Date: Oct. 7th, 2025 - 4:58 PM
Lawyers listen to Stacy Bruce, clerk with the Nova Scotia Aquaculture Review Board, on Tuesday in Bridgewater as hearings began into Kelly Cove Salmon’s application to expand its operation in Queens County. (Rick Conrad)
Hearings opened Tuesday into a proposed bigger fish farm in Liverpool Bay, with community members and others getting a chance to say what they think of the idea.
A three-member panel of the Nova Scotia Aquaculture Review Board is hearing an application from Kelly Cove Salmon, which is owned by Cooke Aquaculture, to expand its operation near Coffin Island off Beach Meadows Beach.
Kelly Cove wants to add six more cages for a 20-pen farm, with an extra 260,000 Atlantic salmon.
Lawyers are representing six groups at the tribunal, including Kelly Cove Salmon, the Nova Scotia Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture, community group Protect Liverpool Bay, the Region of Queens, 22 Lobster Fishermen of Liverpool Bay and the Wasoqopa’q First Nation.
Six members of the public were given time at the beginning of Tuesday’s hearing to make statements about Kelly Cove’s application.
Jeff Bishop, executive director of the Aquaculture Association of Nova Scotia, urged panel members to allow the expansion. He said ocean-based aquaculture takes up less than half of one per cent of the coastline, creating jobs and pumping millions into local economies.
He warned them not to listen to groups opposing the application.
“They will tell you they are grassroots, community groups that represent the voice of most Nova Scotians, while they talk about potential hazards and not evidence of any actual risks. In fact, by looking at the members of these networks and coalitions publicly available annual reports to Canada Revenue Agency, we know that they take in millions of dollars of unreceipted foreign revenue from outside of Canada every year, and hundreds of thousands of dollars or more annually from other charities. That hardly sounds like grassroots local support to me. … These groups do not speak for most Nova Scotians, but simply their echo chambers.”
Bishop did not name any organizations and provided few other details. Protect Liverpool Bay has been the most prominent to oppose Cooke’s operation off Coffin Island. It’s a volunteer-run organization that began in 2018 and relies on local donations.
He added that the review board should not allow “the hollow cry of ‘not in my backyard’ to have its way” and to “support growth by approving Kelly Cove Salmon’s application”.
Bob Iuliucci of Bear Cove Resources in East Berlin, who worked as a researcher in applied ocean sciences and marine geology for 50 years, said he was worried about how climate change and the ever-strengthening tides in Liverpool Bay would affect the expanded farm, and the resulting damage it could do to the coastal environment.
“Expansion multiplies risk on every front — ecological, biological, economic loss to wild fisheries and tourism.”
Elizabeth Hartt of Bear Cove Resources said she was concerned that an expanded operation could risk development of other industries that could set up in the area, such as sustainable seaweed, oyster or mussel farms.
She said those types of aquaculture exist lower in the ocean and are not in fixed structures at the surface.
“You can sail over a lot of those things. They’re not fixed structures that in storms are going to be trashed and then thrown on shore. They’re not heavily loaded with fish that are going to land up on the shores of Liverpool.”
Instead of more fish farms, she said the province should be encouraging more exploration and ocean research in Liverpool Bay.
Liverpool resident Andrew Tyler said he and his family moved to the area two years ago because of the natural beauty and the beaches.
He said when they first moved to the area, he didn’t know what the cages were off Beach Meadows Beach. But he said in noticing the signs peppered around the community protesting open-pen fish farms, he realized most residents are against it.
“This is a hearing, and I hope you’re listening, that the Liverpool community, by and large, doesn’t want this expansion,” Tyler said.
“The jobs that fish farming bring are very few. The investment is very little, and it doesn’t add to the draw that bring people like me, who want to move their families to the area, who want to invest in the area, who want to put down roots in the area. So in my view, fish farming takes.
It doesn’t give back.
“There’s a way to do it that doesn’t risk one of our greatest natural assets at Beach Meadows. This isn’t it.”
Stewart Lamont, managing director of Tangier Lobster, said he’s concerned how an expanded operation would affect the area’s lobster fishermen and their contribution to Nova Scotia’s $1.5-billion lobster export industry.
He said that up to 1,000 metric tonnes of fecal and food waste is deposited every year on the ocean floor below fish farms operations in Nova Scotia. In an era of foreign markets sensitive to where their food comes from, Lamont said “if any jurisdiction in Europe saw a viral video of our Nova Scotia lobster grazing on bottom below or near an open net pen, our lobster sector would be finished overnight.”
He said climate change will also only add to the problems as waters warm and storms become more intense.
“The greatest piece missing in this business model is the lack of community support referred to already this morning,” he said. “Academics call it social license. What is taking place now is effectively the privatization of public waters, and that is by so many standards, clearly wrong and absolutely unwanted.
… The more citizens learn about fish farms and open-net pen fish farming, the less they want any part of them.”
For the rest of the day, a nine-member witness panel from Kelly Cove answered questions from lawyers about the company’s extensive application to the board.
Lawyers cross-examined the panel on its consultations with the local Indigenous community, the company’s various studies of impacts on the ocean and surrounding environment and the effects on lobster populations.
Michael Szemerda, Cooke’s global chief sustainability officer, admitted under cross-examination from Region of Queens lawyer Natasha Puka that the company has been operating outside its lease boundaries since it took over the farm.
He also confirmed that there have been only two “mortality events” at the Coffin Island site, with an unknown number of fish dying in 2018 from insufficient oxygen and 2019 from storm damage. In 2012, Cooke reported an infectious salmon anemia, which led to the destruction of two pens of fish, and a bacterial kidney disease among its salmon.
About 20 community members travelled to Bridgewater to take in the proceedings.
Beach Meadows resident Tim Nickerson said that he wanted to make the trip, though he was upset the review board didn’t hold the hearings in Liverpool.
“I’m really disappointed with the idea that the hearing’s being held in Bridgewater,” he said in an interview. “We heard the chair say that they made a big effort to be in Liverpool, based on the dates, but I’m like change the dates. I just think that’s such a big issue, and should be really concerning about a public exercise not really being done in the area that has the greatest impact.”
He said he was also disappointed in comments made by Jeff Bishop from the aquaculture association.
“I just didn’t think his comments were very respectful. I think people can have contrary views.
I don’t think we need rhetoric about foreign investment and that kind of just silliness. … I didn’t appreciate that.”
The three-member panel is made up of Roger Percy, Bruce Morrison and chaired by Damien Barry.
Proceedings continue Wednesday at 9 a.m. at the Days Inn in Bridgewater. It’s open to the public. People can also register to watch a livestream of the hearings.
Email: rickconradqccr@gmail.com
