On Thursday evening, about 50 people attended a public hearing put on by the Bureau d’audiences publiques sur l’environnement (BAPE) regarding a proposed Atlantic salmon farming operation planned for Litchfield.
The BAPE is an impartial public body that is responsible for informing, consulting, investigating projects that have a major impact on the environment, and advising the environment ministry if necessary.
A video of the event as well as all relevant documentation is available on the BAPE’s website.
The master of ceremonies for the evening was Christophe Marquis of the BAPE, who introduced his organization, and the meeting’s format. The evening was entirely bilingual, and participants had an opportunity to ask questions online and in-person.
The project
The project was introduced by a team of three people who were there in person at the meeting: Samonix president Mathieu Farley and technical director Fred Brisco, along with Adèle Lamarche of Groupe Conseil UDA, a consultant who worked on the environmental assessment.
The Samonix project is aiming to harvest roughly 10,000 metric tons of Atlantic salmon annually, with a maximum capacity of 12,000 metric tons. Company documents presented at the meeting state that the nearly three million fish harvested every year to meet these metrics would be farmed on land in a 5.6 hectare facility. The overall project cost is estimated at $300 million USD (roughly $418 million CAD).
The facility’s location is planned for the Litchfield industrial site, in an area that was previously used as a log storage site when the Smurfit-Stone mill was still operational.
Farley said that Samonix is aiming to submit its application for ministerial approval this year, and if it is approved, finalize the financing and designs next year, to start construction in 2028. He said if they stick to this timeline, their first harvest would come in 2031, as it takes just under two years to raise a salmon to maturity.
Company documents note that the closest groundwater wells are more than two kilometres away from the site, and the nearest river water intake is more than five kilometres away.
The site uses a water recirculating system (RAS) and Brisco said that they were aiming to not use any antibiotics on their fish, instead relying on strict sanitation and sterilization procedures.
“The way we achieve that is through very, very strict bio-security procedures,” he said. “The entire facility is broken up into five parallel, individual RAS systems that don’t exchange water with each other. So if there were to be any pathogen or contaminant, it would at least in theory be isolated to one of those five compartments.”
Farley said he believed there was an opportunity to produce seafood closer to large urban markets in Toronto, Montreal and even the east coast of the United States.
Questions
Several questions were asked related to the impacts of the project on the water of the Ottawa River, such as from the effluent pipe that would emit the treated waste water from the facility.
Brisco gave a detailed explanation of the effluent pipe and the diffuser at its exit, which are designed to dilute the effluent water as quickly as possible. The pipe would have four two-inch ports oriented up on a 45 degree angle at the bottom of the river.
“We took historically low water levels, modeled the river exactly as it would have been that day, with our diffuser, and our effluent, and within two metres, the water levels diluted beyond anything that would have an impact on any of the wildlife within the river,” Brisco explained, showing diagrams of the diffusers location and orientation in the river. He also said that the intake and discharge pipes would be installed using directional drilling as opposed to dredging.
He said that the water entering and exiting the facility would be treated extensively, comparing their setup to a municipal water treatment facility. He said that they will be constantly monitoring effluent as well with guidelines from the Ministry of Environment.
One resident asked about the waste produced by the facility, and Farley said that during full production, they estimated they would have two 18-wheel trucks per day of waste that would be shipped to a biomethanization plant in Montérégie for processing, mainly made up of fish excrement and processing waste.
Brisco also responded to a question about water usage.
“When we’re at full capacity we will be taking approximately 2,300 cubic metres of water per day and emitting almost the same, just a little bit less, because of course there’s some water, some moisture that goes out with the sludge and some things that are going to biomethanization,” he said. “In comparison, the pulp and paper mill at the time was taking 70,000 cubic metres a day. So it’s significantly less than the previous project on that site.”
Next steps
Members of the public have until June 26 to put forward a request for a public review. If no requests are received, the role of the BAPE will conclude and the project will continue on its course.
If the ministry receives a request (or more than one) that it deems admissible, it may mandate either a public hearing, targeted consultation or mediation, which have four-, three- and two-month timespans respectively.
Regardless of the route, the BAPE will submit a report to the minister, which will be publicly released within 15 days. The minister makes recommendations to cabinet, which has the final say on the project’s progress.
Any questions about the Samonix project or the BAPE and its mandate can be directed to Marquis at ferme-aquacole-pontiac@bape.gouv.qc.ca.
