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Proposed Salmon Farm at Shot Head, Bantry Bay

Photo: Kilcatherine Marine Harvest Salmon Farm

savebantrybay.com

Save Bantry Bay was set up to defend the fishermen, residents, guest houses, scientists, the environment and tourism in Bantry Bay.

Photo: Proposed Shot Head Marine Harvest Salmon Farm site

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TO START - WHO ARE WE?Committee formed after the public meeting in Adrigole on 11 February, 2012

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‘THE COMMITTEE’

• Alec - [Secretary] Angling

Association

• Bodo – Author & environmentalist

• Breda – Resident & consumer

• Brendan – Consumer & health issues

• Caroline – Scientist - pollution control

• Chloe - Water sports and wildlife

• Kevin –Family / Holiday Home

• Kieran – [Chairman] 3rd generation

fisherman

• Louis – Entrepreneur

• Markus – Tourism – Walking Tours

• Tony – Environmental campaigner

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• Loss of traditional fishing ground – 106 acres• Job loses in tourism

– Walkers/hikers– Marine Leisure

• Sailing, kayaking, surfing, wind surfing, kite surfing, scuba diving, snorkelling, boat tours, whale and dolphin watching, beaches, adventure centres.

– Impact on anglers • Sea lice/salmon cycle

• Health issues– Uncontrolled sewage – N & P – Algae blooms – toxic - food web poisoning - – Contamination from chemicals

• Poor tidal circulation and flushing.• Positive alternatives? Containment.

THE ISSUES

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• In 2010 almost 1.5 million tourists visited the south west region spending €506 million (42% of all tourists)

• Cork Development Plan states that the Marine Leisure sector alone in Cork supports 14,500 jobs

• ‘Green Gym’ - more tourist engaged in walking/hiking than all 5 top activities together [4 times golf]

• 92% rated beautiful scenery top attraction with unspoiled environment 84%

• 11% tourists indicated negative response to salmon farms, with 3% being strongly negative [Scottish 2009 study]

• 3% of €506m = €15.8m potentially lost to south west in return tourists

Tourism

2 MORE JOBS?

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2 MORE JOBS?Each wild salmon caught = €423 to the economy[John Power, Chief Executive of the Irish Hotels Federation]

Marine Leisure Audit and Carrying Capacity Study for West Cork, CCC, 2008 states:

• Cork County Council 2008 study showed 22% of all tourism participated in marine leisure activities -1.4 million people

• This produced 47% of ALL the tourism revenue – double average• Overseas anglers spend 66m with the average spend per angler well above

that of general visitors• Water based activities contribute €300 as opposed to average tourist €150• During the 1970s a total of 28 men were employed seasonally in Beara for

the salmon fishing until the salmon were almost extinct from the local rivers by over exploitation at sea

• Scottish study showed tourism employed 130 times as many people as aquaculture

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Salmon – andthe Sea LiceIssue

• 3 country – Ireland, Scotland, and Norway - study now published and peer reviewed February 2012 [Canadian Journal of Aquatic Studies] conclusive after 20 year debate

• 74,324 smolts treated – these protected fish 1.8 times more likely to return compared with untreated control fish.

• Sea-Fisheries and Maritime Jurisdiction Act 2006 permitted the ‘Renewal of license after its expiration’ without any assessment.’ 2011: still gathering the necessary baseline data [Parliamentary Questions, 13 March 2012]

• Infestation at Roancarrig site in 2008 required treatment [Source: EIS]

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The 1994 Report that was ‘never published’.

• In 2003 the World Wildlife Fund published an allegation in its County By Country Progress Report ‘Protecting Wild Atlantic Salmon from Impacts of Salmon Aquaculture’ that a 1994 Report from the Irish Ministry of Marine recommended that no fish farms be located within 20 miles of a salmon river but that the Report was ‘never published because of industry pressure’.

• In fact, Appendix 5 of ‘The Sea Trout Working Group Report for 1994’ contains a ‘Supplementary Report’ of the Sea Trout Working Group 1993 which states that until further advances are made in our understanding of the ‘present poor state of knowledge considering the precise nature of the relationship between sea lice and sea trout’:• ‘A PREAUTIONARY APPROACH DICTATES THAT IT WOULD BE

PRUDENT TO AVOID SITING NEW FISH FARMS OR INCREASED SALMON FARM PRODUCTION (ABOVE THE EXISTING LICENSCED TONAGE FOR THE OPERATION) WITHIN 20 KM OF A SEA TROUT

RIVER MOUTH.’

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6 Rivers exposed to sea lice

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6 Salmon Rivers exposed to sea lice

• Adrigole: 1 kilometre • Dromgowlane: 0.5 kilometre [Not in EIS]• Glengarriff, Coomhola, Ouvane and Mealagh all within:

15 kilometers.• ‘The greatest declines in sea trout in Ireland coincide

geographically with the development of sea-cage based salmon mariculture.’ Central Fisheries Board

• In 1994, a report by the Irish Ministry of the Marine recommended that fish farms not be allowed any closer than 20 kilometers from any wild salmon river. Source: The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) 2003

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Case Study - Ballynahinch, Co

Mayo• 1998 Salmon farming introduced at Bertraghboy Bay, Connemara -

the estuary at Ballynahinch where the Owengowla (aka Gowla) and Owenmore (aka Ballynahinch River) enter.

• 1998 – 2004 sea trout rod catches collapsed from 5,500 to 100 whilst the salmon catch fell from 500 to 50.

• When the salmon farm stopped operating in 2004 replaced by cod, the sea trout rod catches at Ballynahinch improved from 100 to 1,500 and salmon catches increased from 50 to 270 by 2008

• On 14th October 2008 salmon farming began again. Heavily infested juvenile sea trout post smolts returned to the river in mid May 2009.

• Source: Salmon Watch Ireland

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Why sea lice are winning

• RESISTANCE• A rapid development of resistance to the limited range of chemicals that are available

to treat infestations. Current use of hydrogen peroxide simply makes lice drop off, available to re-infect other passing salmon.

• DISEASE• Pancreatic disease and the increasing number of plankton blooms which damage fish

and fish gills, weakening fish and lessening appetite and so treatment take up.• infectious salmon anaemia (ISA).• Furunculosis, Researchers have shown that furunculosis can be spread• between unrelated salmon farms up to 24 kilometres (15 miles) apart,

even though no farmed fish were exchanged between them.

• WARMING OCEANS• A rise in monthly sea temperature for Irish sites warming at the rate of 0.3-0.4ºC per

decade since the 1980s, leading to an acceleration of the lice life cycle and an increase in reproductive output.

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Fish diseases

• Many of the components of this gill disease in salmon bear similarities to respiratory disease, specifically pneumonia, in intensively reared land animals 

• All require antibiotics, increasing resistance• Treatment for disease and lice are flushed

into local water – even ‘well boats’ discharge directly into water

• Reactions in humans swimming – real or imagined.

• Genetic diversity loss from escapees -  more than 1.7 million farmed salmon escaped to the wild from farms in Scotland 1998 - 2005

The losses due to gill disease include direct mortalities, often in excess of 40 per cent of the livestock requiring antibiotics [Journal of the British Veterinary Association - Veterinary Record, 2011]

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Health Issues - Pollution

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Health Issues - Pollution

• Nitrogen (N) and Phosphorus (P) comes from faeces, excretion through the gills, and feed waste.

• 2000 Study by Malcolm MacGarvin, independent consultant retained by WWF used new criteria from Ospar, (fifteen Governments of the western coasts of Europe) for fish farm waste to calculate the contribution of Scottish fish farms to nutrient enrichment.

• That year, 350 salmon farms produced 7,500 tons of nitrogen, equivalent to the annual sewage from 3.2 million people, and 1,240 tons of phosphorus, comparable to sewage from 9.4 million people.

• The ecological result was effectively greater than the sewage produced by Scotland's 5.1 million humans.

• Based on Marine Harvest's own EIA, the waste produced would be the equivalent of a town 10 times the size of Bantry for phosphorous and nitrogen sewage waste – more than pouring the sewage from the entire population of 31,000 people of Bray into Bantry Bay.

• EIS: ‘Waste products can be naturally assimilated, leaving the environment relatively unaltered’.

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Health Issues – algal bloom food poisoning

• Nutrient increase contributes to harmful algal bloom (HAB) - red and green tides

• HABs contain potent neurotoxins - liberated when algae are eaten and transferred through the food web.

• Affect and even kill the higher forms of life from tiny zooplankton to shellfish, fish, birds, porpoises and seals - and even humans that feed either directly or indirectly on them.

• Nutrients naturally brought to the surface by upwelling - but also by discharges of treated and untreated sewage – septic tanks - and runoff that contains fertilizers washed off land

• Fish farms contribute waste feed and sewage equivalent

• Diarrheic Shellfish Poisoning (DSP) - most common in Ireland• Azaspiracid Shellfish Poisoning (AZP) – similar to DSP but

originally name for Killary-3 from 1995 Killary Harbour• Amnesic Shellfish Poisoning (ASP)• Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning (PSP) • When shellfish poisoning occurs, there is international

damage to Ireland’s seafood image with knock on costs to Irish markets abroad,

• USA toxic closures cost $85m last year  

NOW: Frequent closures of mussel farms in inner Bantry bay continue due to the presence of significant levels of toxicity. Testing ‘remains weekly due to continued observed toxicity in Mussel Samples’.

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Bantry Bay Circulation

Source: ‘EIS for a proposed salmon farm site at Shot Head, Bantry Bay’, Watermark, for Marine Harvest Ireland

• Average still water flushing time for bay 8 – 17 days

• Contrasts Bantry Bay with Scottish sea loughs and Norwegian Fiords ‘where flushing times can be slow’

• ‘The net effect of the tidal flushing of Bantry Bay is the is the dilution, assimilation, and dispersion of all human inputs’

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Bantry Bay Circulation

Source: ‘Water Quality Management Plan for Bantry Bay’, J. B. Barry and partners for Cork County Council, 1998:

• ‘During prolonged periods of calm weather complete flushing would be at least 1-2 months’.

• ‘Tidal effects are weak and produce only a very limited circulation and water exchange’.

• ‘Meteorological conditions (i.e. wind, wave) are the most significant aspect in the whole bay circulation and mass movement system.’ Prevailing winds from south west.

• ‘The lack of a well defined tidal circulation poses serious problems as regards flushing and possible assimilative capacities.’

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Bantry Bay Circulation

• Source: UK Hydrographic Office:

‘There are no significant tidal streams in Bantry Bay (UK, Hydrographic Office, 1997), with currents rarely exceeding 0.1 knots in speed. Most of the water circulation is wind blown to a depth of approximately 6 -10m (J.Murphy, HMRC, 2002 pers. comm.).’

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Wild vs. farmed• To produce wild salmon… add nature

• To produce farmed organic salmon… add (according to Marine Harvest EIS)

• Vaccines: Alpha Ject 3000, Norvax Compact PD, Norvax Compact 4• Sealice Cypermethrin: ‘dangerous for the environment - constitutes a special waste

and must be disposed of by a licensed contractor’ • Emamectin benzoate (‘Slice in food’): ‘Very toxic to aquatic organisms – may cause

long term adverse impacts on environment’ • Deltamethrin: ‘toxic to crabs and lobsters’ • Hydrogen peroxide: ‘carcinogenic, tumorigenic and mutanogenic to animals’ • Anaesthetic Tricaine mesylate: ‘avoid entry to watercourses, do not discard into the

natural environment’• Antibiotics Oxyletracycline: ‘State of California: cancer, birth defects or other

reproductive harm’• Antifungal Bronopol: ‘toxic to fish, do not discharge into waterways’• Formaldehyde – ‘toxic by inhalation, in contact with skin and if swallowed. Known or

suspected carcinogen for humans. Recognized allergen.’• Antibacterial Chloramine – ‘may cause Methemoglobinemiam: chocolate-brown

coloured blood, headache, weakness, dizziness, breath shortness, cyanosis, rapid heart rate, unconsciousness and possible death. Effects may be delayed.’

• Source: EIS Appendix 5 & Material Safety Data Sheets

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An Alternative? Closed Containment Systems Proposed Shot Head farm is ‘Open Net Pen’ system

EIS does not investigate this alternative. Closed containment is a proven, viable technology, and is currently used

where environmental controls are strict.

• Eliminate or significantly reduce water column pollution from feed, faeces and chemical waste and contamination of the seabed under farms;

• Eliminate escapes from the rearing facility;

• Eliminate marine mammal deaths due to interactions with farmed fish and nets;

• Eliminate or greatly reduce the risk of disease and parasite transfer to wild salmon; and

• Significantly reduce the need for antibiotics and chemical treatments in raising fish.

• End of  ‘free’ waste disposal from open net-cage farms into the

marine environment.

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Photo: Shot Head Marine Harvest proposed salmon Farm site

Thank You! Any Questions?