Attention Ohio Residents and Supporters Everywhere: The Block Corporate Salmon campaign invites you to comment on AquaBounty’s discharge permit. Submit your comments by April 6!
In December, the Block Corporate Salmon campaign celebrated news that AquaBounty, the biotech company responsible for genetically engineered salmon, shuttered its last operating facility. However, the fight to expose AquaBounty, genetically engineered salmon, and the pollution involved with land-based aquaculture facilities continues.
In the town of Pioneer, OH, AquaBounty is still pushing forward (paywall) attempts to build pipelines and obtain a sewage-discharge permit for a proposed land-based facility to raise genetically engineered salmon.
AquaBounty won’t say why it still wants this permit, or what its future plans are in Pioneer. However, the company recently auctioned off new and unused equipment from its proposed Ohio facility. A ProPublica investigation dug into how the project fell apart, and left a town in limbo and entangled in a web of public corruption.
The permit’s draft language lays out how the company could release its wastewater, if it does follow through with its plans to build a land-based aquaculture facility. You can review the permit here: tinyurl.com/NONPDES4AQB.
WHAT CAN WE DO?
We the public now have until April 6 at 7 PM ET to comment on the company’s draft language. We are following the lead of our partners on the ground, organizers with the Williams County Alliance, in requesting that folks read the discharge permit and submit your comments via email.
Comments can be emailed to: epa.dswcomments@epa.ohio.gov. The Ohio EPA permit number (2IH00115*AD) and public notice (210328) numbers should appear next on each page of any submitted comments.
When submitting comments, it is best to state concerns and comments or ask questions that are pertinent to the discharge permit. Unfortunately, comments regarding opposition to AquaBounty or how much water is being withdrawn will be meaningless to this Ohio EPA permitting process.
Look for things that you may have questions or concerns about in the permit.
For example:
On page one of the permit, AquaBounty hasn’t even changed the dates from the prior draft. Expected first stocking of salmon eggs in late 2023; Expected first salmon harvest in 2025. What are their projected dates now?
On page three of the permit, the director of the Ohio EPA states that they have determined that a lowering of water quality in the East Branch of the St. Joseph River is necessary. In accordance with OAC 3745-1-05, this decision was reached only after examining a series of technical alternatives, reviewing social and economic issues related to the degradation, and considering all public and appropriate intergovernmental comments. The lowering of water quality is necessary to accommodate important social or economic development in the area in which the water body is located. What are these important social or economic issues, etc?
Questions? Contact Lisa Cochran by email at Lisa.Cochran@epa.ohio.gov or call 614.644.2160.
If you are local to Ohio: The Williams County Alliance believes a public hearing should be held. Although the Ohio EPA isn’t required to hold a public meeting, if a significant number of local residents make requests, the director of the Ohio EPA will take it into consideration.
To request a public hearing, email Lisa Cochran at Lisa.Cochran@epa.ohio.gov. The request must be in writing and state the nature of the issues to be raised.
The people in Williams County deserve answers.
Together, let’s stop AquaBounty once and for all.
Email blockcorporatesalmon@gmail.com to get involved.
Image: Williams County Alliance organizers protest AquaBounty outside of a Toledo Port Authority board meeting in December 2022. Courtesy of: Sherry Fleming.