Salmon industry cleared over pollution fears
The Scottish salmon farming industry has welcomed the results of an environmental report published by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) and described the conclusions as being extremely positive.
The report represents the findings from the first two years of an ongoing screening programme to monitor the use of sea lice treatments around marine fish farms. And the key finding reveals that in the random samples taken from the seabed, no authorised substances exceeded SEPA’s safe environmental standards.
Industry spokesman David Sandison said: “We welcome SEPA’s report, which gives the industry an overall clean bill of health. We will continue to work closely with the organisation in the future to ensure that effective monitoring of salmon farming activity is maintained.
“This is particularly good news for an industry which is committed to high quality production standards. As always, we welcome any independent, high-quality research, which is undertaken rigorously and without prejudice. The SEPA report confirms the excellent farming practices and high standards to which the industry operates.
He continued: "Working in partnership with the controlling bodies, we take every action possible to ensure that we maintain exemplary standards to produce a safe and healthy product for our customers worldwide. The industry maintains an unequivocal position, which utterly condemns the use of unauthorised sea lice treatments and fully endorses SEPA’s work in uncovering any potential problems. The salmon farming industry is founded on a quality product from a natural, quality environment, and rigorous standards must be maintained.”
As part of an ongoing surveillance monitoring programme, 142 samples of sediments were collected in the vicinity of 44 marine cage fish farms in 2001 and 30 marine cage fish farms in 2002. Only minimal traces of compounds were detected and, following further investigation, no evidence of unauthorised discharges was identified.
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