Land Farms and Sea "Farms"?

 This week the Ferret has published figures which should shock everyone, about the massive increase in fish farm pollutants and the use of pesticides and antibiotics in recent years. The figures would be incredible, but result from reporting by the aquaculture companies themselves and are taken from Scottish Government and SEPA databases.

“The latest official pollution inventory reveals that discharges of carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus and zinc from salmon cages rose by more than 4,000 tonnes between 2019 and 2020. Overall emissions of pesticides used to kill sea lice also increased by 45 kilograms.”

In response to my tweet about this an industry apologist posted a graph showing the use of chemicals in land agriculture, for “context” in what he no doubt assumed was a gotcha, but he has only underlined once again the total difference between landbased and seabased activities. Of course, it’s by no means a given that practices in agriculture are 100% environmentally friendly. I’ll leave the argument about that to others.

I’ll also leave it for another day to discuss the fact that if farmers routinely saw up to 82% of their stock of mature cows dying off due to disease, the resultant piles of rotting corpses at the sides of fields would surely provoke public outcry. With aquaculture the facts only come to light occasionally, for example late last year when several hundred tonnes of dead salmon were taken off Gigha for ensiling, resulting in the ferry terminal being seriously affected by stink and mess, an event that would have gone unnoticed in official circles had not the dedicated Corin Smith been on hand with his drone.

https://www.facebook.com/issf.org.uk/videos/931620917461828

My main issue with the land/sea comparison is simply that farms are invariably owned by someone, whereas the seabed is owned, in terms of title, by the Crown, but held in trust for all of us, the public. The difference is more that purely conceptual; in the case of a conventional farm there is always an owner, be it the farmer or a landlord, with a vested interest to ensure that an asset that may have belonged to, or held under a secure tenancy for generations, will remain productive and/or marketable for those to come along in future. Those who are currently exploiting our public seabed have no such interest whatsoever. Let’s look briefly at a couple of them.

The largest operator in Scotland is MOWI, until recently named Marine Harvest until it was renamed following adverse publicity. The name reflects the name of the original founder, Mr Mowinkel, although one hears that he may not have been completely delighted. The main owner is understood to be Mr Jon Fredriksen, about whom I’ll say no more (google him!).

Then, the owner until recently of “Scottish” Salmon Company Limited was Yuri Lopatinsky, about whom more has recently been in the Press.

Bluntly, can anyone imagine the private owner of a farm in Scotland giving a foreign oligarch the freedom to cover the fields with rotting faeces and unwanted feeding stuffs, rendering what was once fertile soil utterly anoxic and useless for cultivation for several lifetimes? That’s exactly what the Scottish Government, on our behalf, allows fish farm companies to do to the seabed.

Next up, the pesticides. Research commissioned by SEPA several years ago confirmed that one component, Emamectin Benzoate, which kills all crustaceans, was still active on the seabed four and a half years after a fish farm had ceased operations on the site in question. That’s become a benchmark; perhaps they’ll send the biologists back to do some more tests after what would now be ten years. This is important, because sealice, lobsters and crabs are all crustaceans, so what price traditional creeling?

Due to very a very lax (non) inspection system plus no checks whatever during lockdown and regulations actually relaxed due to it, the farms have been doing what they want.

Yes, 45 Kilos of deadly poison is an awful lot to dump on someone else’s property!

@FerretScot @HI_Voices

The Mooring System at Carradale North

In many ways Storm Ellen failed to live up to her promise. Wind strengths along the inner West coast proved less strong than had been predicted and the only major casualty was the disastrous failure of the mooring system at Carradale North, which resulted in this massive installation of ten large cages coming adrift.

The initial statement, issued by MOWI that day, suggested that the anchors had become detached from the seabed, see here:

‘On August 20, 2020, Mowi’s salmon farm at Carradale North, consisting of 10 circular net pens containing 550,000 salmon (@~4.2kgs), shifted position after its seabed anchors became dislodged during Storm Ellen that has hit the UK and Ireland. The company’s priority at this time is to secure the fish cages in place until Storm Ellen subsides, and to safeguard staff, contractors and fish stock.

‘The company has informed Marine Scotland of the event. A final update will be provided after recovery is complete’.

For the anchors to have become dislodged was perhaps a reasonable deduction in the immediate aftermath of the event, but would have raised questions about the adequacy of the design. Since the arrival of the North Sea oil sector considerable research has gone into the design of anchors and systems for the most testing of conditions. This has resulted in enormous spin-off for other sectors, from shipping to leisure boating. There is no publicly available information about the type or size of the anchors in use at Carradale North, nor any relative specifications or calculations, but for anchors simply to fail would raise considerable doubts about system design.

It turned out that this information was simply wrong, according to the statement issued by MOWI on 26 August. I have omitted the parts irrelevant to the mooring system.

‘Mowi Scotland’s salmon farm at Carradale North, consisting of 10 circular net pens containing 550,700 salmon (@~4.2kgs), shifted its position after becoming detached from its seabed anchors during Storm Ellen and strong tides in Kilbrannan Sound on August 20th, 2020.

….

‘Following thorough inspection by dive teams, the root cause of the incident appears to be breakage of mooring ropes that attach to the main system seabed anchors. The farm was installed five years ago according to the Marine Scotland A Technical Standard for Scottish Finfish Aquaculture, and the infrastructure inspected three months ago. The rope type is marine grade, 4.8cm in diameter with a break strength of 89.5 ton – roughly twice the maximum strength required for its application (ranging from 33t to 51t). The rope has been sent to third-party testing facilities in Aberdeen, with further investigation to follow….’

It would appear from the technical standard referred to in the second statement that in order to instal their ten cages at North Carradale MOWI would have required to commission, in sequence, a full site survey, covering the seabed and including analysis of tidal flow directions, strengths and heights, then a design based on the that data, followed by ordering and installing equipment, consisting of anchors and associated chains and/or ropes.

This release was accompanied by the image below, which is copied with the caption added by MOWI.

                                        

On the assumption that MOWI’s photograph is authentic one is tempted to suggest that the person who tested the system three months earlier should have gone to Specsavers!

As anyone with the slightest experience will confirm, all mooring systems degrade from the moment they are placed in the sea. Traditionally they have almost universally been constructed of galvanised steel, with a heavy anchor or anchors connected to a section of heavy chain to absorb the heave of the waves and lighter gauge riser chain to the surface. The links abrade against each other, removing the galvanising and allowing the metal to rust where sufficient oxygen is present. For this reason seasonal moorings are sunk when out of use.

It seems that until recently the aquaculture industry used very similar systems. Because of the year round use one imagines that inspections and replacements of degraded gear would have been ongoing. This presumably explains why in recent years the industry has moved to the use of synthetic rope systems, as can be seen from the technical standard.

It seems that the most common materials in use are nylon and polypropylene. Each has different properties, but the principal causes of degradation in use are likely to be:

Chemical -

Nylon readily absorbs water, to between 1.5% and 3.5%, polypropylene is much less liable to.

Ultra violet light degradation may have an impact

Anti fouling treatments ditto, depending on the chemicals used

Physical -

Impact from vessels, flowing debris etc is possible, but more likely is the wearing down of fibres as they constantly move against each other inside the strands.

Conclusions

I have asked the Scottish Government under FOI to share what information they are holding and will publish the results in due course.

Given the statement by MOWI that the ropes would have been subject to around half of their designed breaking strain when they actually broke something has gone very seriously wrong. Logically there can only be two explanations, either the ropes supplied have been woefully inadequate and there was nothing wrong with the inspection, or they were fine when supplied, have since degraded and it hasn’t been noticed.

Michael Russell MSP retiring in May 2021

I’m sorry to learn of Michael Russell’s decision to retire from Parliament in May 2021. Since we first met in 2012 I have always found him available and attentive to constituency business despite the massive tasks landed on him in attempting to mitigate the effects of a Westminster government intent on economic self-destruction.

Our first meeting lasted about ten minutes, during which Michael took no notes. The following day Save Seil Sound received a detailed letter, see below, covering everything we had discussed. He has a keen intelligence and focus which will be hard to follow.

We didn’t manage to stop the expansion at Ardmaddy. Nature did that for us, as the immediate conditions on site made growing salmon there impossible; just what local residents had pointed out (second image the last cage being removed). Meanwhile the bodies who received the letter, Argyll & Bute Council, SEPA, SNH and Marine Scotland have continued to grant further permissions elsewhere in the area for tonnages far in excess of what anyone could have imagined.

Michael has long recognised that geographically Seil/Shuna/Melfort forms one large sea loch, with all the usual features of glacial cills, limited tidal flushing and water change over that has resulted in such features being protected from the effects of aquaculture. Let’s hope that in the fourteen months left to him he continues to find time to press the case.

Having retired myself after forty two years of hard work I can’t criticise anyone who wants to enjoy the liberation and opportunity that retirement brings if you do it when there’s a bit of energy left. I wish you well, Mike.