Crackdown on fish farm pesticides after Sunday Herald investigation
THE Scottish Environment Protection Agency is cracking down on toxic pollution from fish farms blamed for wiping out wildlife across widespread areas of the seabed. The government watchdog has begun a review of the discharge licences of 360 fish farms around the coast to restrict the use of a pesticide called emamectin. The chemical is fed to caged salmon to kill sea lice.
Sepa’s surprise move follows last week’s Sunday Herald revelation that emamectin had contaminated 45 sea lochs in breach of environmental limits since 2006, putting marine wildlife and human health at risk.
A major scientific study had found “unexpected” links between “very low” levels emamectin and the loss of crabs, lobsters and other crustaceans, Sepa said. The agency is now reviewing its environmental safety limits for the pesticide to check they provide “adequate environmental protection”.
The study, commissioned by Sepa from the Scottish Aquaculture Research Forum, concluded that the use of emamectin at fish farms “was associated with substantial, widescale reductions in both the richness and abundance of non-target crustacea”.
It said that “toxic effects occur at levels much lower than those that are currently detectable”, and suggested that there was no threshold below which emamectin would be harmless.
“The evidence suggests that benthic crustacea may not be adequately protected by the current regulation of emamectin use in Scottish salmon farms,” the study warned.
Sepa is now reviewing all fish-farm licences and “tightening conditions” for the use of emamectin after discussions with the UK Government’s Veterinary Medicines Directorate. “We are beginning the issuing of these new licences this week, and this will be completed by the end of April,” Sepa said.
Sepa’s announcement was “welcome but overdue”, according to Dr Richard Luxmoore, senior nature conservation adviser with The National Trust for Scotland. “It is worrying to see confirmation that these chemicals are having a seriously detrimental effect on marine wildlife over a far wider area than has previously been acknowlwledged,” he said.
Guy Linley-Adams from the wild fish campaign group Salmon and Trout Conservation Scotland called on n Sepa to cut the amount of f salmon that could be kept at fish farms. “Sepa should now also scrap any idea of allowing across-the-board increases in permitted biomass. The fundamental problem here is that Scottish Government policy, to expand fish farming at all costs, is way out of step with what the sea lochs can actually support.”
The Scottish Government has backed a fish farming industry plan to double production by 2030. Don Staniford from the Global Alliance Against Industrial Aquaculture described the findings of the scientific study as “shocking”. Fish farmers had been stopped from using another pesticide to kill sea lice, teflubenzuron, in 2015, he said. “Now Sepa must ban the use of emamectin.” Sepa’s chief executive Terry A’Hearn stressed that it was not banning the use of emamectin. “We have not published a new po policy on emamectin, but are tightening Sepa licences.” A Scottish Government spokesman said: “The Scottish Government has a proportionate approach to balance growing aquaculture sustainably and protecting the environment.”