SEPA changes to fish farm licences 'will be frozen by appeals process'
Environment watchdog's bid to impose stricter lice limits may be on ice for months or years as Scottish salmonid producers challenge 'illegal' changes to licences for 60 sites
The full extent of a Scottish salmon industry fightback against stricter lice levels imposed by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) has become clear.
Sixty appeals have been submitted against the changes and are now listed on the website of the Scottish Government’s Planning and Environmental Appeals Division (DPEA), which determines certain appeals against decisions made by planning authorities and other bodies – in this case, SEPA.
Fish Farming Expert reported last week that salmon farmers Mowi, Bakkafrost, Scottish Sea Farms, and Loch Duart, along with trout farmer Kames, had made formal appeals against the changes which introduce new limits on sea lice numbers. According to information on the DPEA Mowi has submitted appeals for 29 sites; Scottish Sea Farms for 11; Bakkafrost Scotland for 16; Loch Duart for 2; and Kames Fish Farming for 2.
The Scottish Government has since confirmed to FFE that SEPA's changes, which were due to come into effect this month, will be postponed until after the appeals are finally determined or withdrawn.
SEPA is responsible for giving fish farms a CAR (Controlled Activities Regulations) licence, which controls the discharges of organic matter, medicine residues, and other chemicals that a farm can make, and is effectively an operating licence.
Protecting wild salmon
The Scottish Government has also handed SEPA responsibility for control of interaction between sea lice from fish farms and wild Atlantic salmon and its changes - or “Notices of Variation” - to CAR licences are intended to extend the scope of the licence for that purpose.
SEPA believes that changing the rules in the CAR licences will better safeguard wild salmon smolts from lice from fish farms that they pass during their migration.
SEPA’s changes impose:
- specific sea lice limits for each site
- new sea lice counting and reporting requirements
- a new requirement to report live fish numbers.
The variations also extend SEPA’s power by altering the controlled activities authorised by fish farm CAR licences to include “the operation of a marine pen fish farm”.
Fish farmers oppose all the changes listed above, including the variation referring to the operation of a farm. They say SEPA’s modelling massively overestimates the number of lice on farms and the threat to wild smolts. They also claim that SEPA has exceeded its authority and that the licence variation notices it has issued are illegal.
What happens next?
The number of appeals submitted to the DPEA is so large that they have yet to be registered by the DPEA. All the appeals listed on the DPEA website were submitted either on February 20 or 21.
Once the appeals have been registered, the next step is for the DPEA to appoint an independent reporter, or reporters, to look at the cases.
The Scottish Government currently has vacancies for seven reporters to meet the DPEA’s workload. Reporters are expected to have a degree in Town and Country Planning or equivalent, Royal Town Planning Institute accreditation, or, qualification and accreditation in a related profession such as law, architecture, surveying, or environmentalist.
Asked whether the fish farm appeals would be handled individually or together, a Scottish Government spokesperson said: “Appeals have just been received and it would not be appropriate to comment on their handling at this stage.”
40-week target
The DPEA has a 40-week target to make submissions and recommendations to Scottish Government ministers or decide appeals itself. There is no limit on the time ministers can take to decide on an appeal once they have received a report from the DPEA. For example, Loch Long Salmon – which wants to establish a semi-closed containment salmon farm at Beinn Reithe, Loch Long – appealed against refusal of planning permission in February 2023 and is still waiting for ministers to say yes or no to the plan.
While such a long delay has frustrated Loch Long Salmon’s executives, a similar delay would suit the fish farmers appealing against SEPA’s rule changes, although they would prefer to have the CAR licence changes quashed.
Speaking in August last year, Ben Hadfield, boss of salmon farmer Mowi Scotland, said SEPA’s lice model uses a very low impact threshold which equates to detectable effects on wild salmon smolt behaviour but not levels that would induce high mortality.
Not validated
“It assumes all salmon farm biomass is constantly at its maximum, which it is not and, crucially, it is yet to undergo full validation to remove layer upon layer of over-precautionary assumption in order to attain a realistic correlation,” said Hadfield.
“If this is not changed, then it will overregulate and force unnecessary treatment of farm-raised salmon which will challenge the high welfare of stocks, which all salmon farmers work for daily.”
Tavish Scottish, chief executive of trade body Salmon Scotland, said last week that “SEPA’s current plan will not work and leaves business with no option but to appeal”.
