Move fish farm inland, say Bantry protesters

A West Cork campaign group aiming to halt the planning of an offshore €3.5m fish farm has called on its developers to locate the project inland.

The Save Bantry Bay group, established to stop the development of an organic salmon farm at Shot Head off Adrigole, has urged Marine Harvest to instead use a closed containment fish farming system (CCS) in the Bantry/Beara peninsula area.

Letters urging county councillors to support the farming method were sent in recent days.

Group chairman Kieran O’Shea, a third generation West Cork fisherman, said a CCS “ensures that there is a separation between the wild salmon and the farmed salmon”.

“Like any other farming system, these outlets can be monitored, thus ensuring that waste food and chemicals and faeces are properly treated before being discharged,” he said.

“Worldwide, environmental groups are lobbying to end open-pen fish farms and support newer, more environmentally friendly alternative CCS systems.”

The group says the Marine Harvest project will damage traditional sea fishing and salmon angling in the area. They also say that water exchange in Bantry Bay is poor and that waste from the salmon cages will not flow out to sea as proposed in the project’s plans.

Marine Harvest, which already operates a salmon farm in the area, say the project will create six jobs during farm set-up and two more full-time jobs when operational.

Tony Lowes of Friends of the Irish Environment said they would not be opposed to the project if farming took place in tanks or in pond and ditch systems where the incoming and effluent waters are all treated. Such systems are widely used in the Netherlands.

“Closed systems have the potential to offer greater economic benefits in the long term as existing fishing and angling industries are not impacted,” he said.

Marine Harvest contests claims its latest project poses a threat to angling and shellfish farming in the area.

“Sea lice [harmful to salmon smolt] were an issue for the industry in the past but management techniques have moved on significantly in the last 20 years,” said a spokeswoman. “Our fish stocks are managed in such a way as to mitigate against sea lice infestations. This includes constant monitoring by both ourselves and the Irish Marine Institute and management of stock and stock conditions.

“We were Ireland’s first primary food producer to be certified under ISO 14001:1996 [International Environmental Standard] and were the first salmon farming company in the world to achieve the ISO 9002 International Quality Systems Quality Assurance Standard. We make every effort to ensure that we do not disturb the ecological balance at our sites.”