The Haida Salmon Restoration Corp. is courting international outrage with its plan to pour tonnes of iron into the ocean in a second bid to boost salmon stocks.
Last year, the company did it and sparked a debate about which government departments knew in advance. This time, the federal government must stop it.
The company, which is based in Old Massett on Haida Gwaii, plans to collect information in May and put to sea in June to make the dump. It is pushing the federal government to return scientific data and files seized from the company in March by Environment Canada.
Environment Canada says it is still investigating last year’s operation and needs the data.
Last year, Haida Salmon sailed 320 kilometres off the coast of Haida Gwaii and dumped 100 tonnes of iron sulphate, along with iron oxide and iron dust, into the ocean.
Led by American businessman Russ George, the project is designed to stimulate plankton growth because iron is one of the nutrients that determines how fast plankton grow.
The theory is that the plankton will in turn produce larger runs of salmon.
The corporation says that since the early 1980s, satellites have shown the productivity of the plankton in the North Pacific has dropped 30 per cent. It also points to the 2010 run of sockeye, which instead of the meagre prediction of one million fish, reached 40 million, the largest return on record.
That unexpected, massive run can be traced to an Aleutian Islands volcanic eruption in 2008, which dumped clouds of micro-nutrients into the Pacific, the company says.
Old Massett has invested $2.5 million in the project, and the hope was to sell carbon credits, based on the theory that plankton absorb carbon from the atmosphere and carry it to the bottom of the ocean when they die.
Old Massett economic development officer John Disney says the true sign of success will be if larger numbers of salmon return, but so far, results of their microscopic analysis are “phenomenal.”
“Phenomenal” is not the word used by federal Environment Minister Peter Kent, who called last year’s dump “rogue science.” His officials raided the company’s Vancouver offices on March 11 and carried off data and files.
Department spokesman Mark Johnson said: “Ocean fertilization is not allowed under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.”
Two United Nations resolutions have placed moratoriums on ocean fertilization. George was stopped from doing previous planned dumps near the Canary and Galapagos islands.
Disney says the village’s lawyers have studied federal law and the UN resolutions and concluded that the fertilization is legal.
He says Old Massett approached George and he “did not sell us a bill of goods.”
Some scientists have said there is no foundation for the effort, and it could be dangerous. Dumping iron could create a dead zone where nothing will grow.
Declining salmon stocks are a serious concern all over the B.C. coast, and in a community where unemployment is at 70 per cent, a plan to both restore the salmon fishery and bring in other jobs through the corporation is enticing. But rogue science is not the way to save either the salmon or the village.
The science of carbon sequestration by plankton is uncertain, so there is no market for the carbon offsets, which undercuts the financial reasoning.
We all share the oceans, and we know that despite their immense size, they are delicately balanced systems. Geo-engineering could have effects we can only guess at, which is why scientists and governments oppose it.
Projects like this one must go ahead only with government and institutional oversight.
Haida Salmon should abandon the plan — and if it doesn’t, the federal government should stop it.
