B.C. fish farm slapped with hefty fine for illegal operations

A West Coast fish farm was hit with a $350,000 fine for illegally operating a steelhead salmon farm in Lois Lake, near Powell River. 

West Coast Fishculture (Lois Lake) Ltd pleaded guilty Thursday in Powell River Provincial Court to operating without a license under the Fisheries Act after knowingly operating its fish farm outside the bounds of its aquaculture tenure. 

“What's really important here is the need for a deterrent effect on others in the industry, and it has to be more than the mere cost of doing business,” Federal Crown prosecutor Molly Greene told the court.

The company must also remove any remaining infrastructure from the lake by Aug. 31, 2025, Judge Carmen Rogers ordered. 

However, the same charge of operating without a license was stayed against the company’s director Sean Wilton, as well as Robert Leckie, CEO of AgriMarine Holdings Inc, the operation’s parent company, which at the time of the offense was owned by Dundee Corporation. 

Neither Wilton nor Leckie appeared in court during sentencing.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) officers inspected the operation on June 3, 2021 and discovered the fish farm was 300 to 500 metres outside of its tenure, said Greene, referring to an agreed statement of facts submitted to court.  

At that time, Lois Lake fish farm operators indicated they knew they were operating outside the tenure, Greene said. 

When a second DFO inspection took place more than a year later on Sept. 27, 2022, the company had continued to stock fish in the illegal pens, she said. 

Although the company pleaded guilty, it was an aggravating factor that it continued to operate the farm for 483 days although it knew it was breaching the conditions of its license, Greene said. 

Fisheries officers noted numerous contraventions, she added.

"If you're not in compliance with your license, you are unlicensed," Greene added. 

"It's not merely a technical thing that you're operating outside the license. It's a serious incident involving a corporate entity."

The fish farm was still rearing fish illegally as of April 2023, when Canada’s National Observer reported concerns about the farm. Environmentalists believed the “shockingly huge” fish from the site potentially posed a threat to the lake’s ecosystem. 

The DFO inspection was prompted by two public complaints about the fish farm in January and April 2021, citing concerns about the fish escaping their pens. A fishery officer inspecting the operation noted five of six pens had no netting in place to prevent fish escapes, and only one pen had bird netting installed, according to the court’s statement of facts. 

A great blue heron had also become trapped in the pen with bird netting and died. 

None of the fish raised in the pens had their adipose fins clipped, as required to identify them as farmed fish. 

There was also no signage or restricted access of any kind on the farm's infrastructure, and the onsite manager couldn’t provide any records of above-water inspections, except for the two days prior to the DFO inspection. 

DFO informed West Coast Fishculture on July 19, 2021 that it would work with the company to bring the fish farm into compliance. 

However, the company had to submit a plan by July 30, 2021 to remove fish from the farm within 90 days, no longer stock the pens and remove the infrastructure outside the tenure site as quickly as possible. 

AgriMarine replied to DFO on July 30 requesting an extension until July 2022, and if the extension couldn’t be granted the infrastructure could be moved into the correct boundary by Oct. 9, 2021. 

DFO denied the request. 

The Lois Lake site has not had any fish in the lake pens since the fall of 2023 and is no longer operational, defense counsel Michael Shapray told the court.

Decommissioning of the site has been underway for a number of months but there are large anchoring systems below the tanks that are difficult to remove, Shapray said. 

A conservation group that helped raise the alarm publicly about the fish farm’s operations was pleased with the court decision. 

“I think it’s spectacular news,” said Stan Proboszcz, senior scientist with the Watershed Watch Salmon Society.

“It seems like a meaningful fine because the company knew they were operating illegally and continued to do so.” 

The fact the fish farm is no longer in operation is a positive outcome for resident native populations of trout that had to compete for survival and food with the much larger farmed salmon loose in the lake’s ecosystem, he said. 

Ron Evans, a director with West Coast Fishculture, attended court to represent the company and pay the fine. 

Evans said there are no further plans to operate a fish farm operation at Lois Lake moving forward. 

No farmed steelhead have escaped the pens since 2019 when open-net pens were replaced with fully contained durable pens, he said. 

The company tried to resolve the license violations without shutting down, Evans said, but realized at one point it had to cease operations. 

West Coast Fishculture filed a tenure amendment application with the province on July 13, 2021, according to the statement of facts. 

The company was later informed that applying to move the pens and infrastructure back to the original tenure site would be quicker so it withdrew the original application and subsequently applied to transfer the farm to the original location on Jan. 12, 2022. 

DFO and the province were still considering the application in late November 2023, 22 months later. The company formally advised DFO it had ceased operation and wouldn’t proceed with any applications on Nov. 27, 2023.

“The business wasn’t in compliance with its conditions of license and has paid the price,” Evans said. 

“The end.” 

Rochelle Baker / Local Journalism Initiative / Canada’s National Observer