The Saint Croix Courier

By BARB RAYNER

ST. ANDREWS – The Atlantic Salmon Federation is concerned about the impact of a proposed liquefied natural gas project on wild Atlantic salmon populations.

Dr Fred Whoriskey, ASF’s vicepresident of research and development, has written a letter to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission regarding the draft environmental impact statement for the Downeast LNG project.

The federation intervened early in the evaluation of this project, Whoriskey said, and specifically detailed its concerns about potential impacts on Atlantic salmon to FERC and the proponents.

“Having read the draft EIS we see no acknowledgement of our intervention nor any evidences that an attempt has been made to evaluate whether these specific concerns about the proposed project will have significant impacts upon Atlantic salmon,” he said.

“There is no evidence in the document that potential impacts of the project upon salmon from rivers on the Canadian side of the border have been evaluated.”

The federation is troubled by the logic that pervades the documents which suggests that because there are few salmon in the area, the project can only impact a small number of fish and thus will have small impacts, Whoriskey said.

“Salmon populations in the vicinity of the project are all desperately depressed,” he said. “Some have been listed as endangered already and others in Canada are under review at this time for an endangered status.

“By definition, endangered populations have small population sizes. In these circumstances, to suggest that the project would have minimal impact because few fish are present defies logic.

“For these reasons, we find the impact statement, as presently constituted, unacceptable.”