A Marine Harvest salmon farm that was been permitted to increase production just before a provincial moratorium on such expansions came into effect is now at the centre of a potential lawsuit against the federal fisheries ministry.
Ecojustice, on behalf of the Living Oceans Society, is threatening a lawsuit against the Department of Fisheries and Oceans over what it claims is an "unlawful approval" to expand Marine Harvest’s Doyle Island facility near Port Hardy, off northern Vancouver Island.
Ecojustice staff lawyer Judah Harrison said Marine Harvest's request to increase production levels by 37 per cent should have triggered an environmental assessment. Instead, the DFO determined that the facility’s existing environmental assessment was adequate.
Ecojustice has a history of taking the DFO to court. In 2007, the environmental law organization charged that the DFO failed to identify and protect crucial Nooksack Dace habitat under the Species At Risk Act. Two years later, in a landmark ruling, a federal court found that the federal agency had indeed broken the law.
Last February, after a coalition of environmental groups threatened to sue again, the DFO took action to legally protect Orca whale habitat under the Act.
This latest case comes at a significant time for salmon protection in B.C. In March, the Cohen Commission, a federal inquiry on the collapse of the Sockeye salmon in the Fraser River, gets underway.
Colleen Kimmett reports for The Tyee.
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Skywalker
1 year ago
Good.
I hope they win. DFO needs a a reality check.
svenseggs.blogspot
1 year ago
Private Protection
Since most levels of Government have abandoned their public stewardship mandate in favour of Corporate coddling, we must support groups like EcoJustice and the FraserRiverKeeper. They are the last bastion against a complete corporate takeover of our wild spaces.
Illahie
1 year ago
Those opposed to fish farms
Should probably note that with the transfer of responsibility from joint Provincial/Federal oversight to the Federal Government exclusively, will probably make applications for expansion a lot easier for the fish farm industry.
When the province becomes covered with new fish farms in a couple of years, we will have Morton to thank.
Keck of a job Brownie. Keep up the good work.
Salmon Ghost
1 year ago
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Salmon Ghost
1 year ago
illahie the Lobbyist
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Salmon Ghost
1 year ago
illahie
The coast is already covered with fish farms! Thanks to you and Gordon Campbell.
Lobbyists make money and Gordon Campbell`s Liberal party has accepted hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars from Marine Harvest and other Alien Fish Farmers...
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Illahie
1 year ago
Question
In the days when the DFO was responsible for wild stocks, and the Province regulated fish farms. DFO's responsibility was clear, wild fish came first. Fish farms could not have an adverse effect on wild stocks.
With the Province's responsibility being handed off to DFO, DFO now has the responsibility to manage farm stocks as well as wild stocks.
Did Morton just give fish farms the right to exist under the fisheries act?
Are there any lawyers out there that would like to weigh in on this?
G West
1 year ago
Illahie - that is [EDITED. -MODERATOR]
I think it's you who have a bit of a credibility problem - not something Morton has to worry about.
I’m actually quite surprised to see you're still posting here in any capacity except that of a lobbyist.
She's taken all the ad hominem crap and kept on working (from folks a lot more powerful and devious than you are)- and making a difference.
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Even the Norwegians seem to have realized what the real cost of this sad experiment has been in their own country