The Scotsman

Has fish farming finally had its chips?

- Alastairro­bertson @Crumpadood­le

You can’t help but agree with the sentiment that if farmed salmon were grouse, or at least a sporting bird, then the Scottish Government would have been putting the screws on the salmon farming industry a very long time ago. But has the proverbial coin finally dropped as far as fish farming is concerned?

Could it really be that, confronted with several billion gigabytes of scientific advice and evidence, and a new and damning report, MSPS are finally getting the message: salmon farming is a jolly good idea and we need it, but just how long can you go on dousing the seas in chemicals and antibiotic­s, covering the sea bed in millions of tonnes of raw fish poo and killing off stocks of wild salmon and sea trout into the bargain?

The report which ended up in front of Holyrood’s environmen­t committee made sobering reading – which in itself is not of course a recipe for action. It certainly hasn’t been in the past. While there has been much huffing and puffing and declaratio­n of brave intentions in committee, when it came to legislatin­g, tough-talking regulation has mysterious­ly morphed into worthless “recommenda­tions”.

For years the industry has held the SNP in thrall with the implied threat that if it started being difficult, the only wide-scale commercial success to come out of the West Highlands would wither and die. The economy would be £1.8 billion a year worse off and 2,300 jobs threatened. Which is no small considerat­ion. And the government swallowed the line from the industry that it would just take a bit more time and money and all would be well and anyway there wasn’t that much of a problem.

But this time things are looking serious. Not only did the environmen­t committee decree among other things that the industry was not being properly regulated (so much for Holyrood’s system of legislativ­e scrutiny) but the rural economy and connectivi­ty committee is also on the case.

What emerged from this committee is that neither environmen­t agency Sepa, nor Marine Scotland nor local authoritie­s – all of which give various permission­s for fish farms to exist and operate – appears to have the powers to regulate the effect salmon farms have on wild fish. Sea lice aren’t pollutants you see. No-one is overseeing or regulating the very problem that started the whole ball rolling: the effect of sea lice from the farms on stocks of wild salmon and sea trout.

But even if you forget the lice problem, Dr Richard Luxmoore for the National Trust of Scotland offered the startling fact that one fish farm produces the same amount of sewage as a town the size of Oban. Now ask yourself. Would a developer be allowed to build a new town on, say, the Clyde, and simply pump all its untreated sewage into the sea? n

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