Blacks Harbor, New Brunswick, Canada-based Cooke Aquaculture aims to ease the concerns of a Nova Scotia community over a salmon hatchery it may build there.
Cooke offered to meet with the community of Granville Beach, Nova Scotia, after the Granville Road Ratepayers Association vowed to oppose the potential new facility.
“It is very important that Cooke know directly that most residents of this area—not just Granville Road residents—are adamantly against a fish farm/hatchery in Granville Beach,” according to an email sent from the Granville Road Ratepayers Association to the community at large, according to an Annapolis County Spectator article.
Cooke is exploring possible locations for a modern hatchery in Nova Scotia, but no decisions have been made, Nell Halse, vice president of communications for Cooke, told SeafoodSource, adding that Cooke executives do not understand the community’s concerns.
“We….have no idea why anyone would oppose a project before knowing anything about it,” Halse said.
“This is a rural location with farms and a small village and is one of the options we are considering. No decision has even be made and, if we did want to build here, we would have to comply with all the relevant environmental regulations and we would want to meet with the community before construction,” she added.
After fielding calls from some of the community with questions, Cooke offered to meet with residents this week “to explain what a hatchery would look like and the efforts we would go to to make sure it was landscaped properly to fit in with the community as well as facts on water usage for a recirculating system,” Halse said. “This would be a barn for fish instead of cows with all the modern technology to minimize impacts.”
Although Cooke currently operates salmon farms and a feed mill in Nova Scotia, it does not have a salmon hatchery in the province.
