I complained to the local fish farm about a mile or so down the channel. They were making too much noise for my sensibilities. I was polite. They were polite. And they asked to come visit. And so they came.

Marilyn and Tim were nice people. I’ve met plenty of nice people from the industry over the years. They get good staff. Tim is Australian and it was a stroke of genius to hire him. Canadians love a good OZ accent. I liked him as soon as he spoke. They pulled up on a pretty functional 20 footer with a great engine.

I greeted them, “Give me that boat as a bribe and I’ll cancel my complaint!” ‘Course, they don’t know me or my sense of humour so they just looked at me, stunned. It is always good to keep the enemy guessing, ya know?

“Never mind. Come along and we’ll have some tea.”

We walked up past John’s cabin and over the hill to my place. They chose to sit outside and marveled appropriately at the view and said nice things about our house. It was all very civilized and, in my opinion, also sincere and well-meaning. We had established ourselves as ‘real people’ and now it was time to discuss the hard cheese.

“The noise you hear comes from our generators that run the bubbling machines. We bubble all around the fish to keep algae away when the algae blooms occur. They are occurring now and therefore the bubblers are on constant duty. In this way, we can avoid the problems of blooms and keep the fish healthy.”

“Sounds reasonable, I suppose. Ya gotta do what ya gotta do. But can’t you attenuate the noise? Can’t you put some kind of insulation around the generators?”

“Never had to in the past because our farms have been remote. But this one is close and so we concede that it is a problem. But it should only be a problem while the blooms are happening and we are quite sure that they will end before October but at the end of October at the very latest. Good news is, we are moving out for good in February. No matter what, we are gone in a few months.”

“Well, in that case, have a cookie and consider my complaint dealt with. Just knowing that the farm goes fallow again in February makes it all better.”

I continued……“You do realize, of course, that everyone hates you!”

“Yeah. It’s horrible thing. Not everyone hates us but most do. But this is only in BC, ya know. BC hates us but, around the world, we are generally liked.”

“You mean, closed containment farms on land? They require immense amounts of fresh water and power. We just don’t have the capital for that.”

“Well, the coast IPPS have been largely discredited. The Campbell Government did everything wrong with them but some considerable infrastructure has been put in place. It may be a natural fit to change IPPS on the coast to salmon hatcheries and farms. Done right, you could become heroes.”

“Please don’t be offended but no thanks. I can’t eat farmed salmon. Just can’t do it. Thanks for the offer but no thanks.”

I have no doubt that, if left to Tim and Marilyn, the industry would eventually get it right. And likely sooner rather than later – like I said, ‘they are nice people’. But people move on. And the corporate business plan is what will stay. The corporate business plan is not, in my opinion, responsive enough to the environment and the people. It it too profit oriented and not people or environment related. Not enough, anyway. And therein lies the problem.

However, it is not a big problem in the giant scheme of things. The giant scheme of things includes the fact that we have 387 parts of CO 2 per million in the atmosphere when we should have 250 parts for a stable climate. Worse, we have no means with which to deal with the issue and it is only getting worse. And very quickly. The existence of salmon, moose, and even people may be moot soon enough.