BC salmon farmers have a long term commitment to their industry and its sustainability. Like all farmers, seafood growers need to be profitable. To do this, their salmon stocks must grow quickly, stay healthy and yield a high quality product. It is clearly in the farmer's best interest to ensure that water quality is maintained at the highest level. To this end, farmers conduct daily water quality tests on the farm sites.
Producers use the data collected to anticipate problems before they occur.
In addition, satellite technology helps identify toxic algal blooms, oil and chemical spills and other environmental threats to both wild and farmed salmon. Salmon farms cannot operate in waters polluted by pulp mill discharge, municipal sewage, oil s pills,fertilizers, land run-off containing fecal bacteria, excessive silt from land erosion, ballast water and waste from ships, or other industrial pollution. To avoid these external sources of pollution, salmon farms are located in more remote areas on the northern half of Vancouver Island and our central coast. Salmon farms occupy a very small percentage of BC coastal waters, so the habitat affected is also very small. If placed side by side, all the salmon farm sea cages would occupy only about 70 hectares, less space than the new runway at Vancouver International Airport or one-sixth the size of Stanley Park.