Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I believe there were two reasons for the genesis of the salmon forum. One was to bring independent science to try to resolve some of the conflicts between science that had affected the status of the industry in the years before the forum was set up. The second was to look at provincial legislation in watersheds to improve wild salmon.
As Mr. Fraser said, the forum set up an independent science advisory committee to provide a backbone to independent science. They decided that the key issue to be looked at by the forum was the issue of sea lice and salmon interaction in the Broughton. They felt that in the Broughton this issue was ground zero of the problems with the industry moving forward, and that if science could start to resolve the issues in the Broughton, it might help to open the door for ecosystem-based management along other parts of the coast. I think it's fair to say that the provincial government brought in a moratorium on salmon farming in the Skeena simply because of the concerns leading to wild salmon and farm salmon interaction in the Broughton.
The other point I'd like to make is that the science advisory committee acted as a peer review committee. The actual science was done by many of the scientists who, up until that time, had been competing with each other. So we actually brought all of the scientists working in this field under one tent. That's an important factor, because we were able to collaborate across the science spectrum and move to get more consensus than there had been prior to the advent of the forum.
The science advisory committee asked three questions. One, do fish farms increase sea lice in the Broughton? If they do, what's the threshold at which impacts start to occur in wild salmon as a result of sea lice infection? And third, what mitigation measures can the farms undertake to reduce that impact below effective levels?
In answer to these questions the forum found the following. Yes, it's very likely that fish farms in the Broughton have increased populations of sea lice in the Broughton. On the second question, the forum found there were two important ecological thresholds that needed to be met in terms of wild fish and farm fish interaction in the Broughton. The first was that in the spring, when the juvenile fish come out of the rivers, 97% of these fish should have no lice on them at all. Only 3% should have lice. Those are considered to be background levels. Second, those 3% of fish that do have lice on them should have less than one louse per fish when they're smaller than half a gram, which is generally in the March-April period.
So we set up a monitoring program to determine whether these two thresholds could be met. In 2008 both of these thresholds were met, and my understanding is that is also the case in 2009. Clare Backman has been involved with the industry and DFO to continue monitoring in 2010. As far as I know, these thresholds are being met in 2010.
This is a major reduction, because in 2004, some 70% of the fish had lice on them. In 2008, 3% of fish had lice on them. Why is that the case?
Well, over that period of time, the industry collaborated; that is, the two major companies in the Broughton did. They coordinated their harvesting so that at least half of the farms were harvested of fish by the time the small fish out-migrated, and the balance of the farms applied SLICE as a control mechanism to reduce lice on these fish. The monitoring that took place in 2008 and 2009 found zero lice on any fish in the Broughton in the period of April-May.
The forum then said these outcomes should be monitored. They recommended that the cap on production should be limited to about 18,500 fish to ensure that these thresholds weren't exceeded and that if these thresholds were still maintained, then that cap could be raised.
Finally, the forum did some research on SLICE to determine, for the first time, whether SLICE had an impact within the ambient environment on prawns, shellfish, and benthic fauna in and around fish farms. That work has just been completed, and it has been found that at this point in time SLICE has no lethal impacts on these marine organisms but does have a notable sublethal effect. So there are some concerns related to the prolonged use of SLICE on the marine environment.
I'd like to make two final comments. One is that although the forum did apply an ecosystem approach, in order to be effective an ecosystem approach needs to look at both the marine side of the environment and the watershed side of the environment. Salmon ecosystems are freshwater and marine, and so the forum had a number of recommendations to make sure that the freshwater component of the salmon was properly managed, as well as the marine side. The key recommendation was that the province should reorganize its agencies that issue licences and permits in watersheds so that they come under one authority rather than multiple authorities. On Monday the premier created such an authority, called the Ministry for Natural Resource Operations.
The final comment I'd like to make is that on the longer term, the forum recommended that the whole question of closed containment be reviewed by an independent committee of experts and that the issue be resolved one way or another over the next five years through a pilot closed containment project so that we will know the answer to the whole question of the viability of closed containment. For the long term, the industry is limiting its expansion until the question of closed containment can be resolved scientifically.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.