Bait and switch in the fish business?
Billion-dollar, New Brunswick-based multinational Cooke Aquaculture has recently informed the Town of Shelburne that it does not intend to follow through on its promise to build a $150-million fish processing plant in the Town anytime soon.
The plant, with an attendant 300-400 jobs, was supposed to arrive in 2011, then 2012, then 2015, as part of the $25 million loan, gift and grant package from the NDP government.
Mayor Karen Mattatall told SCT that Cooke told her in a recent meeting that it would be 2018 "at the earliest" before a plant would arrive in Shelburne.
Cooke executives said that anticipated new aquaculture regulations would hamper their ability to grow the millions of fish needed each year to justify a processing plant.
The Cooke execs intimated at the meeting that the Town Council should apply pressure on the current government not to approve a regulatory regime which would hinder Cooke's ability to grow fish.
The Independent Aquaculture Regulatory Review Panel report was issued Tuesday, with sweeping recommendations to alter the farming of salmon and other fin fish in Nova Scotia waters.
The new regulations, if passed, would require communities to be seriously consulted prior to fish farms being placed in bays and harbours abutting communities and would prohibit the ability for aquaculture firms like Cooke, Loch Duart and others to grow fish in an intensive fashion which results in the "dead zones" which have been created in Shelburne Harbour and elsewhere by irresponsible fish farming methods.
Some critics have contended for years that Cooke's promises of rural jobs in Shelburne and elsewhere were merely ploys to gain community and government support. "This is flim-flam of the highest kind," said one critic, who asked not to be named.
Cooke Aquaculture has a checkered history in the region as it relates to its farming methods. In recent years, the firm has been required to destroy millions of fish infected with infectious salmon anemia (ISA) in Shelburne, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Chile. The firm received millions of dollars in federal compensation for the fish kills.
In 2011, three Cooke executives, including CEO Glenn Cooke, were charged with 33 counts of illegally releasing cypermethrin-based pesticide into the waters of Maces Bay, Passamoquoddy Bay as well as the waters surrounding Deer Island and Grand Manan Island between November 2009 and November 2010. Cypermethrin is not authorized for use in marine environments, and is harmful to crustaceans including, but not limited to, lobster and shrimp. The trio pleaded guilty and Cooke Aquaculture paid a half-million dollar fine.
There was no response to requests for comments from Cooke Aquaculture for this story.
