by Greg Bennett
The Coast Guard
NovaNewsNow.com
A Shelburne County couple has filed an appeal with the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia over a decision to approve the lease/licensing of three Shelburne Harbour salmon aquaculture Sites.
Marian and Herschel Specter, of Sandy Point, filed the appeal on June 13 through their lawyer, Andrew Taillon, of Cox & Palmer.
The appeal, allowed through the Fisheries Coastal Resources Act, is a rarely used mechanism, but Taillon compared it to more familiar remedies used to dispute decisions of the Workers Compensation Board.
Taillon said the Nova Scotia Supreme Court would be asked offer directions on the future steps of the appeal during a hearing on June 29.
The three main grounds for the appeal are that the Minister’s decision to grant the licenses and leases were unreasonable for several reasons, among which are:
· -The Minister erroneously treated the sites in question as amendments to existing sites rather than as new sites,
· The Minister’s decision violated the directives and guidelines of the Federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans,
· The Minister failed to engage in a sufficient public consultation process.
The Specters, who live near one of the present sites in the Inner Harbour are the founders of the Friends of Shelburne Harbour, a group which has expressed strong objections to ocean-based fish farming in general and specifically in Shelburne. The Specters have expressed specific concerns about pollution caused from the fish farming operations.
“The monitoring data we received from the province shocked us into action,” said Marian Specter.
A spokesperson for the Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture said Minister Sterling Belliveau would not offer comment because the matter involved impending legal action.
Representatives of Cooke Aquaculture, which will continue the process of moving its cages within Shelburne Harbour this summer, expressed disappointment about the news of the legal action.
“We’ll just have to let the process unfold,” said Nell Halse, VP of public relations. “It’s unfortunate the complainants have never engaged with us directly over their concerns, despite our repeated attempts to engage them. We’ve responded to their request with a great deal of information and asked … ‘can you please just meet with us.’ They totally ignored us.”
"For those of you who await Cooke with promises of jobs, enhanced resources and open arms GO HERE and read carefully!!!!!! http://coastalcura.ca/documents/FinalLEK04292011.pdf. This report is not from politicians or DFO. It is from your neighbors across the bay in NB." This is why I want to know that everything is being dogwatched by those who will be affected by the enterprise. Allowing only the DOE and other government agencies to act as the watchdogs, and accepting only their reports, is not acceptable. Objective data does not always honestly describe the subjective impact of something this large on the surrounding communities. I think we still have a way to go before we can be comfortable with the idea of aquaculture along our coasts. Some of the reports from Scotland indicate that the negative impact of the aquaculture fishery has been significant. Perhaps the government could send some of the local people on both sides to places such as NB and Scotland to see for themselves, and to report back to us, how the average person who has lived with aquaculture feels about its overall success. We desperately need jobs here, but we do not want to just jump at anything and ruin the future for our kids. Thank you for posting that link.