Fundy Baykeeper Media Release – April 14, 2005

Contact:

Janice Harvey, Marine Conservation Director – 506-466-4033
David Thompson,  Fundy Baykeeper – 506-650-5849; 635-1297

Cooke Aquaculture Salmon Site Application Should be Squelched

    Now that Cooke Aquaculture intends to buy the east coast operations of Stolt Sea Farm, the provincial government should shut down the process now underway to approve a new salmon farm in Haley’s Cove near Chance Harbour.  This new site has been applied for by Kelly Cove Salmon, a Cooke company.

    Once the Stolt acquisition goes through, Cooke Aquaculture will control nearly two-thirds of total salmon production in New Brunswick, as well as a majority of the production in Maine.  There can be no good argument made for increasing the number of Cooke-controlled sites, other than an irrational and dead-end commitment to unlimited expansion of this industry.

    When the new aquaculture site allocation policy was adopted in 2000, the government’s priority was to make sure growers had access to two sites so they could separate their two year-classes of fish for disease management.  This need is long past and frankly, never did exist for the big three  - Cooke, Stolt Sea Farm and Heritage.  Yet the big three are the ones that continue to apply for and receive new sites.

    Every suitable and many unsuitable cove, inlet and bay in the lower Bay of Fundy is plugged with salmon farms.  Some have been dangerously polluted as a result.  Commercial fishing grounds, spawning grounds and fish migration routes have all shrunk accordingly.  The latest trend to extend this occupation of scarce coastal water along the coast towards Saint John will only exacerbate the problem.  The Cooke application for Haley’s Cove extends that reach into new territory.

    Vertically integrated corporations like Cooke, Stolt and Heritage, the latter two of which have been losing money despite their size and multiple sites, should not have been awarded new sites since the 2000 policy came into place.  Now that Cooke is poised to become the biggest toad in the puddle, their rationale for new sites disappears completely.  It is time for the government to say, enough, and resolve to protect the few remaining undeveloped coves west of Saint John.  Everyone should realize that we cannot continue to industrialize these coves without eventually undermining the coastal environment and everything that depends on it.