FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
B.C. salmon farms evade government monitoring
Industry's refusal to co-operate with disease audit kills program
VANCOUVER - The B.C salmon farm industry's decision to not co-operate with provincial reporting strategies has rendered government officials impotent and incapable of regulating the notoriously secretive industry, environmental groups Ecojustice and T. Buck Suzuki Environmental Foundation said today.
As of April 1, 2010, salmon farms have refused to volunteer or
make available tissue samples for government fish health and sea lice
monitoring audits, proving the complete failure of the Ministry of
Agriculture and Lands' voluntary compliance strategy.
"The
government's risky approach of voluntary self-reporting has backfired,"
said Randy Christensen, Ecojustice staff lawyer. "The government now has
little-to-no oversight of the industry and as such, has essentially
abdicated any responsibility for industry's impact on the environment."
To date, the ministry has done nothing to force information and samples from the fish farmers.
Wild
salmon - notably sockeye stocks in the Fraser River, subject of the
federal Cohen inquiry - are now at even greater risk because the
government cannot effectively monitor, much less contain, lice and
disease outbreaks, Christensen said.
This development comes
as Ecojustice and T. Buck Suzuki are embroiled with the ministry in
another struggle over the release of disease and sea lice infestation
data. Despite losing a six-year battle to conceal figures from 2002-03,
the ministry is once again trying to block the release of the same data
for 2004-2010.
It also undermines previous assertions made by
both government and industry that B.C salmon farms pose no threat to
wild salmon stocks.
"There is no transparency and virtually no
regulation of disease and sea lice on salmon farms. The government can't
say it knows for a fact that that the industry is safe when it does not
have sufficient data to back up that claim," said David Lane, executive
director of T. Buck Suzuki Environmental Foundation.
"The B.C.
government's continued protection of industry interests at the expense
of the public's right to know is simply inexplicable."
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Contacts:
Randy Christensen, staff lawyer | Ecojustice
604-685-5618 x234
David Lane, executive director | T. Buck Suzuki Environmental Foundation
604-519-3635 (office) or 604-258-8119 (cell)
Kimberly Shearon, communications associate | Ecojustice
604-685-5618 x242
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