A Norwegian company seeking to expand its fish farming operation in West Cork has admitted that severe storms compromised its ability to treat its salmon for sea lice and other diseases last year — prompting environmentalists to say this bolsters their argument for closed containment systems.

The discovery of huge quantities of toxic pesticides at a salmon farm in Scotland has escalated fears for a facility planned for Bantry Bay.

It is regrettable that your correspondent, who wrote “campaigners against fish farm seek sea-lice system safety check”, failed to contact Marine Harvest Ireland (MHI) for comment, instead choosing to use a previous statement issued on a different matter.

Opposition is mounting in West Cork to plans by one of the world’s biggest fish farming operations to develop a €5.5m organic salmon farm in Bantry Bay.

MARINE HARVEST is one of the largest salmon-farming groups in the world.

TO SEE intensive farming in the west of Ireland, look towards the sea, where last week’s announcement by Marine Harvest Ireland of plans to develop a new €3.5 million organic salmon farm site in Bantry Bay raised the profile of an industry which has been quietly but steadily advancing for over 30 years.

ONE of the world’s leading seafood companies, Marine Harvest plans to invest €3.5 million developing a new salmon farm site in Bantry Bay, Co Cork.

Donegal: Salmon farming company, Marine Harvest Ireland (MHI), has been named as Seafood Exporter of the Year 2010 by the Irish Exporters Association.