Aquaculture firm plans Shelburne Harbour salmon expansion

The company, a subsidiary of Cooke Aquaculture in St. George, New Brunswick, is currently constructing an administrative building for employees to complete their managerial and clerical work. In the meantime, a temporary office has been set up in Shelburne.

Kelly Cove has been farming in Shelburne since April 2005 and currently hosts about 11 hectares of salmon cages.

Cooke’s spokesperson Nell Halse says, “We made some increases there in the Shelburne area over the last year or two but we want to expand further. The trend is to get into larger sites in good areas with good water flow and distance between sites. We’re still finalizing the plan but we’d like to have the sites operational within the year.”

She adds, “Shelburne seems to be a good community for us.”

Nova Scotia area manager, Jeff Nickerson, who was born in the Municipality of Barrington, adds he expects 10 or more jobs will be created. “When we talk about jobs now, especially in areas where there’s high unemployment, these jobs are 52 weeks per year with full medical and dental included.”

However, Halse says the company wants to ensure the expansion is acceptable to residents, business people and local government. “We want to be proactive. A lot of issues arise people don’t know much about.” Environment concerns are one example, she says.

The company plans to first consult with the area’s two councils and county businesspeople before holding a public meeting or meetings.

The location of the sites, so as not to interfere with other people, businesses or industry, will be an important component of the meeting(s) in addition to education.

Nickerson says, “We may think we have a good location but we can’t nail it down until we talk to the local people.”

Currently, the company farms salmon out of three sites in the harbour. Fourteen employees are expected to harvest about 750,000 fish this year in the Shelburne area.

About 2-million fish are harvested in Nova Scotia each year from company sites in St. Margarets Bay, Digby and, as stated, Shelburne Harbour.

At present, the fish is processed in New Brunswick, as their holdings in Nova Scotia are not yet large enough to keep a 24-hour plant operating, Halse says.

However, Halse says the spin-offs from the purchasing power of employees, many of whom are former fishermen, spending by visiting industry professionals, trucking, contracting divers and veterinarians, buying fuel, providing fees to the Shelburne Port Authority, and giving contracts to such companies as Seaway Fabrication Ltd are large in monetary terms and will grow even larger once the expansion is in place. “When we’re able to buy locally, we buy locally,” she says.

Nickerson adds Seaway Fabrication Ltd. is a good example plus, “They’re very good at what they do. We have even sent business from New Brunswick their way.”

Halse says she wants to stress the company will need to go through a government-mandated environmental assessment before the expansion can begin.

Halse says the company is a leader in the field for protecting the environment. For one, she says the Atlantic salmon they raise is the same species found in the wild.

She says expanding will also help the environment because the company wants to increase its “year separation” practices of dividing the fish into their various stages of growth while allowing farms time to fallow on a rotating basis. “It’s good from an environmental point of view because it allows a site to rest.” The company also distances their farms from each other, she says.

The future will also see the creation of “integrated multi-trophic” farms, she says, which means, for example, growing mussels and seaweed on a salmon site.

This is good for business and the environment because the seaweed and mussels utilize sediment as food, she says.

Halse says she welcomes comments or concerns, which can be relayed through cookeaqua.com.