Activist Tavish Campbell holds underwater sign saying “2019 Fish Farm Virus Still Flowing”- which he says was recently taken – at Brown’s Bay Packing Company, B.C, Canada.
CTV news reports that an anti salmon farming campaigner has been given a video of which it say is bloody effluent pouring into British Columbia’s waters.
Photographer Campbell made a similar graphic video two years ago – where a constant stream of bright red liquid mixed into the water. The footage was widely covered by media and circulated around the world at the time.
CTV news claims that the effluent in Campbell’s footage comes from Brown’s Bay Packing Company, which has been processing farmed salmon from the BC coast since 1989.
“I went back to do a dive as I was very curious to see if anything had changed,” Campbell told CTV News. “When I dive I have an underwater camera with two big lights and the minute I turn them on, it illuminates this brilliant red colour,” Campbell said. “It is blood, water, scales and mucus just pouring out.”
In 2017, Brown’s Bay Packing Company told the BBC that that the wastewater is treated before discharge.
Brown’s Bay Packing managing partner David Stover told CTV News that he hadn’t yet seen the video, but said his company is in the final stages of commissioning a CAD 1.5-million water treatment system modelled after provincial and municipal drinking water facilities.
He told the publication that the system is fully functioning right now but there is some automation and building construction yet to be completed. Stover added the system tests for bacteria, temperature, oxygen and suspended solids.
“The disinfection component of the system which is the final stage of the process is designed to disinfect the effluent,” he said. “Although we don’t test for PRV, we are confident the disinfection process kills bacteria and virus.”
In BC, effluent discharge authorisations fall under provincial jurisdiction.
Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government made recent promise to transition open-pen salmon farms to closed-containment by 2025.
