Hearing begins into boundary expansion of Digby County fish farm

Cooke Aquaculture assured Nova Scotia regulators Monday that approving expanded boundaries at its Rattling Beach salmon farm in Digby will not result in more fish or cages at the site. It also provided insights into the environmental challenges at what it calls "one of the best performing" fish farms in eastern North America.

The Canadian fish farming giant is appearing before the newly created Aquaculture Review Board, which opened its first-ever hearing Monday into salmon farming in the province.

The quasi-judicial board was created to enhance public confidence in decisions around aquaculture. Members of the media are not allowed to record proceedings. The board denied three environmental groups intervenor status for the hearing.

Cooke subsidiary Kelly Cove Salmon is seeking approval for boundaries that it has been using for two decades at Digby, but which are outside the original — and much smaller — lease footprint.

Critics say the regulator is at risk of becoming a rubber stamp for fish farm expansions.

Cooke said the amended boundary is not an expansion of its operations and merely confirms what has been taking place there since 1994 with the approval of the provincial Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture.

Boundary issues

It applied for the amended boundary to bring it into compliance in 2016 and has been in discussions with the province about the matter since 2011.

"It's very important to recognize the application before the board represents absolutely no change whatsoever in equipment, location or intensity of production," Cooke manager Jeff Nickerson told the three-member panel in Yarmouth Monday.

"The application does not entail any production increases, there is simply an imaginary line being drawn around the boundary markers," he said.

Kelly Cove has applied for a 28-hectare site for 20 cages and 660,000 salmon. The original lease boundary at Rattling Beach would hold four cages and 120,000 salmon, Nickerson said.

Kelly Cove acquired the lease and license in 2000. It said the fish farm has minimal impact on the environment.

"This farm is one of the best performing farms, both from a biological and an environmental perspective on the east coast of North America," he said, citing water currents and water quality.

Periodic problems

The hearing also revealed that Rattling Beach — and the company's other open-net pen salmon farm in the Annapolis Basin at nearby Victoria Beach — are not immune to periodic problems.

The company said in 2014 Rattling Beach was the site of Cooke's lone sea lice outbreak in Nova Scotia that required treatment using in-feed chemicals.

On Monday the company said the fish farm at Victoria Beach was hit by elevated levels of sea lice three weeks ago. In-feed treatment with chemicals did not contain the outbreak and salmon will be taken from cages for spraying with warm water to remove sea lice. The removal operation was scheduled to start Monday.

Nickerson also said elevated sea lice levels are now being closely monitored at Rattling Beach in consultation with the Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture.

If the sea lice count rises the company will decide whether to use a mechanical intervention like the one at Victoria Beach or harvest the fish.

The company said hypoxic, or low oxygen, conditions were recorded below the Rattling Beach fish farm in 2011 and 2017.

Remedies

Nickerson blamed copper-based anti fouling materials for depositing marine growth on the seabed in 2011. He said an overfeeding event was responsible for low oxygen levels detected in 2017. 

The company has addressed both situations, he said. It has installed new netting and is using robotic net washing machines that clean nets every 12 to 21 days. 

He said staff are more closely monitoring feeding, which is now directed from a remote feeding centre in Bridgewater.

In 2021 there was an audit of environmental monitoring at the site. A consultant hired by Kelly Cove took samples from the sea floor and reported healthy oxygen levels.

The province's sample detected hypoxic conditions.

Nickerson said the company was unable to find the source of low oxygen conditions which has made coming up with a mitigation plan difficult.

Local fishery impact

"Upon review of the video and some of the other data, it didn't identify I guess what would have been the cause of that."

The board is assessing the application on eight factors set out in regulations.

Those are its impact on local fisheries and other water users in the area, the environment, navigation, wild salmon sustainability, community and provincial economic development, its effect on nearby aquaculture operations and optimum use of marine resources.

Local resident Gregory Hemming was granted intervenor status. He claims the fish farm could impact a "rewilding project" on his Annapolis Basin property.

He is represented by lawyers from Ecojustice Canada, an environmental law firm.

The Ecology Action Centre, Healthy Bays Coalition and St. Mary's Bay Protectors were denied intervenor status.

Rubber stamp concerns

The board ruled earlier this year those groups did not have an economic, commercial, legal or personal interest in the outcome any different from the general public.

"It is not a forum to debate the merits of aquaculture in general," chair Jean McKenna wrote.

The ruling did not keep Ecology Action Centre marine co-coordinator Simon Ryder-Burbidge from attending the hearing in Yarmouth.

"What's at stake here is whether or not we're going to rubber stamp processes that allow the government to turn a blind eye to boundary expansions that have already happened and then approve them retrospectively," he said during a hearing break.

"What's to stop provincial regulators from simply saying, 'Well, you've already done this expansion. We're not going to punish you for that. We're not going to call you into compliance.'"

Ryder-Burbidge also took note of the elevated sea lice counts revealed Monday.

"We're on the brink of a massive expansion proposal by the company that's testifying here today. This to us is probably a sign of what we can expect if these sorts of expansions are allowed to proceed," he said.

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