Special rules for salmon farmers outrageous and unfair:
Builders, other farmers don't get same break

May 22, 2002 - VANCOUVER – If a construction company built a house without permits, it would be forced to tear it down, but when a salmon farm fills an illegal facility with double the fish that it applied for, it gets fined – maybe, says the David Suzuki Foundation.

An admission by one of the largest salmon farming companies operating in British Columbia that it deliberately over-stocked a farm site that was not even licensed shows the industry’s contempt for Canada’s law and marine environment, says Otto Langer, the Foundation’s director of marine conservation.

“Instead of waiting to get approval for its new site Omega Salmon flouted the law. At most it will get its wrist slapped with a fine while our public waters get the waste that floats through the net pens into the ocean,” Mr. Langer said. “No other industry would get away with this, but instead of regulating the operation of floating feedlots our governments promote them.”

The action by Omega Salmon Group Ltd. at its Kent Island site north of Port Hardy shows how ineffective federal and provincial regulations are for monitoring and bringing into compliance an industry that is poised to expand along the BC coast, Mr. Langer noted.

“Obviously there is no monitoring going on to ensure that companies are not jumping the gun and stocking their farms while they await government approval,” said Mr. Langer. “A number of BC salmon farms are being relocated because the marine conditions weren’t suitable for their original sites and they were causing environmental damage.”

Last week Omega spokesman Keith Bullough said the company illegally stocked its Kent Island site because of the "laborious and time-consuming" government approval process. But most alarming is his claim that “…we'd go through the usual procedures to get approvals and get them eventually."

Mr. Langer questions what government regulators are telling salmon farmers since the province announced last month it will lift the ban on new farms. There will be no cap on the number of farms that can locate on the BC coast once the regulations are in place.

“But are these multinational companies even waiting for the new regulations to be in place? It
appears their bottom line comes first and the health of publicly owned waters and marine resources comes second.”

Mr. Bullough said the company could not afford to kill the fish.


For more information and to arrange interviews, please call Jean Kavanagh at 604-732-4228