By Paul Rudan – Campbell River Mirror
Published: December 10, 2009 3:00 PM 

“I never realized, until I joined Rotary, the volume of work done in Campbell River by volunteers,” Ian Roberts tells his lunchtime audience. “I was dumbfounded.”

Roberts, for those who don’t know, is a spokesperson for Marine Harvest Canada. You know, those fish farmers who are single-handedly “ruining the planet.”

I’m being facetious, but fish farming is kind of like brussels sprouts – you either love ‘em or hate ‘em.

There are, however, some people, like myself, who take the middle road. I think fish farmers are running a fairly decent business here on the West Coast, but it would far better if these fish were raised in closed containment systems. I know there are enormous challenges to doing this but am encouraged by the progress to making closed containment happen.

“You know, we do try to get better at what we’re doing and to improve,” says Clare Backman, Marine Harvest’s environmental expert, as we dine on pasta and salad. That’s good to hear, but this luncheon wasn’t about debating the pros and cons of fish farming. It was about giving back.

Local charitable organizations benefited, once again, from the annual $10,000 donation from Marine Harvest Canada. Four groups each received $2,500 on Wednesday. From front to back are Ellen Latta of the Women’s Centre, Danny Brown of the Knights of Columbus Christmas Hamper Fund, Ann Minosky of the Campbell River Food Bank, Betty Tiede of the Salvation Army, Tom Conlon and Vincent Erenst, both of Marine Harvest. Photo courtesy of the Campbell River Mirror

For several years now, Marine Harvest has donated thousands of dollars to local charitable organizations. On Wednesday, representatives of the Campbell River Food Bank, Knights of Columbus Christmas Hamper Fund, the Salvation Army and the Women’s Centre each received cheques for $2,500. Nice. And the money comes at a time when it is sorely needed.

“It’s been a bad year for lot of people in Campbell River,” explains Ellen Latta of the Women’s Centre. “We hand out vouchers for diapers and we ran out of our year’s supply in February.”

The numbers are up too. Some days the Women’s Centre sees 25-30 women, not including their children, stop by to find help or to just have someone friendly to talk to.

At the food bank, the numbers have gone way up as well. Since July, says manager Ann Minosky, they’ve been feeding 150 new families! These are folks who managed to get by before on meagre wages. Now, however, with job losses all across the city, these people are forced to take handouts.

It’s not something they do lightly, but it’s likely easier to swallow your pride and ask for free food than it is to watch your kids go hungry.

The Salvation Army also does yeoman’s work making sure no one goes hungry through their soup kitchen and sandwich van. And the term “soup kitchen” is a misnomer, thanks in part to companies such as Marine Harvest (along with many of the city’s grocers) which donates 1,500 pounds of farmed salmon a year.

“We pick up 30 pounds a week,” says Doug McGillis, a Sally Ann director. “It’s incredible and it all gets given away!”

That’s what the Knights of Columbus do as well – give things away. Knight Danny Brown has been volunteering with the Hamper Fund for more than 30 years and estimates they will be handing out 1,100 hampers, filled with food and toys, to families and individuals this Christmas. But that number could creep up to 1,200. If it does, it should only be a minor problem because giving generously has never been a problem for the good folks of this city. Even in a less-than-stellar economy, they give food, money and, perhaps most importantly, their time. It’s a spirit which makes Campbell River such a great place to live.

Dean Nelson is proud to be both a fish farmer and someone who helps members of his band on Gilford Island better understand the industry.

He enjoyed working for the Musgamaw Band’s sea lice sampling on Marine Harvest farms in 2007. After that position ended, he was interested in becoming directly involved with the company as two of his uncles had been in the past. He began at Midsummer Island as a farm technician after chatting to Jeanine Siemens at a community meeting in Alert Bay two years ago. Dean continued in this role until this summer, when he began cleaning nets at sites throughout the Broughton and teaching others how to use the equipment.

In August, Dean coordinated a tour of Gilford Island elders to Broughton area sites. The event was enjoyed and appreciated by all.

Dean values the company support shown to employees with the training that is offered so that they can do their jobs safely and effectively. He’s completed courses in fish health and forklift operation.

Dean was born in Dawson Creek, raised in Campbell River, and moved to Gilford Island in 2002. Since 2004, he’s been living in Alert Bay. Dean has been married for three years to Denise and says the most positive thing about living in Alert Bay is working for Marine Harvest. “It’s full time and it means I can support my family and also teach the band the truth about the industry”. He also loves the fact that his grandchildren are being taught traditional dances by his aunts.

By Gina Forsyth

by Dan MacLennan, Courier-Islander
Published: Thursday, December 03, 2009

Saying Marine Harvest suffers from bad press, company officials attempted to set the record straight in a presentation to city council Tuesday.

“I think it can be said in general that salmon farming gets a lot of press attention in BC and also in Campbell River, and unfortunately for us the attention is not always very positive,” managing director Vincent Erenst told councillors. “Most of the news stories originate from our opponents or our critics and they are usually not positive.

“At Marine Harvest we believe that the public does not really get a fair view of what our industry actually is and the things that we are doing.” Erenst outlined that Marine Harvest, the largest Atlantic salmon farmer in the world, employs 550 people directly on the BC coast, roughly 200 of whom call Campbell River home.

Marine Harvest Canada managing director Vincent Erenst, right, and communications manager Ian Roberts spoke to Campbell River city council Tuesday night.

Globally, Marine Harvest will produce 322,000 tonnes of Atlantic salmon this year, Erenst said, roughly a quarter of global production, through operations in Norway, Canada, Scotland, Chile, Ireland and the Faroe Islands. He said the company produces 38,000 tonnes of fish annually in BC, enough to fill 1,900 trucks, for roughly $220 million in annual sales. Operations include six freshwater facilities from Duncan to Port Hardy producing brood stock and smolts, and processing plants in Port Hardy and Klemtu.

The company has 71 fish farming licences on the coast but only 41 salmon farms sites have been used in the last couple of years and no more than 30 are in production at any one time, while the other 10 sites are fallowed from two to six months. Marine Harvest Canada has a monthly payroll of $3 million and spends $10 million a month on goods and services, Erenst said, while the company has been investing $10 to $15 million per year on the Island.

“The last four years, from 2006 until now, have been profitable years for this company,” Erenst said. “They’ve been very good years in fact. They have allowed us to invest in our business, not so much in growth but in making our operations much more solid, more efficient, more robust and more environmentally sustainable.”

Major investments in the works include a new waste water treatment plant worth more than $3 million for their Port Hardy processing plant. More will go into Sayward. “Next year we will make a big investment in Sayward,” Erenst said. “We have a hatchery there which we will rebuild and make much more efficient in order to use less water and produce bigger and stronger smolts. That will be a five or six million dollar investment.”

There are social benefits as well. “We support the community in many ways,” he said. “I believe around 40 per cent of our $240,000 community support budget is actually spent in Campbell River.” As for the more contentious issues, Erenst acknowledged no lack of debate over the impacts of fish farms and sea lice on wild salmon stocks.

“Whatever the truth may be, I believe we can say that during the last five years we’ve worked very hard to minimize the amount of sea lice on our fish through a combination of good farming practices and treatment with a de-licing agent called Slice just before the out-migration season,” he said. He said DFO data shows the amount of sea lice per wild fish in the Broughton Archipelago has decreased from 2005 to 2008 and 2009.

“It basically means that by 2008, only one sea lice was found on every 13th pink salmon fry. That number in 2008 and 2009 was lower than the amount found in the Skeena/Nass estuary where there are no salmon farms at all. I believe we can say there’s been a very clear decrease of sea lice on wild salmon in the Broughton Archipelago.

If that really comes from our improved sea lice management or if there are other biological factors at work, we don’t know, but what is sure is that as of now, we’ve reached levels of lice on wild salmon in the Broughton that are lower or equal to natural background levels. So if there is an impact, in the case of the Broughton, this impact must be very small.”

He pointed to strong pink salmon returns in the Broughton area and elsewhere around the Island, saying they “prove that sea lice have not yet destroyed these stocks.” Erenst said Marine Harvest must work to continually increase the sustainability of fish farming. “For us this clearly means minimizing or eliminating completely the interaction of farmed salmon with wild salmon, minimizing the effect we have the sea bottom and the quality of the sea water, and minimizing the amount of marine ingredients in our feed.

I honestly believe that we’ve demonstrated over the last five years we have made lots of progress in this direction and it’s definitely our intention to continue to do so.” As for closed containment, Erenst said Marine Harvest has a small-scale pilot project waiting for funding assistance from the federal and provincial governments.

“So far we’ve not been able to convince either the feds or the province to support us in this,” he said. (See more in next Wednesday’s C-I).

photo credit – Dan MacLennan

As a boy, growing up with three brothers in Essex, Ontario, Don Orton wanted to be a zoologist. He probably envisioned himself working with animals that don’t live in water; but you get the sense from talking to the newly promoted Assistant Manager that even if childhood dreams don’t work out precisely, life can still be sweet.

Don started with Marine Harvest in June 2006, after starting with Heritage Aquaculture, now Mainstream, where he was a farm technician for three years. Deciding it was time for a change, he learned of a vacancy with Marine Harvest through the ‘Net, “probably at aquaculturejobs.com,” Don related.

He spent time at Koskimo, Mahatta East and Monday Rocks before settling at Althorp. Now that the former lead hand has been promoted, a site move is in the works. Don will be Assistant Manager at Shaw Point and Althorp.

“I always try to put myself into positions of leadership and responsibility.” he said, adding that he’s seen a great number of improvements to the industry in six years and “I like being part of them [positive changes].”

A graduate of Sir Sanford Fleming’s aquaculture program, Don had originally set his sights set on a construction career until a friend told him about a fish and wildlife program that included a brief introduction to aquaculture, something he particularly connected with. He made the switch from houses to net pens and doesn’t regret it at all.

A fan of the outdoors, Don enjoys riding his bike and camping and fishing. Of camping, he comments, that“it’s freeing to be out there away from technology.”

By Gina Forsyth

 

[Campbell River Mirror Nov 18, 09]

Earlier this year a note to anglers sent out from the Nimmo Bay Fishing Resort seemed overly optimistic.

“Salmon of all kinds in large numbers – a great year to go fishing!” it read.

Yet, that is exactly what happened as North Island and mainland inlet rivers saw large returns of chum, coho and chinook salmon; many having their best showing in more than a decade.

Pink salmon numbers were up sharply in almost every river on the south coast: the Quatse, Nimpkish, Campbell, Nanaimo, Puntledge and the Fraser to name only a few.

This is good news. But why such healthy returns this year?

The truth is, no one knows. Some have pointed to optimal conditions in the ocean when these tiny salmon out-migrated and others have pointed to management of salmon farms.

What we do know is that this year’s adult pink salmon out-migrated as juveniles during the spring of 2008.

As many may be aware, Marine Harvest Canada, in collaboration with several B.C. environmental groups had proposed a coordinated area management plan (CAMP) associated with our operations in the Broughton Archipelago.

The CAMP includes a number of elements including annual alternating migration corridors, a cap on total area production and science-based monitoring. To simplify: one corridor has no farmed fish while the corridor next to it holds first year farmed fish during the out migration season March 1 to June 30.

To monitor the effectiveness of this plan, sea lice data from active farms and wild salmon in both the fallowed and stocked corridors will be collected and analyzed by fisheries scientist, Dr. Crawford Revie and his team of researchers.

In order for CAMP to be fully implemented, various farms in the area require important, time limited amendments to their license.

Should the provincial Ministry of Agriculture and Lands take the necessary steps to ensure CAMP be fully implemented, monitoring will continue through 2014 providing a multi-year data set.

Recent letters to the editor have suggested that this fallow route was made available in 2008 – at the time when this year’s adult pink salmon went to sea.

We feel it necessary to correct those statements – the plan was not implemented in 2008.

While we are all excited to see wild salmon return in such high numbers this year, we also recognize the public concern about how our operations may affect our oceans.

We will continue to manage our farms to minimize or eliminate these potential risks, which includes the goal of full implementation of CAMP.

We will continue to keep you updated as to this progress.

Clare Backman, RPBio
Marine Harvest Canada

By Rick Butterfield, Courier-Islander
Published: Friday, November 13, 2009

http://bit.ly/44xoj4

I have sat back and watched the ongoing reporting in your paper as to the risks and benefits of salmon farming.

To be honest, you rarely report on the benefits, but often on the “risks”. This will be a first for me – it’s time for me to speak up.

I used to get my information about salmon farming from newspaper headlines or third party chatter.

This is influential, but hardly a good way to form an opinion.

My opinion about salmon farming was no doubt negative. Why would it have been any different given the headlines?

First, I need to be transparent. I’m a local business owner who has recently begun working with a local salmon farming company.

About one third of my business now involves me visiting BC salmon farms around the Campbell River area. Does this make me a paid hack who has no credibility? On the contrary, it’s now given me an opportunity to see this business for myself, ask questions of knowledgeable people and compare it to what I had heard and read.

The fact is, now that I have seen first hand how the farmers manage their operations, my opinion has been changed. I can see that the benefits of growing a healthy seafood like salmon far, far outweigh the potential impacts. I am personally blown away at the attention paid to protecting the environment, the safety of the staff and the care of the fish. The people I meet on the farms are very open about their business and are clearly excited to do what they do. They are very open to discuss the concerns I may have and explain what they do to minimize or eliminate those concerns.

Here’s my point; if you’ve formed a negative opinion of salmon farming because of newspaper headlines, but haven’t made the effort to visit a farm or talk to a farmer, you should do so. In fact, the Association that represents our local farmers runs tours every Thursday morning during the summer months.

Don’t believe all you read – I recommend you go and learn for yourself.

Rick Butterfield

Campbell River