Lift 2,500-tonne farm limit says Sepa

THE Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (Sepa) supports the lifting of the 2,500 tonne limit on fish farms, MSPs were told.

Sepa said that new environmental modelling techniques have given them ‘the necessary confidence to remove the cap’, which currently restricts production levels to 2,500 tonnes per site.

The agency sent its submission to Scotland’s Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform (ECCLR) committee, and then informed members of the Rural Economy and Connectivity (REC) committee.

Sepa said the new depositional zone regulation (DZR), developed in 2016, meant production levels could be assessed on a site by site basis.

‘Up to now, the 2,500 tonne cap reflected the appropriate level of precaution given the degree of uncertainty in risk assessments for large farms with the then available modelling techniques,’ said Sepa in its submission.

‘The revised version of the depositional model, coupled with hydrodynamic modelling and more extensive monitoring, provide us with the necessary confidence to remove the cap.’

At more exposed sites,‘waste impacts on the sea bed will normally be much less severe than elsewhere; and the risks of disease and, hence, medicine usage, are also likely to be lower’.

Removing the cap might encourage producers to ‘consider re-locating to, and consolidating production at sites that have the greatest capacity to cope with farm wastes’.

‘The proposals are designed to deliver increased protection of the environment through enhanced modelling and monitoring.We do not envisage disadvantages from this,’ said Sepa.