From the Globe and Mail - May 30, 2011

by Mark Hume

The lack of hard data on the ocean environment has become on important issue to a federal commission investigating the collapse of sockeye salmon stocks in the Fraser River.

Repeatedly, scientists testifying at the Cohen Commission have said they don’t really know what happens to salmon once they have left fresh water and headed out into the “black box” of the Pacific Ocean. They have complained about a shortage of data, or no data at all, and have said there are limited funds available for research.

One of the papers filed with the commission identifies a “hotspot” in Queen Charlotte Sound, for example, where more than 10,000 sharks gather on a main salmon migration route – but nobody knows why the sharks are there, how long they are there, or what they are feeding on.

The knowledge gap caused Tim Leadem, a lawyer representing a coalition of conservation groups, to wonder out loud Thursday if the Cohen Commission will ever get a definitive answer on what caused the Fraser River sockeye population to collapse. The commission was appointed in 2009 after only one million salmon returned to spawn instead of the 10 million expected.

“What was the cause of the 2009 decline?” Mr. Leadem asked a panel of scientists testifying about the impact of predators on salmon. “I expect at the end of the day … [it will be an inconclusive] death by 1,000 cuts.”

Mr. Leadem noted most of the science teams that have presented papers to the Cohen Commission have concluded by saying more research is needed.

“This is perplexing,” he said. “If we are depending on science [for guidance], where are we going to find the funding? And who’s going to be pulling the strings and saying what science goes forward?”

Mr. Leadem said it appears scientists “are in a world where you are scrambling for dollars” while facing a growing list of questions.

“Yeah, we are scrambling for research funding and it is going to be the nature of science that there are always more questions that need answering,” said Andrew Trites, a professor and director at the University of British Columbia Fisheries Centre.

Mr. Justice Bruce Cohen, the B.C. Supreme Court judge who is heading the hearings, asked if there is an overall strategy for addressing the many unanswered questions about the ocean environment. “Within DFO and within the larger community of science … is there an overarching body that does a macro analysis of all the science that’s taking place? Who’s going to draw the agenda? Is this a scrambled situation … or is there actually a game plane here?” he asked.

“My perception as an academic . . . in terms of fisheries management … I don’t feel there is a game plan,” replied Dr. Trites, who appeared on a panel with John Ford, head of cetacean research in the Pacific for Department of Fisheries and Oceans, and Peter Olesiuk, DFO’s head of pinniped research.

Lara Tessaro, junior commission counsel, later asked the witnesses to name the DFO managers who are directing scientific research in the Pacific, a line of questioning that suggested the issue may be revisited as the hearings continue.

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From the Globe and Mail - May 18, 2011

by Mark Hume

When federal investigators in British Columbia found 345,000 sockeye stored in 110 industrial freezers, they thought they were onto a major black market operation for salmon caught in aboriginal food fisheries.

But Project Ice Storm, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans intelligence operation that found the salmon in 2005, ran out of funding and wasn’t able to track the fish from the cold storage plants to their final destination, the Cohen Commission heard on Tuesday.

It has long been suspected in B.C. that the aboriginal fishery is a cover for operations, with possible organized crime links, that trade in salmon the way others trade in drugs. Native leaders have rejected such allegations, saying their communities need all the fish they catch because salmon are a cultural staple in everything from births to funeral feasts.

DFO documents filed with the commission, which is investigating the collapse of sockeye salmon populations in the Fraser River, show enforcement officials felt the fish, caught under “food, social and ceremonial” licences, were destined to go into the commercial market.

“The FSC First Nations fishery on the Lower Fraser River is largely out of control and should be considered in all contexts, a commercial fishery,” states a DFO intelligence assessment of Project Ice Storm.

“The Department of Fisheries and Oceans are unable to effectively control the illegal sales of FSC salmon,” it states. “A major change is needed in fisheries laws to effectively deal with the commercial processing and storage of FSC fish.”

Another document, recording a meeting of DFO enforcement officers in April, 2010, states that “97 per cent of FSC harvest in LFR [Lower Fraser River] is thought to be sold.”

Scott Coultish, regional chief of DFO’s Intelligence and Investigation Services, said in testimony the estimate was based on the personal comments of field officers, not from any research. But he felt it was accurate.

Each year, bands are allocated a catch of salmon to cover their food, social and ceremonial needs. Some years, when there is a surplus of fish, they are also allowed “economic opportunity” catches, which can be sold. In 2005, only 5,500 sockeye were caught in the native EO fishery on the Fraser.

Mr. Coultish said the 345,000 sockeye in cold storage plants in the Lower Mainland and on Vancouver Island were registered to individuals and companies. The fish, which were legally stored, were flash frozen, or smoked and in vacuum packaging.

“Most or all of this was consistent with what you would see for commercial fish,” he said. “This product was simply not for food, societal and ceremonial use.”

Randy Nelson, DFO’s director of conservation and protection on the Pacific coast, told the commission his department didn’t have the resources to follow up on the find, and he doubted they would in the future because he has been told significant cutbacks are coming.

In an interview outside the hearings, Ernie Crey, a fisheries adviser for the Sto:lo Nation, which fishes on the Lower Fraser, rejected the implications of the testimony of the two DFO officials.

He said 950,000 FSC sockeye were caught by native communities in the Fraser in 2005, and because the season was short and intense, a large number of fish arrived quickly and went into commercial freezers.

“About one third of our fish were in cold storage. This would not be unusual,” he said.

Mr. Crey said salmon are served at almost every ceremony.

“If a member of my community passes away, you’d get 250 to 1,000 people attending the funeral. Fish would be served. It’s the same at weddings, birthdays. … And that’s a lot of fish,” he said.

About 40,000 aboriginal people live in Metro Vancouver and about 15,000 are in the Fraser Valley. It’s not clear how many of them get FSC salmon.

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From the Globe & Mail - May 8, 2011

by Gary Mason

Not that long ago, Christy Clark the radio host would have had a field day with Christy Clark the politician.

Before Ms. Clark became B.C. Premier in February, she often delighted in putting politicians on the hot seat during her afternoon time slot. Her inquisitions were often so hard-hitting, listeners felt sorry for the poor elected official on the other side of the microphone.

Were she still sitting in her host’s chair today, it’s difficult to imagine Ms. Clark accepting now-Premier Clark’s excuse that’s she’s “too busy running the province” to participate in an all-candidates debate in the by-election in which she is running.

Ms. Clark has done a number of commendable things in the short time she has been Premier. Her populist instincts, no doubt honed during her time in radio, are exceptional. And she has surrounded herself with a team of advisers that has demonstrated an undeniable adeptness in pushing the right buttons.

But the Premier’s decision not to enter at least one all-candidates debate does not reflect well on her. In fact, it’s a position that demonstrates a fair amount of contempt for the Point Grey voter.

No space in her schedule for a two-hour debate? Really? But she does have time to throw on an apron and pretend to be a waitress for a couple of hours? This, we’re told, so the Premier could “spend a bit of time walking in someone else’s shoes.”

Please.

It was a cynical and crass publicity stunt designed to draw attention to the government’s decision to raise the minimum wage – a move for which Ms. Clark deserves full credit. It should have happened a long time ago under the Liberals. She didn’t need to sully a good public policy decision with a blindingly transparent, carefully orchestrated photo-op purely intended to accrue positive publicity.

The Premier has no more appreciation now of the life of a person living on minimum wage than she did before she and her political strategists decided it might be good for her numbers if she served coffee for a couple of hours in a diner. Ms. Clark makes nearly $200,000 a year, plus benefits most people can only dream of. Spend a year on minimum wage, Premier, and your fact-finding mission might not look quite as patronizing.

But back to the debate.

By now, Christy Clark the radio host would have asked Premier Clark what she is afraid of? Why she is refusing to put her candidacy up to the scrutiny of an all-candidates debate? Especially given that the Premier campaigned during the Liberal leadership race on a promise to be more open and transparent. What does she have to lose?

The answer is more than the other guys.

That is why Ms. Clark is not debating; because she has more to lose than anyone else in the debate, especially NDP candidate David Eby. She would inevitably be asked questions that would be uncomfortable. (About her connections to the BC Rail scandal, perhaps.) Plus, a debate would only serve to give Mr. Eby publicity that he is having trouble generating on his own. So why give him that platform?

The answer is because it’s the right thing to do. When you run in an election, you are expected to field questions from your opponents. It is a crucial test of your candidacy. It is practically a fundamental tenet of our democratic system. You don’t say you don’t have time because you’re the Premier. If you can’t find two hours in your schedule to attend an all-candidates meeting, how do you expect to represent the riding once you’re elected?

I think those are all questions Ms. Clark would have asked during her radio days.

To this point, the Premier has received little grief from her former colleagues in the media for the stand she’s taken. So she’s probably not concerned about the issue hurting her chances of winning.

She has mostly been spending her time being out front of a number of popular and populist announcements that we’re likely to see plenty more of in the coming months. Her recent decision to cancel parking fees in parks, while not a huge deal, was smart. As was her edict to cancel controversial rate hikes being planned by BC Hydro.

There is almost certainly an election coming this fall, so it should be all good news, all the time until then.

At this point, it’s uncertain in whose shoes the Premier intends to walk next – as she’s promised. Maybe she’ll slip out of her power suit and high heels to become a homeless person for an hour.

And then afterward she can meet her friends at the Four Seasons for dinner and tell them all about it.

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From the Globe & Mail - May 3, 2011

by Mark Hume

A federal public inquiry into the decline of sockeye salmon in the Fraser River has been accused of suppressing information that an infectious virus has been detected in British Columbia waters.

The concern is raised in letters to the Cohen Commission of Inquiry by Gregory McDade, a lawyer representing salmon researcher and anti-fish farm activist Alexandra Morton.

Officially the commission is not engaged with the issue, but the letters, obtained by The Globe and Mail, show that Ms. Morton’s knowledge of the disease and a debate over the public’s right to know about it has developed into a contentious issue behind the scenes.

The commission suspended its hearings for the day on Tuesday for what spokesperson Carla Shore described as a routine all-counsel meeting to discuss legal housekeeping matters.

But sources say the issue up for discussion is the one raised by Mr. McDade’s letters, in which he argues Ms. Morton should be released from the commission’s undertaking of confidentiality.

The undertaking prevents participants in the hearings from making public any information they have obtained through disclosure. And with 390,000 documents and more than 188,000 e-mails disclosed so far, that means there is a mountain of material to keep secret.

Mr. McDade wrote that in combing through that vast volume of material, Ms. Morton came across “indications” a disease known as infectious salmon anemia virus, or ISA, may have been detected in fish samples tested by provincial government labs.

The suggestion is the symptoms of the disease were detected, but not the disease itself, which has never been reported on the West Coast. ISA can be lethal to Atlantic salmon, but Pacific salmon have proved immune to it in tests. The concern is that if the disease were present, it could change and begin to kill Pacific stocks.

“Canada and Canadians are obliged to report diseases of aquatic animals as a member of the World Organization for Animal Health,” Mr. McDade wrote.

“There are approximately 35 indications of the existence of ISA identified in these records to date,” he wrote. “Of great biological concern is that some of these diagnoses are in Pacific salmon, suggesting potential spread of a novel and virulent virus into native populations may be underway into the North Pacific.”

He asked that Ms. Morton be released from her undertaking so she can report her ISA concerns to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

“There is a very substantial public interest in ensuring full reporting of ISA indications. An ISA epidemic could prove devastating to wild salmon stocks. In our submission the public interest in proper reporting must outweigh the interest in confidentiality,” Mr. McDade wrote.

The request was refused by commission lawyers – but neither the ruling nor Mr. McDade’s application were released.

In a second letter Mr. McDade objected to the secrecy around the application and the ruling, saying it “is reminiscent of the criticisms of the Star Chamber. It is not appropriate to a public inquiry.”

Mr. McDade wrote that British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Bruce Cohen, who is heading the inquiry, should hear submissions on the matter “in an open public setting.”

He concludes by stating that the second letter, which was distributed to the more than 20 lawyers representing participants at the hearings, should not be covered by the undertaking because it does not contain any confidential documents.

Mr. McDade did not return calls on Tuesday. Ms. Morton said because of the undertaking she cannot discuss her concerns.

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From The Globe & Mail - April 5, 2011

by Mark Hume

An unguarded note a Department of Fisheries and Oceans manager wrote to himself has given a judicial inquiry a glimpse into the frustrations and fears felt by frontline staff fighting to save salmon habitat in British Columbia.

The brief, one-page document written by Jason Hwang, a manager for DFO’s Habitat and Enhancement Branch in the Kamloops area, was entered as evidence at the Cohen commission on Tuesday by Judah Harrison, a lawyer representing a coalition of conservation groups.

Mr. Harrison, who obtained the document through disclosure, described it as “a sort of unguarded critique” of DFO’s struggles to protect habitat.

“Well, I definitely agree it’s unguarded,” said Mr. Hwang, who was one of three DFO witnesses testifying on habitat issues. “I believe I wrote that for myself for some upcoming planning meeting. . . .trying to reflect on some key things we were grappling with.”

Mr. Hwang said the note is a few years old, but in response to questions from Mr. Harrison, he agreed things haven’t changed.

“Huge amount of development in Thompson, Okanagan, Nicola, Shuswap. We can’t keep up. Referral backlog is up to 4 months,” wrote Mr. Hwang, whose department is responsible for ensuring salmon habitat is not degraded by logging, mining, agriculture, urban growth and other activities. “We are not able to pursue smaller occurrences that in the past we have pursued and prosecuted.”

Earlier in the week, the commission heard that DFO is not meeting its key policy goal of ensuring that developments do not cause a net loss of fish habitat. The commission, which is examining the decline of sockeye salmon in the Fraser River, also heard DFO’s effectiveness was hampered by a new habitat management policy (known as the Environmental Process Modernization Plan, or EPMP), which staff in B.C. resisted because it was “lowering the bar” on environmental protection.

“EPMP and staff reductions have reduced our ability to engage with proponents. . .we don’t have a handle on what is actually going on,” Mr. Hwang stated in his note.

“We have no viable referral system. This is killing us,” he stated.

“We are without question not attaining no net loss. . .Our staff are very dis-illusioned [sic] that the department is not doing more to address this.

“The relationship between province and DFO is in a state of disfunction [sic]. We don’t coordinate on referrals in any consistent way, and there is no guidance or leadership from Vancouver-Victoria on this.”

Mr. Hwang also wrote DFO was not keeping up with the increased logging authorized by the province in response to the mountain pine-beetle epidemic, which has swept through much of the B.C. Interior, killing huge stands of timber.

“We are totally disengaged from operational forestry. Rates of cut have increased massively in response to MPB. We don’t have a handle on what is going on, and are not providing any meaningful guidance on what we would like to see for fish,” wrote Mr. Hwang.

The frank assessment of DFO’s failings contrasted with the more cautious evaluations given in direct testimony by Mr. Hwang, and his co-witnesses, Patrice LeBlanc, director of habitat policies for DFO in Ottawa, and Rebecca Reid, a regional director in the Pacific.

They portrayed DFO as doing a good job despite the challenges of budget restrictions and staffing cuts.

Dr. Craig Orr, who was observing proceedings as executive director of the Watershed Watch Salmon Society, said he was dismayed by the testimony.

“The evidence supports the widely held belief that government is more concerned with streamlining harmful industrial development and bolstering flagging public confidence than in protecting critical salmon habitat,” he said.

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From the Globe & Mail - March 29, 2011

by Mark Hume

Increased levels of radioactive iodine have been detected in seaweed and rainwater samples in British Columbia and a scientist from Simon Fraser University says the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor in Japan is clearly the source.

Krzysztof (Kris) Starosta, an associate professor in the department of chemistry at SFU, said levels of the radioisotope iodine-131 have risen, but are not a health concern.

Perry Kendall, British Columbia’s provincial health officer, reinforced that view, saying the levels detected by SFU are “minuscule … very, very tiny,” and are nothing to worry about.

He said the levels are “about one-millionth” the dose that would be of concern.

“We’re looking at very low levels of radiation here,” Dr. Kendall said.

Dr. Starosta agreed the levels are low, but he said they did climb over several days of testing as Japanese nuclear workers struggled to bring the damaged reactor under control.

“As of now, the levels we’re seeing are not harmful to humans,” Dr. Starosta said. “We have not reached levels of elevated risk.”

He said the radiation is being carried across the Pacific to North America by the jet stream, strong wind currents that blow west to east high in the atmosphere. While most of the radioactivity falls out over the ocean, some of it has reached the West Coast where it is being deposited with rain. It is mixing with seawater and accumulating in seaweed.

The rainwater samples containing iodine-131 were taken at SFU’s campus on Burnaby Mountain and in downtown Vancouver. Seaweed samples were collected in North Vancouver near the Seabus terminal.

Samples taken March 16 and March 18 did not show the signature for iodine-131, but it did show up in tests on March, 19, 20 and 25.

The radioactive substance is measured in “decays of iodine-131 per second per litre of rainwater,” which is expressed as becquerels or Bq/l.

On March 18, the level was zero, but on March 19 it was 9 Bq/l and on March 20 it was 12 Bq/l. On March 25 the level was 11 Bq/l.

In Japan, a health warning was issued recently when iodine-131 levels reached 210 Bq/l in drinking water. The Japanese standard for iodine-131 in drinking water is 100 Bq/l if the water is to be consumed by an infant, and 300 Bq/l if the water is to be consumed by an adult.

“The only possible source of iodine-131 in the atmosphere is a release from a nuclear fission,” Dr. Starosta said. “Iodine-131 has a half-life of eight days, thus we conclude the only possible release which could happen is from the Fukushima incident.”

He said iodine-131 will probably continue to show up in B.C. for three to four weeks after the Fukushima nuclear reactor stops releasing radioactivity into the atmosphere.

Iodine-131 has been detected in rainwater at several locations in the United States in the past few days, but far below levels that would raise health concerns.

Dr. Kendall said health authorities will continue to monitor the situation, but it appears the fight to control the damaged reactor in Japan is being won, and even a worst-case scenario wouldn’t threaten Canada.

“My sense is that it’s coming under control. The amounts of radiation that were being emitted last week are probably not going to be measured again, unless something absolutely disastrous happens,” he said. “Health Canada and the [Radiation] Protection Branch … have modelled with the U.S. other scenarios. They modelled one where a couple of the nuclear reactor cores melted down and three of the spent fuel-rod containments melted down – and even then we are at such a distance away, and there is such a volumetric dispersion, that we’re not going to see levels of harm.”

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From the Globe & Mail - March 27, 2011

by Mark Hume

When a federal commission investigating the collapse of Fraser River sockeye stocks heard recently that a Fisheries and Oceans scientist who has done groundbreaking research was being silenced, it gave Jeffrey Hutchings a bad case of déjà vu.

“Your recent articles on DFO’s muzzling of Dr. Kristi Miller remind me of similar attempts by DFO to stifle the imparting of science from government scientists to other scientists and to the Canadian public,” he wrote in an e-mail.

Prof. Hutchings, a widely respected fisheries scientist, holds the Canada Research Chair in Marine Conservation & Biodiversity at Dalhousie University, in Halifax. In 1997, he, Carl Walters from the Fisheries Centre at the University of British Columbia and Richard Haedrich, Department of Biology at Memorial University of Newfoundland, set off a media firestorm with a paper that ripped DFO for suppressing controversial science.

Writing in the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, they outlined two cases – the collapse of Atlantic cod stocks and the diversion of the Nechako River, in B.C. – in which they maintained research was stifled because it didn’t conform to political agendas.

They argued that, on the East Coast, DFO silenced scientists who warned Atlantic cod stocks had been devastated not by seal predation, but from overfishing. And, in the West, they stated that DFO rejected research that showed an Alcan plan to divert the Nechako River would damage Chinook stocks.

In both cases, they wrote, hard-working scientists had their findings suppressed by DFO managers who didn’t want to see research that clashed with political goals.

“We contend that political and bureaucratic interference in government fisheries science compromises the DFO’s efforts to sustain fish stocks,” Mr. Hutchings and his colleagues wrote.

When the article came out, it created headlines, sparking a national debate on the role of science within government. DFO officials denied stifling any researchers. But the article, quoting internal DFO memos, showed scientists had been “explicitly ordered … not to discuss ‘politically sensitive’ matters … with the public, irrespective of the scientific basis.”

Earlier this month, the Cohen Commission of Inquiry Into the Decline of Sockeye Salmon in the Fraser River, saw an e-mail by Dr. Miller in which she complained about being kept away from a workshop because her DFO masters “fear that we will not be able to control the way the disease issue could be construed in the press.”

Dr. Miller, who suspects a virus is killing millions of sockeye salmon in the river, had a paper published in the prestigious journal Science earlier this year. But she has not been allowed to talk to the press about it.

“By preventing Dr. Miller from speaking to the media and from participating in non-DFO controlled meetings/workshops, DFO is inhibiting science,” Mr. Hutchings said in his e-mail. “This action, so evidently lacking in openness and transparency, is regrettably consistent with the objective of controlling the information that public servants are permitted to disseminate to the public.”

Dr. Miller’s situation also inspired Alan Sinclair, a retired DFO scientist, to write: “Your recent article reporting that DFO put a gag order on Dr. Kristi Miller’s research on disease in sockeye salmon is very disturbing. Unfortunately, this sort of thing is all too common in DFO and other Federal Ministries with large science components. I encourage you to follow up on this and make Canadians more aware of what’s going on.”

But following up while Dr. Miller is locked away from the press won’t be easy. She isn’t due to testify before the Cohen Commission for several months. Until then, Canadians can only wonder what she discovered – and why she was silenced.

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From the Globe & Mail - March 24, 2011

by Mark Hume

A heated battle between an anti-fish farm group and the aquaculture industry is headed to the Supreme Court of British Columbia over attack ads that equate farmed salmon with cancer-causing tobacco.

Mainstream Canada, the second-largest aquaculture company on the West Coast, is seeking damages for “false and defamatory postings” and seeks to have the offending material removed from the websites, Facebook accounts and Twitter feeds of Don Staniford and his organization, the Global Alliance Against Industrial Aquaculture.

Mainstream Canada announced the lawsuit in a press release on Thursday, and Mr. Staniford responded by releasing a copy of a letter he sent to Mainstream’s parent company in Norway, Cermaq ASA, in which he says he welcomes the chance to debate the issue in court.

“GAAIA takes Cermaq’s complaint extremely seriously and very much welcomes the opportunity to expand upon why we honestly and firmly believe that ‘Salmon Farming Kills,’” states the letter, repeating one of the anti-fish farm slogans to which Mainstream objects.

Laurie Jensen, Mainstream Canada’s communications and corporate sustainability manager, said the company is not concerned the lawsuit might give Mr. Staniford and his campaign more publicity.

“It’s not about the media,” she said. “It’s about the fact that these guys have crossed the line. The comments there are so insane and libellous that we just can’t not do anything any more.”

Ms. Jensen said the anti-fish farm campaign has drawn complaints from the company’s employees, customers, suppliers and from some first nations, which are partners in aquaculture operations.

“They are saying somebody’s got to do something about this – and if not us, then who?” she said. “So that’s what it’s about. We can’t let this continue. Enough’s enough.”

Mr. Staniford said the lawsuit is an attempt by the company to silence its harshest critic.

“This is an example of the Norwegian government trying to shut down free speech,” he said, noting that the GAAIA website was taken offline after the Internet service provider was advised of the lawsuit by the company.

Mr. Staniford said he hopes to have a new site up soon, and that he will use it to continue his battle against fish farms and to raise legal defence funds.

Mr. Staniford, who is based in B.C., said he formed GAAIA recently to go after fish farms internationally, and that the organization “has supporters globally.”

Mainstream, which produces 25,000 tonnes of farmed fish annually in B.C., states in its claim that Mr. Staniford and GAAIA defamed the company numerous times in a campaign launched in January that ran in three segments, under the titles “Salmon Farming Kills,” “Silent Spring of the Sea” and “Smoke on the Water, Cancer on the Coast.”

The notice of claim lists more than 30 slogans the company finds defamatory and says the anti-fish farm campaign “employs graphic imagery that links the defamatory words and Mainstream to tobacco manufacturers and cigarettes.”

It states that tobacco products are known to be harmful to human health and alleges the campaign clearly implies that Mainstream’s products “kill people … make people sick … are unsafe for human consumption … [and that] Mainstream is knowingly marketing a carcinogenic product that causes illness, death and harm.”

The GAAIA campaign is aimed at “Norwegian-owned” fish farms in general, but the claim notes that the Norwegian government owns 43.5 per cent of Cermaq ASA, so the link to Mainstream is obvious.

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From the Globe & Mail - March 20, 2011

by Mark Hume

Of all the theories heard so far by the Cohen Commission, the most intriguing involves new research by a molecular scientist who is pointing to the possibility of an epidemic of salmon leukemia.

Kristi Miller hasn’t been called to testify on her research yet, but her work is already causing a buzz at the inquiry, in part because it seems an effort has been made to keep it under wraps.

Dr. Miller has not been available for media interviews, even though she recently published a paper in the prestigious journal Science. Usually, Fisheries and Oceans Canada promotes interviews when one of their researchers gains an international profile for groundbreaking work. But when Dr. Miller’s paper came out earlier this year, all requests for interviews were denied.

She will be called before the Cohen Commission, probably toward the end of the summer, when the hearings begin digging into the possible role of disease in the decline of sockeye salmon in the Fraser River.

Brian Wallace, senior counsel for the commission, will likely probe the full extent of her research at that time, but if he doesn’t, Gregory McDade, a lawyer appearing at the hearings for a coalition of conservation groups, certainly will.

Mr. McDade signalled his deep interest in Dr. Miller’s work recently in questioning two witnesses.

When Laura Richards, Pacific regional director of science for DFO, testified last week, he asked her about a series of e-mails that suggested Dr. Miller was being muzzled.

In a Nov. 2009 e-mail to Mark Saunders, manager of salmon and freshwater ecosystems division, Dr. Miller said she was being kept away from a science forum.

“Laura [Richards] does not want me to attend any of the sockeye salmon workshops that are not run by DFO for fear that we will not be able to control the way the disease issue could be construed in the press. I worry that this approach of saying nothing will backfire,” she wrote. “Laura also clearly does not want to indicate … that the disease research is of strategic importance.”

Dr. Richards testified that Dr. Miller had somehow misinterpreted things, and that there was no intent to silence her.

Mr. McDade also asked Scott Hinch about Dr. Miller’s work.

Dr. Hinch is principal investigator at the University of British Columbia’s Pacific salmon ecology and conservation lab, is the architect of some remarkable research into why so many sockeye die in the Fraser River before spawning, and is a co-author with Dr. Miller on the Science article.

Dr. Hinch testified that some years more than 70 per cent of the sockeye die in the river, en route to the spawning grounds.

“And that would make this problem the single greatest problem in terms of loss of salmon of any that you’re aware of,” said Mr. McDade.

“Oh, yes,” answered Dr. Hinch.

“So we could be looking at losses of over three million fish in some years?” asked Mr. McDade.

“Yes,” replied Dr. Hinch.

Mr. McDade then quoted the Science article, which hypothesizes the mass mortality of salmon in the Fraser “is in response to a virus” that infects fish before river entry.

“You agree with that statement?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Dr. Hinch.

“So this purported virus, if it in fact exists, goes a very substantial way towards … explaining the whole of the en-route loss?” he was asked.

“It could. And that’s why it got published in the journal Science,” replied Dr. Hinch.

“So the Miller paper has hypothesized a purported virus but hasn’t named it. … But in your discussions, you’ve talked about salmon leukemia as a possible name for that?” said Mr. McDade.

“That was Kristina Miller's offering, yes,” said Dr. Hinch.

“And have you heard that referred to by fish farmers as fish AIDS?”

“ I haven’t heard of that, no,” said Dr. Hinch.

“ But as a form of immune suppression?” asked Mr. McDade.

“Yes.”

Dr. Miller won’t testify for months yet and she remains banned from giving any media interviews. But her research, which could explain why up to three million salmon a year are dying in the Fraser, is already reverberating at the Cohen Commission.

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From the Globe & Mail - March 15, 2011

by Shawn McCarthy

The nuclear industry uses a “defence in depth” approach – having backups for your backup systems – but cascading disasters and human error have overwhelmed those safety systems in Japan and pushed the country to the brink of a nuclear meltdown.

Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear station was clearly designed to withstand the worst earthquake to hit the country in modern times, but key backup safety systems failed under the resulting blackout and a massive tsunami that inundated the area.

That’s left a razor-thin margin of error for emergency crews working under enormous stress to prevent a meltdown that could spread radiation across their homeland. They’ve survived catastrophic natural disasters and explosions at the plant, but the failure to close a pressure gauge could lose the war.

The see-saw battle to regain mastery of the crippled plants has been hobbled by some design shortcomings at the 40-year-old facility – though the critical containment vessels appear to be intact. And there is a residual lack of trust in its operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), which has an unfortunate history of hiding trouble from the public.

But the fundamental question is whether the global nuclear industry designs reactors to withstand a “perfect storm” situation, in which multiple calamities and human error conspire together to create what the industry calls a “low-probability, high-consequence event.”

Former nuclear regulator Linda Keen said the industry is often inadequately prepared.

“In my experience, I found the nuclear engineers extremely optimistic,” said Ms. Keen, former head of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.

“They’re optimistic about everything: how fast they’re going to do things, the cost, the idea of whether you are going to have an accident or not.”

Ms. Keen – who chaired an international safety panel during her tenure – said that the industry can be too fixated on individual threats and unprepared to cope with the multiple disasters that are unlikely but can occur.

“It’s pretty clear that in Japan they didn’t do the proper planning for the backup power. … There were ways of providing more defence in depth for that facility.”

In fact, the Japanese are noted for their diligent approach to possible natural disasters, including preparing the population to participate in the response or evacuate quickly when necessary.

“When it comes to preparedness to a large catastrophic event, there is no society on the planet that is as prepared as Japan,” said Stephen Flynn, a former disaster planner in the White House and now a Washington-based consultant.

“They’re the gold standard. When it comes to earthquakes but also general civic preparedness, it’s deeply part of their experience.”

Mr. Flynn agreed, however, that even high-risk industries often fail to properly prepare for the cascading effects of multiple disasters. Such was the case at the Fukushima plant, where emergency power systems were left dangerously exposed to flooding from a tsunami.

One problem, Ms. Keen said, is that the Fukushima plant is 40 years old and doesn’t have the same level of protection – thickness of outer containment walls, for example – as a modern plant.

At the same time, its owner, TEPCO, created suspicion among Japanese over safety issues unveiled in 2004, when the company’s top executive had to resign in a scandal over doctored safety tests.

Ms. Keen said nuclear utilities and governments often down play the threat of contamination from an accident in the hopes that problems can be overcome.

Industry insiders insist that the nuclear fraternity places an enormous premium on safety, knowing that a serious accident can throw up major hurdles to the development of new plants.

“Our industry is known for being on the conservative side of design,” said Duncan Hawthorne, chief executive at Ontario’s Bruce Power and a board member of the World Association of Nuclear Operators, which was set up after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.

But he acknowledged that the placement of diesel generators on the grounds outside the reactor building left them dangerously exposed to a tsunami, which was three metres higher than the plant had been designed for.

The loss of the diesel machines meant crews had to turn to battery powered generators to keep pumps operating to cool the reactor cores. Since those have given out, the workers have been using hoses to douse the reactor cores with sea water. That process resulted in a buildup of steam that requires venting, spreading low-level radiation, and the creation of hydrogen that caused explosions in at least two – perhaps three – of the outer containment buildings.

Harried crews have also apparently made some costly mistakes.

At one point, an air flow gauge was accidentally turned off, blocking the flow of water into the reactor. As a result, fuel rods in Fukushima’s No. 2 reactor were exposed and began to melt.

In another incident, crews did not notice the remaining diesel generator had run out of fuel, interrupting the water flow for precious moments.

Mr. Hawthorne said the emergency crews are operating under the most dire conditions. Two of their colleagues were lost and presumed drowned while outside checking for earthquake damage when the tsunami hit.

“The only thing left standing in this area is the plant – you don’t know where your family [is], you don’t know what’s happened, but you have a job to do and you have to stick on it.”

Costly missteps at Fukushima Daiichi

Backup generators susceptible to tsunami: The plant designer prepared well for an earthquake, but backup generators and fuel tanks were located on lower ground, leaving them vulnerable to a tsunami that might be expected to occur from a massive offshore temblor.

Lack of adequate battery power: When some diesel generators needed to cool the reactor core failed, the crews resorted to battery powered pumps. But the batteries had an eight-hour lifespan, and the plant was not equipped with enough extras to maintain cooling efforts.

Poor communication: The Japanese head of the International Atomic Energy Agency complained of not getting timely or detailed information, as have domestic news media. As a result, the population is uncertain and panicky at the potential threat.

Running out of fuel: Water levels in No. 2 reactor fell after the diesel pump ran out of fuel and workers did not notice quickly enough.

Checking the gauges: Air pressure inside No. 2 reactor rose suddenly when the air flow gauge was accidentally turned off. That blocked the flow of water into the reactor, leading to the water level dropping and the exposure of the fuel rods.

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