon rivers, and on tourism.

Committee secretary Alex O’Donovan said BIM and the minister "appear to have forgotten" the Bantry Bay Charter, agreed by representatives of all stakeholders in the area which recognised "the valid opinions and perspectives of all the interests in the area" and which required "at least a broad-based consensus for any future developments".

The meeting, which is open to the public, will be held in the Maritime Hotel, Bantry at 7.30pm on Friday.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/fish-farmings-public-enemy-no-1-to-boost-bantry-campaign-214505.html



International speakers slam Bantry fish farm plans

December 3, 2012

The views of anti-fish farm campaigners – environmental scientist Roderick O’Sullivan, Don Staniford of the Global Alliance Against Industrial Aquaculture and Elena Edwards of Wild Salmon First – were well received at a meeting held in the Marine Hotel, Bantry, last Friday night.

Hosted by the local Save Bantry Bay group, and chaired by Keiran O’Shea, chairman of this group, a large and representative group from interested parties across Ireland, and some from the UK, attended the meeting. However, public representatives were conspicuous by their absence.

During the question and answer session that followed the speeches, people expressed their concerns. There was but one dissenting voice, a man who said he was a fish farmer. His views were met with silence and were at odds with the large numbers who attended.

During the session, Dr. Penny Stanway advised that the word ‘farm’ which conveys growing and nurturing, should not be used when speaking about the huge factory-sized conglomeration of fish production which is being proposed for Irish waters. She said it was similar to the situation when the method of providing cheap battery chickens was exposed in the UK in the 1970′s.

That caused such a public outcry that people stopped buying chicken when they were made aware of the conditions the animals were grown in. She and others present encouraged the media to call the product what it is, battery caged salmon.

Don Staniford presented a packet of Donegal Catch salmon to the meeting which showed that the fish was actually from Poland.

Dr. O’Sullivan and Don Staniford both claimed some of the chemicals used to kill the sea lice on these fish are banned in other countries. It was claimed also that it was environmental lunacy to pour chemicals in any form in Irish waters and bays. Questions were raised about the use of chemicals banned in other countries and if this was the case why authorities in Ireland were permitting their use.

Demise of salmon stocks

Elena Edwards of Canada’s Wild Salmon First gave a report which visually explained on a map on the screen the demise of salmon stocks in the Fraser River, British Columbia. There, the wild fish had to swim past caged fish and so were exposed to salmon lice. If was explained that if 11 lice attached themselves to a wild salmon, the salmon died.

Campaigners are urging people to log onto www.savebantrybay.com and read the Board of Inland Irish Fisheries Report and observations on the proposed fish conglomeration for Bantry Bay,

There is a further report in an international study which was released on November 15th from Inland Fisheries Ireland which highlights the impact on wild salmon of populations from sea lice. It states: ‘On average 39% of salmon mortalities are attributed to sea lice which impacts wild salmon numbers and therefore wild salmon fisheries. The full report may be downloaded at http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2012/11/01/rspb.2012.2359.full

The importance of maintaining and protecting wild salmon stocks was highlighted by representatives of the angling and tourism industries. It was claimed that exposing wild salmon to sea lice, to the chemicals used to kill the lice in the battery cages, combined by escapees, could lead to the extinction of the Irish wild salmon species as it is known today

http://bantryblog.wordpress.com/2012/12/03/international-speakers-slam-bantry-fish-farm-plans/

http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2012/11/01/rspb.2012.2359.full



Marine Harvest – Third Quarter Presentation to Investors

Don Staniford (GAAIA):

“Marine Harvest suffering "biological issue" (i.e. Amoebic Gill Disease) in

Scotland and losses in Chile & Canada.”

http://marineharvest.com/en/Investor1/Press-releases/2012/Presentation-held-6-December-2012/



Petition - Costco, Safeway & Loblaws: Please stop selling diseased farm salmon

Claudette Bethune:

“Investigation of the recall of Costco smoked salmon continues. 'The U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention stated that it was still reviewing the data

concerning the severity of the outbreak and has not released an official estimate of the number of cases involve. To help with this process the CDC requests that any

such cases be reported immediately to your local Health Department.'

http://www.equities.com/news/news-headline-story?dt=2012-11-14&val=715673&d=1&cat=headline

http://www.change.org/en-CA/petitions/costco-safeway-loblaws-please-stop-selling-diseased-farm-salmon

http://www.change.org/en-CA/petitions/costco-safeway-loblaws-please-stop-selling-diseased-farm-salmon

http://www.equities.com/news/news-headline-story?dt=2012-11-14&val=715673&d=1&cat=headline



The Organic Salmon Co. – Taste as Nature Intended (NOT)

Organic Scamon - The Greenwashing of Toxic Farmed Salmon (Don Staniford)

"Organic" Scamon by Marine Harvest Ireland – Clare Island, Ireland

(photo courtesy of Don Staniford, GAAIA)



Marine Harvest’s “Orca Chief” plying BC waters between salmon feedlots and

processing facilities

North bound to the open pen salmon feedlots (Photo: Dr. Alexandra Morton)

South bound, fully loaded (and then some) to the processing facility (photo: Dr. Alexandra Morton)

The Orca Chief is the largest vessel in Marine Harvest Canada’s fleet. Its length is 114 feet and has

the ability to move up to 75 tonnes of live fish in a 500 cubic metre hold. It also performs fish size

grading duties at Marine Harvest’s fish farms. It was built in Norway in 1998.



Twenty year license granted for British Columbia salmon feedlot

Clayquot Sound, British Columbia, Canada (photo courtesy of Bonny Glambeck)

Alexandra Morton:

“While the OIE considers whether to take the CFIA's lead and ignore their lab's ISAV

positive test results for BC, its business as usual. Bonny Glambeck of Friends of Clayquot

Sound sends this photo of Cermaq installing the Plover Point feedlot, granted a 20 year

licence just BEFORE the Cohen Report came out advising single year licences only.”

http://focs.ca/

http://focs.ca/



Conservation Video Library – “Why we’re involved”

The Fish Farm Fight; (6:51)

Tar Sands Oil Extraction: The Dirty Truth (11:39)

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)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkRtj-7y9SQ&feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkwoRivP17A

http://www.salmonwars.com/

http://therealnews.com/t2/component/hwdvideoshare/?task=viewvideo&video_id=73856

http://www.ilcp.com/videos/spoil


http://kcts9.org/undamming-elwha

http://video.today.msnbc.msn.com/today/40230853#40230853

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/earthrise/2012/04/20124615166529417.html

http://www.care2.com/causes/robert-redford-leads-charge-against-the-disastrous-pebble-mine.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EimPqpMlInY&feature=share

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftnFjbkn9D4&feature=related


http://endoftheline.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGzDNfMumYU&feature=player_embedded&noredirect=1

http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DvekW4FgXefo%26feature%3Dshare&h=bAQHt-KYoAQFw7mSOIh8VcOTVM6h00ur6vesJ7vzujlUvpw

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/salmon-running-the-gauntlet/video-full-episode/6620/?sms_ss=facebook&at_xt=4dbf37d0c347b601%2C0

http://www.thecanadian.tv/farmed_salmon_exposed.html

http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DvekW4FgXefo&h=4AQFfOk16AQHrRwpTid9s448PuBc_4XjkWHnG2BpRsKhhng

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zga8e6s_qs

http://www.americanrivers.org/newsroom/blog/jthomas-20111025-tribes-fishers-and-local-residents-oppose-pebble-mine.html

http://www.youtube.com/user/EcoVillageTV#p/u/2/nS_jvSD_Uq8

http://www.cultureunplugged.com/play/5918/Farming-the-Seas

http://video.wpbt2.org/video/1378843034

http://www.cohencommission.ca/en/Presentation.php

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2011/11/201111280525478433.html

http://player.vimeo.com/video/33304551?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0

http://www.thegreeninterview.com/Alexandra-Morton-interview

http://www.livingoceans.org/initiatives/salmon-farming

http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D9aofeNwabq4%26feature%3Dshare&h=9AQFtQsUKAQG6tzY8m2EEbJOUartAZ5D6V7F8md5b2W_u5w

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eo302D9SqRo&feature=share

http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DOqQV596Qp-c%26feature%3Dshare&h=sAQFZ6k7xAQEpvkN7gHV7fE952v16Byj92-WW-SKKbfXTgw


http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D61X4IQqnmd0%26feature%3Dshare&h=MAQHrsp2KAQFLdaVBIBMkCA2TPsOBevEIdkpj2sc0lfDcAg

http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_round_up/724568/hugh_fearnleywhittingstall_tackles_farmed_salmon_feed_controversy.html

http://www.saveoursalmon.ca/videos/


Wild Game Fish Conservation International The Size of the Fish Doesn’t Determine the Size of the Memory

legacy - january 2013

Documents

fish pathogenic bacteria

conservationists legacy

upcoming issue of legacy

cheap farmed salmon

planet earth

fellow conservationists

wgfci website

wgfci facebook page