Trial or Commercial?
Which system manufacturer?
Unproven waste management system?
Potential for escapes?
Mortalities prevention?
Just some of the questions with unsatisfactory answers.
Loch Long Salmon (LLS) thought it was all going swimmingly with their plans for a mammoth experimental fish farm using unproven technology at Bienn Reithe on Loch Long in the Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park (NPA).
The proposal includes the construction of a large industrial shore base complex on the Ardgoil Peninsula which would be built on land which was gifted to the people of the area by wealthy philanthropist Archibald Corbet in 1905.
Included in the planning application is for 4 X 50 metre diameter semi-closed cages (SCCS), each holding some 900,000 salmon and a 50 metre square ‘harvesting’ unit, plus ancillary waste management umbilical piping to shore and an upgraded road.
The plans, whilst supported by several individuals in the Scottish Government, has drawn huge opposition from residents of the area, environmental groups, marine experts, community councils and politicians. In November 2022, the NPA board overwhelmingly rejected the proposal.
Undeterred, Loch Long Salmon submitted a planning appeal. In a rare decision, the Scottish Government ‘called-in’ the application for the decision to be made by Scottish Ministers.
The Planning Appeal began at Arrochar, Argyll on Monday 25th September with David Liddell appointed as DPEA Reporter to question the parties and to submit his recommendations to Scottish Ministers.
Participating in the Appeal Hearing is the appellant, Loch Long Salmon and the NPA, as well as several environmental community groups and residents from both Loch Long and Loch Linnhe where the company is seeking to build a second fish farm of almost double the capacity of the Bienn Reithe proposal.
Which system?
There appeared to be confusion between Loch Long Salmon and the National Park as to which manufacturer had been selected for the site installation. The NPA said they thought the Fiizk Certus 30000 was the one for which planning permission was being sought, as this was the system depicted in the submitted planning drawings.
James Finlay KC for LLS responded stating that no specific system had been applied for but LLS have illustrated the planning application with various systems, primarily the Fiizk system. “but we are not tying ourselves and have never tied ourselves to a specific system, and indeed, the Park’s report is made on that basis.”
Alastair McKie on behalf of the NPA responded “that’s an interesting point, because I’m pretty sure in the evidence that is contained within the appellant hearing statements on this point, they do specifically reference this Fiizk Certus system as being the approved version of what they’re proposing, which is why obviously we tied that up with the image they have from the Fiizk website, that is then one of the planning drawings. So I think that’s news to us”.
The Reporter also commented that he thought he’d read somewhere in the appellant’s evidence that LLS had selected Fiizk as the supplier.
Stewart Hawthorne for LLS said “I would say that (Fiizk) may well be what we end up deploying, but (it) might be slightly different too, depending on what’s available at the time and what (the) best solution is available.”
Alastair McKie explained that in a planning application, the full details of the design should be expressed and that the lodged Fiizk Certus in the application he thought was the one being dealt with and not a concept. “This is not a concept, this is a detailed application” he said.
Jane Hartnell-Beavis for the Loch Linnhe group asked Loch Long Salmon if the Fiizk Certus 30000 had ever been used in only 40m water depth, had it been trialled anywhere at these depths and what were the results? Jane said “The Fiizk Scotland manager, had stated that Fiizk cages are designed to be sited at depths of 60 – 70m and that certain specifications have been modified. Is the section you submitted with your planning application showing the modified design?”. “If any design modifications have been made that are substantial to cope with the limited depths here, will a revised planning application be necessary?”.
Paul Nicol on behalf of Long Live Loch Linnhe also mentioned that in the Statement of Case submitted by LLS, they stated that the density of fish would be 35kg, however in the farm management plan they stated that it’s going to be up to 50kg and overall 40kg. What is the correct figure?
Fiona Stewart, the NPA natural heritage advisor reiterated the points regarding unproven technology. She said ”It’s not that the National Park is against fish farming or technological innovation, it’s just that we absolutely have to have tight evidence that your systems will work, that’s what’s absolutely crucial. We’ve not been able to find any evidence on that. The National Park would have referred to the exact technology, as it was referring to the Certus system because we need to know that that system is going to work and we’ve not been able to find that to date.
The appellants made the point that the technology is proven. But again, (with) Norway and Canada, we cannot find exact examples. We’ve had many reports which have told us that it’s still at the pilot stage. You’ve made reference to the fact that you have read those. So to have some weight in order for us to form an opinion on both the ecology and the landscape issues. We need to know just exactly what the system is, and we need to know that it is proven.
Responding, Stewart Hawthorne of LLS said that the systems will be designed and approved for the site. Citing the Fiizk depth of inlets and depth of system, “You can run the system at this particular site”. “That’s based on a decade of running these systems elsewhere”. With regard to stocking densities, he said that they had clarified 35kg per cubic metre with Marine Scotland.
Mr. Hawthorne concluded “I don’t understand why the Park can’t find what other people can find that (the information) we’ve supplied demonstrates that these systems have been used commercially and work because there are millions of fish in them today.”
Mark Shotter of LLS responded “You asked us if there are any examples of Fiizk or other semi closed system where waste is pumped ashore? Yes, there are many, all 30 of the Akfafuture systems are capturing waste and they’re pumping to shore and have been for some years. My colleague Stewart Hawthorne visited one of these sites as recently as August this year.
We’re aware of two of the three – 30000 Ecomerden pens operating which capture waste and pump not ashore but to a barge in an almost identical manner. The waste on that site is removed by sea rather than by road, but is slurry. These systems are supplied by Fiizk or they are Fiizk systems. We’re aware of other systems that have been capturing waste and pumping it ashore.” The Aquafarm Neptune system which I visited back in 2019 with my colleague Stuart Hawthorne.
We’re not aware of any of the Certus systems that are fitted to pump waste ashore. However, the Fiizk system that both Mr. Hawthorne and I visited in 2019 and the Ecomerden system that our colleague Christopher Harwood visited in 2018, they were collecting waste from the bottom of the semi closed pen, but rather than pumping it ashore, they were pumping it out to a more exposed location in the fjord by a pipe.
Commercial production or trial?
There has been much discussion as to whether the technology proposed for Beinn Reithe is proven.
Reporter David Liddell said he was confused as to when LLS say commercial use of similar installations had begun. LLS has said that it was in commercial use since 2014. However Mr Liddell referred to a letter from AFFtheClyde that said “convincing full-scale evidence of commercial operation is lacking”.
LLS stated in their Hearing Statement that semi closed containment (SCCS) had been in use commercially since 2016, however this was disputed in the NPA Hearing statement, where the park stated that SCCS had only been granted full commercial licences since 2018 and in operation in a very small number of salmon farms in Norway. A report from CtrlAQUA (Centre for Research-Based Innovation in Closed-Containment Aquaculture) in 2023 stated that SCCS systems are still today at the pilot stage.
In reply, LLS CEO Stewart Hawthorne said “I would argue and believe that people have been using these systems to produce fish for the commercial operations since earlier (than 2018)“.
NPA solicitor Alastair McKee referred to a letter from Hatch Innovation Service (in support of LLS) where it was stated that prior to 2018, SCCS projects were operated under research and development licences, therefore these could not possibly have been operated under a full commercial licence. He continued that according to the Hatch letter 30 – SCCS had been in operation in the last 8 years.
He gave the example that there could be only 5 or 6 semi-closed pens per fish farm and that therefore could only be 5 or 6 fish farms, “not a great deal in numerical terms”. He continued “How many fish farms are we talking about, and where are they, because the Park has had great difficulty in trying to track and analyse these fish farms in different geographical areas?
Stewart Hawthorne responded “..in terms of commercial use it was salmon farmers who are producing salmon for human consumption that were using these systems, that would be my position. (They) were being used in the commercial phase being stimulated by the Norwegian government development licences.” He then went on to list a number of installations around the world, although he was unable to offer specific geographical locations of any of these sites.
Jane Hartnell-Beavis, on behalf of the group opposing Loch Long Salmon’s second industrial farm at Loch Linnhe, interjected that “CtrlAQUA started their research in 2014. That’s when they initially got their funding for a fixed amount of time. That research ended in the last year, and they produced their final report in August this year, where most notably, they’ve described semi closed containment technology as still having a way to go, and being at pilot stage.”.
Alastair McKee of the NPA added that the report also stated that “there are still developmental needs to complete the system to become off the shelf ready, especially for the semi closed systems.”. “The park is not opposed to technological innovation. What confronts the park is the need, due to the sensitivity of the site here, to have independently verified information, and that has been lacking.”.
“Mr. Hawthorne has (now) offered to provide a list of geographical locations but this information could have been provided during the course of the application. But we’ve been forced to go through a hunt and a paper chase and it’s very difficult to actually establish what is the commercially proven nature or otherwise of this development.”.
He continued “The board report, which went to committee in November of 2022 makes it explicitly clear that the park’s view is that this is unproven technology. The appellant has since then, formulating the grounds of appeal, to provide that further information and evidence and they have simply failed to do so in a manner that the Park Authority find verifiable and acceptable.
Waste Management
One of many issues surrounding the proposed project is that the company is seeking to create a fish farm using unproven technology and from which it claims to be able to extract 85% of pen waste .
At the Hearing, Paul Nicoll on behalf of Long Live Loch Linnhe (LLLL), a community group formed to oppose the Loch Linnhe development, asked LLS legal counsel James Finlay KC “..to tell us where one (fish farm) is operating the same as (that proposed) in Beinn Reithe?”. James Finlay’s reply was “We’ve made it very clear that no farm is offering 85%, so if that is what Mr. Nicol is asking, which clearly it is, the answer is nowhere. We’ve made that absolutely clear.”.
Earlier in the proceedings both James McClean of AFFtheClyde and members of the Loch Linnhe group had continued to pressure LLS to reveal any locations around the world successfully using the envisaged SCCS waste management technology with LLLL saying that they had approached LLS with the offer to travel to these locations or instruct an expert at their own expense to visit the sites, however they had received no answer.
Mark Shotter of LLS cited a report from SCCS manufacturer Akvafuture, stating that they were capturing 30% waste and there were plans to significantly increase this, however as Robin Stopford of Loch Linnhe responded “..30 or 40% of waste collection was still a long way from 85% and no system was available today that can collect that amount of waste”.
He cited that Mr Shotter had described “that there’s an awful lot of new things being tried out and new approvals being granted to see if the system works”. Mr Stopford continued that he’d spoken to two fish farmers in Norway and both of them said they don’t collect anything like what they’d like to, in terms of waste, because the systems aren’t as effective.
Paul Nicoll for LLLL said “There is a huge amount of infrastructure required in order to farm your first salmon and if you find that the (waste collection) figures stay at 40% say, or 50% or 60%, that does not allow you to farm fish, because SEPA will stop you, so this could end up being a huge white elephant, because you’ve not got any proof that you can do it.”.
Responding, James Finlay KC said “We are taking if you like the risk that we won’t satisfy SEPA and SEPA quite rightly could close us down if we don’t reach the levels that we suggest we should reach. But in that worst case basis, the fish farm won’t stay there. There’ll be a decommissioning bond and process and the fish farm will be removed. So I don’t think there’s much difference between us in the sense that if we don’t reach that, fish won’t be produced.”.
Robin Stopford outlined that all the (waste management) modelling that had been done is for either open net or closed systems which has different flow characteristics from semi-closed containment. “If somebody has modelled for this sort of a pen in a sensible fluid dynamics manner, I’d love to see it, I think that’s one of the critical questions here.”.
When the Reporter queried that in advising Ministers, should they be able to rely on SEPA as their advisor and regulator, Mr Stopford replied “I’m simply trying to understand how they looked at it given that it feels like a very different environment, and as Mr. Hawthorn has said, this is a step change in innovation. I don’t know if SEPA has seen a similar circumstance or even understood the differences (too). I think it’s just really that open question.
NPA solicitor Alastair McKee said “Listening to all that’s been said. I think I would start by saying it’s absolutely vital for the Ministers in the decision here to reach a view on whether this technology is or is not commercially proven… we’ve been discussing divergence of views around the modelling… what I can see is that there is a dispute at expert level around modelling and it strikes me that it is this aspect that needs to be trialled.
Has this been trialled? You’ve got a model but does it work in practice? (It) initially strikes at the heart of the appellants case because their proposal is to roll this out at considerable scale. I think where we are is that there isn’t a working example of the Fizzk system where waste is pumped ashore. There’s modelling been done and it might work, but it might not”.
Alistair McKee then referred to the loose wording of the CAR licence issued by SEPA which stated that “Each fish pen must be installed with infrastructure designed to capture 85% of the waste. It does not say that 85% of the waste must be captured. So it is, I think, very much in the parlance of an unenforceable condition.”
He continued, “I think if SEPA were putting (in) a stricter condition, we’d have a degree of confidence in that, but looking at the condition you’ve imposed on such a critical aspect of the development, I do not share your immediate confidence in their level of control over this vital aspect of the development.”. The Reporter replied that he hadn’t seen any reference to the way that condition had been drafted.
Responding to a comment from James Finlay KC, that the park had not objected to this previously, Mr McKee said that he was simply responding to the Reporter’s question re SEPA issuing the licence and that “I’ve simply identified that the key condition is unenforceable and I think you know that.”.
Commenting on the Akvaventure report, Jane Hartnell-Beavis of LLLL said that it had taken Akvaventure 3 years to reach 40% waste retrieval, “If SEPA were granting their licence on 85% and on that, only saying that they could have 3425 tonnes instead of the 4000 tonnes they applied for, what tonnage would they be allowed to have one wonders at 40%?”.
James McClean of AFFtheClyde asked “As the proposed open net (Dawnfresh) fish farm at Ardentinny was issued a CAR licence prior to the Beinn Reithe proposal and considering the flushing of Loch Long is very slow, were the sewage concentrations considered for both farms when issuing the CAR licence for Beinn Reithe?”
Later Stewart Hawthorne referred to the regulatory powers of SEPA in that should they consider that there was environmental harm to the seabed, they have the powers to reduce or stop production. “We want to make a positive difference, we’re being very careful what we’re doing here. The park will be proud of this development when we get going.”
Mortalities, Sea Lice and Escapes
Stewart Hawthorne: “We’re farming animals, so we have to be responsible farmers”.
Mr. Nicoll of LLLL questioned that there had been 67% mortalities at the Akvafutures fish farm that Mr. Hawthorne had visited previously. Mr Hawthorne responded that this gill disease issue came with the fish from the hatchery and was not an issue with the SCCS. However, Jane Hartnell-Beavis pointed out that the Akvafutures report states “that the development of wounds and gill infections have been shown to be serious health challenges associated with the detection of a variety of pathogens dominated by AGD.”. Those did not come with the fish when they went into the cage”.
Mark Shotter for LLS responded that “The RSPCA have been consulted a number of times on this (Loch Long) project. They felt that the stocking density that we put forward was entirely reasonable. Their standards allow for a much higher stocking rate on onshore farms. So you’ve got to remember the stocking densities appropriate to the environment in which you (are) farming. The RSPCA have said that when we do our first production cycle, so long as we work with them on that, they will certify the first fish that we harvest”.
Robin Stopherd mentioned that in the Canadian (Cermaq) farm they had issues with micro jellyfish coming in even at the deeper inlets, and this was the reason they had moved locations. Karen Ezerd for the Loch Linnhe group also said “that in the CTRLAqua report it stated that micro jellyfish, pathogens etc. are difficult to exclude from the systems and if things do come in, you can have mass mortality events. It seems that in smaller systems, it is better for fish health, but it remains to be seen, as the larger systems are definitely so very much at trial stage”. Ms Ezard also cited water quality sensors sludging up and therefore not being able to record data.
On sea lice, Reporter David Liddell said “The objective is to greatly diminish them or to minimise them so that they’re not a significant issue. It’s not a claim that you would never find a sea lice on one of the salmon in the fish farm am I getting that right?”
Stewart Hawthorne responded “That is correct. We’re not adding any sea lice to the loch because we’re not creating a breeding population, and it’s because they’re not breeding that we’re not creating a number of sea lice within the farm itself. That then means we don’t ever have to treat sea lice. First of all, sea lice are controlled. Hundreds of production cycles, no sea lice treatments ever required. In fact, I go further than that, they (can) take fish infected with sea lice, put them into these systems and the sea lice grow old and die and don’t reproduce.
The systems themselves are an effective treatment for sea lice. I don’t think that we need to have any other controls for sea lice. Marine Scotland thought that we should have. So in our farm environment management plan we do have comprehensive monitoring for sea lice, and if we were to be required to treat the sea lice we do have certain protocols in there, but I’m very confident that we will not.”
Escapes
Paul Nicol estimated that there would be 3.6 million fish in the enclosures.
Alastair McKee questioned the possibility of catastrophic failure of the containment system where 100,000 fish could be released into the loch. He said “So it just seems to depend on the hopes that those bags can work. And the question is, will it work? What evidence underpins that?”
Stewart Hawthorne replied “It’s a good, sheltered location. We have a bag and a net – both have to fail at the same time. We’ll have alarms that’ll tell us if there is a breach in the outer-containment. “The bag does work. CtrlAqua has concluded that these systems have been proven to prevent escapes. I feel that there’s an unreasonable concern being generated about something that’s been well established.”
Alistair McKee responded “The Park’s position is that the standard of evidence that’s been produced is simply not high enough, given in this case, the fragility of the Endrick Water SEC and protecting it from a mass escape.”.
Paul Nicoll said “What we’ve done is taken the view of the industry in (a) holistic way, which not only involves the producers of the fish, it involves the regulatory authorities and all the people that combine in order for fish farms to be able to function. I think if you look at Marine Scotland in their response, dated the 2 June 2022, they state semi closed containment is normal to the Scottish agriculture sector, and adequate descriptions of fish health and welfare in commercial projects and a similar scale to the proposal are not available in peer reviewed literature.”
“Marine Scotland in June 2002 say it is difficult to verify the information on the performance of their technology as full data is not available. Nature Scotland say the proposed fish farm will utilise a novel semi closed containment system which is currently untested in Scotland, as such, there remains a likelihood that the farm could result in sea lice entering the marine environment. Fisheries Management Scotland also stating that they could see clear benefits to the use of the technology once the technology is proven. Also, CEO of Aqua Group stated very recently in our statement of case that he thought the technology was not there. CtrlAqua reports in August 23 similarly felt that. Dr. Peter Mackenzie, the Cermac fish health director also felt that”.
Alastair McKee: “The National Park finds it somewhat undermining to claim environmental benefits for the semi enclosed method, then adopt a post smolt method, which means you’ll be taking them from a semi enclosed cage and putting them into open nets. I think a big part of the appellant’s case is if you’re going to open net, they can escape. They won’t receive the benefits of reduction in sea lice so we just find that a bit curious and undermining in terms of the benefits”.
AFFtheClyde will continue to provide follow-up analysis of the Planning Appeal.
The sessions reconvene on Wednesday 4 October at 9.30am and can be followed live at https://shorturl.at/bjtU3