GMO Salmon: Call for public hearings in PEI

GMO Salmon: Call for public hearings in PEI

Postby Oscar » Fri May 12, 2017 8:46 pm

Council of Canadians & Earth Action call on PEI Premier MacLauchlan to hold public hearings on GMO fish facility

[ https://canadians.org/blog/council-cana ... s-gmo-fish ]

May 11, 2017 - 8:03 pm

Will PEI Premier Wade MacLauchlan allow genetically modified salmon to be grown in Rollo Bay West without public hearings?

The Council of Canadians and Earth Action are calling on Prince Edward Island Premier Wade MacLauchlan to hold public hearings into a proposed commercial facility in Rollo Bay West (a community about 73 kilometres east of Charlottetown) where genetically modified fish would be grown to market size.

CBC reports, "Environmental groups say public hearings should be held on a proposed facility in P.E.I. that would produce genetically modified salmon for human consumption. Earth Action and the Council of Canadians say AquaBounty's plan to produce the eggs and fish on the Island is different from the proposal approved by the province last year."

The genetically modified AquaAdvantage brand Atlantic salmon are produced by the Massachusetts-based company AquaBounty. The salmon contains a growth hormone from a Chinook salmon and a gene from an ocean pout. The result is a fish that is large enough to eat in about a year and a half, rather than the typical three years.

AquaBounty had originally proposed to raise conventional salmon at the facility in Rollo Bay West, transfer the eggs from those fish to its plant in Bay Fortune (about 4 kilometres away) where they would be genetically modified, then export the eggs to be raised into fully-grown fish in Panama. Now AquaBounty wants to raise genetically modified fish to full size in two 40,000 square foot buildings in Rollo Bay West.

AquaBounty submitted an environmental impact statement on the Rollo Bay West site to the province last spring stating the facility would raise conventional salmon for their eggs. Then last month the company submitted an amended environmental impact statement saying the Rollo Bay West site would be used to produce GMO salmon from egg to market site. The P.E.I. Department of Communities, Land and Environment is currently reviewing that amended environmental impact statement.

Today's news report highlights, "The groups say they have written to Premier Wade MacLauchlan to ask for a series of public meetings on the proposal, but it wasn't clear if the province will agree to such hearings."

If you want to support the call for public hearings, the premier can be reached via:

email - premier@gov.pe.ca
Twitter - @WadeMacLauchlan
telephone - 902-368-4400

In May 2016, both Health Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency approved the genetically-modified salmon for sale as food - without a label noting that it is a genetically modified product. Health Minister Jane Philpott has said the product would be ready for market around November of this year.

Environment and Climate Change Canada has already rejected calls for a federal environmental assessment on the proposed Rollo Bay West site.

The Council of Canadians -- in collaboration with Earth Action, the Canadian Biotechnology Action Network and other allies -- has been opposing AquaBounty's genetically modified salmon since September 2010.

For more information and ways in which you can take action on this issue, please see the CBAN website here:
[ https://cban.ca/gmos/products/ge-animals/ge-fish/ ]


Brent Patterson's blog
Political Director of the Council of Canadians
[ https://canadians.org/blogs/brent-patterson ]
Oscar
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