Scientist banned from meeting
Michael Dadswell showed up at the Bedford Institute of Oceanography Wednesday morning only to be promptly shown the door.
The former Fisheries and Oceans Canada scientist who did the original studies on the impact of the Annapolis Tidal Turbine intended to present to the Canadian Science Advisory Secretariat panel tasked with reviewing available research on the Nova Scotia Power facility’s effect on fish in the river.
Dadswell had originally been invited to be part of the panel.
“They didn’t let me in because they don’t want to change their report,” said Dadswell, who after his nine years with Fisheries and Oceans worked the rest of his career as a biologist at Acadia University.
“That turbine is absolutely in violation of the Fisheries Act.”
According to Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Dadswell wasn’t allowed into Wednesday’s meeting because he wasn’t able to attend the first meeting of the panel in January.
“The meeting held today was to review and finalize the conclusions of the meeting held in January,” reads a response from department spokesman Stephen Bornais.
“Only people who attended the meeting in January were invited to attend; therefore, Dr. Dadswell did not receive an invitation to participate in the meeting today.”
The review was commissioned by Fisheries and Oceans Canada after The Chronicle Herald revealed in 2017 that Nova Scotia Power was not relaying reports it received from the community about Atlantic sturgeon allegedly killed by the turbine to the federal regulator.
And that despite research conducted by scientists (including Dadswell) showing that the turbine killed large amounts of American shad, contributed to the extirpation of striped bass from the river and continues to kill sturgeon, it was allowed to operate by Fisheries and Oceans in apparent violation of Section 35 of the Fisheries Act.
That section prohibits “any work, undertaking or activity that results in serious harm to fish that are part of a commercial, recreational or Aboriginal fishery, or to fish that support such a fishery” unless an exemption is provided by the minister.
No such exemption has been provided for the 20-megawatt Annapolis Tidal Station since it began operation in 1985.
At its January meeting the panel considered a draft report on available data about the turbine’s effects compiled by Fisheries and Oceans Canada staff that said among other things, there is “weak evidence” of a native population of Atlantic sturgeon in the Annapolis River, there isn’t evidence the turbine caused population level changes in the striped bass stock in the river, and it would be “disingenuous” to blame population level changes of American shad on the turbine.
However, local residents have been collecting egg-bearing sturgeon chopped in half downstream from the turbine for decades, Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s own science showed 23.4 per cent of juvenile American shad and 21.3 per cent of adults are killed each time they pass through it and striped bass appear to have been extirpated from the river since it started turning in 1985.
Dadswell submitted a response to the draft report, which hasn’t yet been made public, to the review panel.
Bornais said his submitted written response would have been taken into account at Wednesday’s meeting, which will result in the production of a Science Advisory Report that will ultimately be made public on the Canadian Science Advisory Secretariat website.
Darren Porter, a Bay of Fundy weir fishermen and president of the fishermen’s group Fundy United, was a member of the panel who attended the January meeting.
But he refused to take part in Wednesday’s meeting after seeing Dadswell kicked out.
“I couldn’t be part of a corrupt process,” said Porter.
“They made sure to schedule the first meeting when they knew (Dadswell) was out of the country. The second meeting was supposed to take place at Acadia a few weeks ago but when I told them the day before that he was going to be coming, they cancelled it within an hour and a half.”
Porter alleges the entire scientific review process has been rigged to find a way to allow Nova Scotia Power to continue operating its turbine.
Confronted with Porter’s allegation, Bornais responded in a written statement, “The final content of the report and concluding summary bullets will not be known until after the meeting is concluded today. The results of the CSAS review will inform the regulatory approach by DFO.”