Northern Harvest Sea Farms, operated by Mowi Canada East, has regained 10 net-pen farming permits that were suspended in October after a mass die-off of Atlantic salmon in August and September 2019.
Mowi Canada said it lost 2.6 million salmon, or about 5,000 metric tons of salmon, due to high seawater temperatures resulting in low dissolved oxygen levels at its farms in the Fortune Bay region along the south coast of Newfoundland.
The company’s position was reinforced by an independent review of the incident conduced by the Marine Institute, and a post-mortality and environmental monitoring assessment from the Mi’kmaq Alsumk Mowimsikik Koqoey Association (MAMKA) found there was evidence of seabird mortalities or long-term environmental damage as a result of the event.
“Consistent with the findings of the Aquatic Animal Health Division of Fisheries and Land Resources, the Marine Institute report concluded the salmon mortality event was due to an unusual set of natural environmental conditions, including prolonged high water temperatures over consecutive days, and low oxygen. The report also notes the department properly followed and adhered to all required protocols,” a press release from the office of Newfoundland and Labrador Minister of Fisheries and Land Resources Gerry Byrne said.
Byrne said the province had updated its aquaculture policies and procedures to require companies to “publicly disclose federally reportable disease and abnormal mortality events, regardless of cause, in a timely manner.”
The reissuance of the 10 licenses to Mowi is contingent upon the company abiding by those conditions and all others set by the province in its aquaculture policy document.
According to Byrne, Mowi has committed to ensuring it is better prepared or mitigate abnormal mortality events, Byrne said. Actions it has taken in response to the incident include: Building new cages at the affected site to accommodate deeper nets; incorporating real-time monitoring and aeration systems; Recording and submitting quarterly biophysical data reports to the department; developing contingency plans and securing contracts for additional emergency response resources; preparing an incident management response plan; promising to report information in a more efficient manner to the provincial government and the public; and updating waste management and environmental management plans for fish mortality disposal.
Mowi Canada Director of Communications James Card told SeafoodSource in October the company was caught unprepared by mass mortality.
“Yes, we were surprised,” Card said. “Nothing in the data said we were going to have this kind of experience. But what’s important now is how we respond. We’re trying to respond comprehensively, faster, more efficiently. This has to be a learning experience for us.”
The Marine Institute report found the company dealt with difficult circumstances in its clean-up efforts and said “morality removal activities were completed as quickly as possible under extraordinary circumstances.
However, the report made 10 recommendations for improved reporting of morality events by the salmon-farming industry, and called for “a stronger response plan and approaches to mitigate future occurrence of similar events.”
“There is a need for a clearer differentiation of the roles and responsibilities of company veterinarians compared with government veterinarians in Newfoundland, including the individual and collective responsibilities of companies and government, and communication of information to the Newfoundland public, who will likely be closely scrutinizing how the next mortality event is handled,” the report said.
The MAMKA assessment found the area of shoreline affected was small – approximately 2 percent of the adjacent shorelines at the time of the incident – and the deposited fat sediments had dispersed completely by April 2020, with no accumulation of organic material in the benthic area around the farm sites.
Separately, Mowi has announced it has received final approval from Norway’s Ministry of Climate and Environment to build a salmon farm in a remote region of northern Norway designated as a UNESCO World Heritage site. Mowi received initial approval to farm in the area in 2016 but its permits were on holding pending an administrative review, according to NRK. The company has invested NOK 10 million (USD 1 million, EUR 920,000) to build out its infrastructure in the Rørskjæran area of Vega in Nordland, Norway, an archipelago near the Arctic Circle home to hundreds of species of birds.
Photo courtesy of MAMKA
