Letter: Make your voice heard

Westerly News 2 JUNE 2011 Link to article

Dear Editor,

I'm writing regarding Mainstream's new Clayoquot Sound open net-cage salmon farm proposal. This application is for a new feedlot site near Plover Point on the east side of Meares Island.

The Plover Point area, rich with marine life, is frequented by sea lions, porpoises, sea birds, and orcas. There are seal haul-outs at the point.

Stream assessments found streams with cutthroat trout and salmon nearby. There are also productive clam beds along the shores of the Meares Island Tribal Park, as well as eelgrass and kelp beds and herring spawning areas.

The Clayoquot Sound UNESCO Biosphere Reserve contains most of the remaining large intact rainforest river valleys on Vancouver Island, which are critical habitat for wild salmon. Friends of Clayoquot Sound feel peer-reviewed science shows wild salmon are harmed by net-cage salmon farms that spread disease and parasites to wild fish.

What gives a Norwegian-owned corporation the right to pollute B.C. waters and put whole ecosystems at risk?

With the Cohen Commission still under way and while we wait for disease data from Mainstream's farms to be released to the public is not the time to expand fish farms in the biosphere reserve.

Friends of Clayoquot Sound is calling on the provincial government to deny this tenure application, to place a permanent moratorium on expansion of net-cage tenures in B.C., and to move existing farms to closed containment.

If you are a recreational or commercial fisher, eco-tourism operator, or simply concerned about the risks posed by open-net fish farms, please take the time to submit your comments before June 18.

Fish farm applications have been denied before. Your letter will make a difference.

Bonny Glambeck,
Friends of Clayoquot Sound, Tofino

NOTE: The underlined words in the fourth paragraph were added by the Westerly editors, to which Bonny objected. See her follow-up letter of 9 June at this link.

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