Chamber of commerce members from a Vancouver Island town are urging the B.C. government to invest in new fish pens. The Tofino-Long Beach Chamber of Commerce voted to take the position after presentations on closed-containment salmon farms by the Living Oceans Society and Friends of Clayoquot Sound. The council has appealed the B.C. government to create a $10 million fund to encourage the province’s salmon farmers to develop closed-containment technology.
Will Soltau of the Living Oceans Society, said that they need to find a made-in-B.C. solution that protects its marine environment and also facilitates the advancement of a sustainable aquaculture industry in its province. According to Soltau the chamber should write a letter to the provincial government, asking for the creation of a new $10 million fund.
Environmentalists have long called for containment pens to be operated on land because they prevent salmon from escaping into the ocean and affecting wild stocks. Mark Spoljaric, of the Friends of Clayoquot Sound, told chamber members that several companies around the world are operating or developing closed-containment technology.
In July, the Environment Ministry began investigating one of the largest single escapes of Atlantic salmon from a fish farm in B.C. in recent years. Marine Harvest Canada, one of the country’s biggest fish farm operators, said 30,000 fish escaped from its farm in Frederick Arm, between the Broughton Archipelago and Desolation Sound, costing the company almost half a million dollars.
