Dear Premier,

Subject: Fish Farm Policy

We write to commend your decision to appoint a Special Committee on Sustainable Aquaculture.

This is a timely initiative to address rising public, industry and environmentalist concerns over the open-pen fish farming in BC’s coastal waters. It comes at a critical time because salmon farmers are undertaking a massive change-over to sablefish farming despite four risk assessments confirming that it constitutes a clear and present danger to the wild sablefish stocks.

The Joint Provincial-Federal Introductions and Transfers Committee, for example, disclosed that "We can't say" what the impacts of disease transfer from farmed to wild sablefish will be due to a lack of research. The other three risk assessments confirm open-pen farm operations in nursery areas for wild juvenile sablefish pose a serious risk to the wild sablefish stocks. The precautionary principle should preclude open-pen sablefish farms until these concerns are resolved.

As the Governor of Alaska advised you, the risk to the western Pacific sablefish stock is too great to allow ad hoc expansion without clear conclusions on the risks posed by expansion.

We believe that the Sustainable Aquaculture Committee should be permitted to complete its review of the risks to wild sablefish stocks prior to the expansion of sablefish farming. As it stands today, even if the Committee concurs with previous risk assessments that open-pen sablefish farms do pose a serious threat to wild stocks, their work will be moot because the expansion will already have occurred.

We implore you to put an immediate moratorium on the transfer of juvenile sablefish into open-pen cages until the Committee has released its findings.

Sincerely,
Eric Wickham
Executive Director

cc BC MLA's
BC Liberal Caucus