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OTFA Environment Subcommittee Report for 2011
This year has been particularly busy and stressful for this committee with a number of new responsibilities and an alarming upturn in all things salmon farming !
Electrofishing. OTFA funded Daniel Brazier’s participation in the Teamleader Electrofishing course at Inverness College in August. As a former Ghillie at the Merkister, Daniel is a familiar face and a very useful addition to our survey team. Due to increasing family and work commitments within the sub committee and volunteer base only one electrofishing site at Netherbrough was surveyed this summer. With the addition of Daniel to the electrofishing team we hope to turn this trend around next year.
Scapa Flow Burn Project. Under the Scapa Flow Landscape Partnership scheme we are still exploring the possibility of a habitat improvement scheme on one of the sea trout burns entering the Flow. Following a negative response at the St Mary’s burn in Holm, we are now exploring the possibility of a similar project at the Lerquoy burn at Swanbister Bay in Orphir.
Water Framework Directive. Malcolm Thomson attended several meetings of the small water body subgroup. The majority of burns in Orkney fall below the size limit to qualify for WFD protection. Considering that many of these burns are important trout spawning burns, the OTFA are lobbying to extend the same protective powers to at least some of these burns which would otherwise fly under the radar.
Water pollution concerns and SEPA. The committee has been in dialogue with SEPA regarding a number of potential threats to freshwater systems in the west mainland. SEPA continue to monitor the situation and have our best interests at heart.
Sourin Burn impasse. Now that this has finally been removed we are resolved to electro fish upstream of the dam to check that sea trout now have unimpeded access to the upper reaches of the burn.
Woodwick Burn. Ian Hutcheon reported that he had a look at the new fish pass attached to the renewable energy facility at the newly renovated Mill on the Woodwick Burn and that it seemed satisfactory. It is heartening that the owners have been particularly responsible and proactive in resolving the issue of migratory fish passage.
Marine Energy Works Licence Applications. We have just received our second and third consultations regarding siting of Marine energy devices. A wave test site off St Mary’s and a tidal test site in Shapinsay Sound. There is very little evidence of how any of these devices affect the passage and migration of migratory fish, and we need to be careful to ask developers to mitigate any concerns as part of their testing regime. Our own MSP raised similar concerns at Holyrood regarding marine mammals. We’d like the marine energy sector to get off to a good clean start and not bogged down in planning / biodiversity hell in years to come as happened with salmon farming.
Windfarms. Windfarm developments in particular pose an increasing potential workload to OTFA with road access, turbine founding, drainage and consequent run-off an established danger to spawning burns and currently slipping under the radar locally. OTFA yet to be approached by any developers to discuss this issue.
Orkney Islands Council - Local Plan : Main Issues Report Consultation Response. The Sub Committee responded addressing specific points, mainly relating to Salmon Farming and whether or not OIC should establish a policy based approach to considering new aquaculture activity in Orkney.
Sea Trout Document. Further to the OIC consultation response we presented OIC with a detailed document prepared by Malcolm Thomson entitled Orkney’s Wild Sea Trout – March 2010. Also submitted to SEPA and SNH it contains a summary of present knowledge on sea trout populations in Orkney as well as a list of activities which could harm trout populations. We hope the document can be used as a reference for local regulators when planning and authorising local developments. Members of the sub committee also met with members of the planning department to discuss the document and our concerns regarding sea trout. Science regarding impact on wild fish moves on apace and we are already faced with updating the document before resubmitting to planning and presenting to actual councillors.
SEPA Letter re: South Cava. We received a letter from SEPA’s Dingwall office suggesting that our organisation may have concerns regarding the new Mainstream proposed development. We responded in the affirmative.
EIA response for South Cava. At short notice we responded to an Environmental Statement for the proposed new salmon farm development at South Cava. The document was at last made available via the OIC website (a facilitation we’ve long campaigned for ). However at over 400 pages long, members of the sub committee each had to take a chunk home and pour over the detail during a busy summer weekend. This resulted in a six page detailed response the following week and we also ensured that the Salmon and Trout Association and the Sea Trout Group were able to respond.
The EIA format and content really calls into question whether any councillor would ever even glance at the summary, never mind understand the detail of such a lengthy document. There seemed to be no robust attempt to mitigate scoping concerns by simple relocation. We’ve since sent a further response following correspondence to OIC from the developers attempting to mitigate concerns.
Other agencies also have extremely valid concerns regarding this site and it may be that our friends – the local seal population - might yet save the day !
Changes to local Salmon Farming ownership. With new Polish based company Morpol buying the majority of Orkney’s salmon companies, the local aquaculture scene is ever changing and we could well be in for a much more professionally based attempt to expand salmon farming in Orkney.
Malcolm was invited to attend a meeting with one of the other new aquaculture developers. This could be a move on their part to demonstrate to the authorities that they are working with the local wild fish body. We’d be much happier if developers actually met with us to discuss where we’d be happier to see farms go rather than be told where they obviously want to put them.
Salmon Farm visit. Following this meeting MT was invited on a set date to visit a salmon farm with a view to counting lice on fish. Very few lice were found at a time of year when lice counts are traditionally low, however previously some years ago, following a mass escape of fish from this same site, we found lice on recovered fish in numbers that posed a real threat to neighbouring sea trout. We hope to set up more spontaneous visits to see if the lice count remains low.
Sea Trout Catch Returns. Malcolm Thomson’s initiative to establish more comprehensive sea trout catch returns has had a disappointing response. He is updating the project and details shall appear on the OTFA website. It is crucial that we gather as much catch data as possible prior to any repeat decline in stocks in order to quantify and measure impact. Anybody that fishes sea trout please bear this in mind. This season’s returns shall be entered into a prize draw for a bottle of Highland Park. Hopefully this shall encourage more participation.
Fisheries Trusts. Members of this committee along with OTFA President Sandy McConnachie, and other interested parties from the Management Committee attended a meeting with Callum Sinclair of RAFTS (Rivers and Fisheries Trusts of Scotland ) and Scottish Government officer Manson Wright. Callum gave a presentation on the set up and role of the many regional fisheries trusts across Scotland followed by a question and answer session. We got the impression that funders could be particularly keen to support an area where the community access to fishing was as unique as it is in Orkney. A big thank you to Callum and Manson for taking the time to come and talk to us.
Subsequently, in January Iain Muir of the West Sutherland Fisheries Trust gave a short presentation, followed by questions and answers on the functions, practicalities and potential shortcomings or benefits of a local trust. Iain has local connections and many years experience in trout and salmon conservation. Again grateful thanks to Iain for taking the time to visit us and impart his considerable experience.
Summary. OTFA face a stressfull future on the environment front. The salmon industry and Scottish government just signed a huge trade deal with China, which infers political ambition to see production massively expand. This coupled with growing evidence that current sea lice treatments are increasingly ineffective, suggests a bleak future for those interested in a sustainable wild sea trout population.
Salmon Farming organisations are once again claiming that there is no evidence that salmon farming is related to wild fish populations disappearing. They also threatened legal action recently when Marine Scotland announced it’s intention to publish escape and disease statistics for the industry. The Scottish Government subsequently backed down. It is symptomatic of the current situation that a number of national angling bodies are now considering legal options, whilst locally we can only expect a plethora of new site applications.
With this in mind the association has explored the role of the organisation Fish Legal who are willing to legally represent angling clubs across Scotland and OTFA have decided to join.
Regardless of all these developments, existing cages in Scapa Flow are swinging back from the reduced production of the mid noughties to full production, and the knock on effect on the stunning local sea trout recovery may only be a matter of time.
Never before has it been more important for local anglers to express individual and unanimous concern to our local authority and councillors regarding this situation. Otherwise we may never again see Orkney sea trout hitting the headlines nationwide. It would be particularly sad after all we Orkney anglers have witnessed recently that our children might only be left with stories of how good things used to be. Sustainable development ?
The environment sub committee has for some years now contributed to research and science trying to build up a picture of Orkney’s trout population and habitat. The work has been a great help in making robust argument to the authorities regarding the importance of our unique fishery. However the data has to be constantly maintained and updated and the workload is tremendous. Increasing personal responsibilities amongst the once young committee members makes effective response to current and growing threats more and more difficult.
We too face “tough times, tough choices” and any mechanism that offers help in this scenario would be much appreciated.
Colin Kirkpatrick – Environment Sub Committee Chair