CANADIAN SALMON LTD.
Candian Salmon, then a numbered company, began scoping St. Mary’s Bay in 2021. Early in the 2022 the formation of Canadian Salmon Ltd., (Haugland-Gruppen & Karslen, both of Norway) was announced. A website was launched by the company to provide information to the public. The public was invited to register for an online presentation and to submit questions. You can view the material that was presented here.
The company has released very little additional information about the project. Rather than hosting legitimate community consultations or open houses, they decided to hold two one-hour online “information sessions” via Zoom, on February 7th and 8th, where no questions from the public were allowed. They now consider their duty to inform our community about their project complete, and plan to move forward with the support of the provincial government. You can watch the recordings of these presentations at nsaquacultureproject.ca. No other in-person public events were held. An opportunity for the pubic to submit questions was provided and a promise to respond to them given. You can read the answers provided in their FAQ section.
In February 2022, Canadian Salmon submitted its application, as required, to the Nova Scotia Department of Fisheries and Aqaculture. As of January 2023, no date has been set for an Aquacuoture Review Board Hearing.
You can download their full application here.
The map, from the Canadian Salmon virtual presentation, indicating the fours sites included in their application, shows what’s coming. Beginning with Site 3, near Tiverton, in the spring of 2023, 12 pens will be initially stocked with 500,000 smolts. The three remaining sites, each containing 12 pens, will be stocked with 720,000 smolts each, in spring 2024. Each site will occupy 80+ hectares, or 13+ football fields. In total the four sites will put 320+ hectares, 3,141,355 square metres of our Bay, off limits to our fishers.
Potential risks…
- Displacement of fishers from traditional fishing areas
- Intrusive industrial presence
- Affect on tourism, recreational boating, swimming
- Sea lice
- Infectious diseases spread to wild populations
- Noise and lights
- Chemicals and antibiotics
- Smell
- Escaped fish breed with and affect wild populations
- Debris from broken nets/pens
- Die-offs and resultant pollution
Candian Salmon (Haugland-Gruppen Karlsen) has four site proposals undergoing government review. Here's what you need to know.
Number of sites: 4+ Number of cages: 48 Total area: 319ha
Location: Sandy Cove to Central Grove
Production size: 7,500,000-15,000,000-kg
Project website: nsaquacultureproject.ca
Next steps: (1) Review of project documents and approval by NSDFA, (2) Aquaculture Review Board hearing, (3) approval, construction and stocking.
More details: The Norwegian salmon farming conglomerate, Haugland-Gruppen, or “Canadian Salmon” as they call themselves in Canada, has selected four new salmon sites along the Digby Neck and islands. If allowed to proceed, the company would farm 7,500,000-kg of salmon annually to start, with plans to grow operations to 15,000,000-kg or more in the future. The latter number would more than double the amount of salmon farmed in all of Nova Scotia today. This project, if actually developed, will turn the St. Mary’s Bay into one of the largest salmon producing areas in Canada, and will fundamentally change the waters we work on and the communities we love forever.
WHAT ARE WE DOING AND WHAT CAN YOU DO?
So, there’s a lot going on! And if these plans come to fruition, it will fundamentally change the nature of St. Mary’s Bay. All of these threats are at different stages of development, and we are doing our best to keep an eye on all of them. We have outlined several details related to the proposed projects below, and we’ll keep you updated as things move along.
In the meantime, we have to act to protect our fisheries, our marine ecosystems, and our communities, and demand that our political leaders work to keep our waters fish farm free. We have outlined a series of actions that every individual can take to prevent salmon farming expansion plans in St. Mary’s Bay at our Take a Stand page. And if you want to get more involved, reach out to us at our Contact page. We’d love to hear from you.