A land-based fish farm could soon be operating in the Slocan Valley, the Kootenays, Canada.
According to the Boundary Creek Times, Valhalla Aquaculture, a company owned by Paul and Joan Hampaul, has applied for a licence to divert water out of Trozzo Creek to a facility that would be built between Highway 6 and the Slocan River north of Winlaw.
Paul Hampaul told the publication that he considered an indoor fish farm for rainbow trout as it was an environmental alternative to pig or cow farming as such could contaminate the creek and river.
“First of all, it’s land based. We can have better control of the water quality, we can manage disease, we can manage biohazard, what goes in, what goes out,” said Hampaul. “It also just provides a better way of controlling the effluent, which unfortunately they don’t do in open water.”
“Above all it will provide healthy, nutritious and sustainable food source. We have choices. We can grow our own, as we all want 100-mile radius food sources, or we can import from China as most of our seafood is coming these days.”
The facility will require two nearby intakes from Trozzo Creek at 42 litres per second. The company plans on being environmentally friendly. No waste will be flushed back into the water source and it will use filters to clean effluent, tail water which will be directed into settling ponds and then into soil infiltration. Furthermore, fish excrement will be used to make fertiliser.
