farming industry.
The salmon industry said it had “engaged fully” to establish a “scientifically robust” limit providing “a high margin of safety” to protect the environment. On June 24, 2024, the Scottish Government published its response to a consultation on when to introduce the 272 ng/kg safety limit for existing salmon farms. It said that it would direct Sepa to implement them “in 48 months” – the longest delay on which it had consulted.
The companies criticised the regulatory process, questioned the science underlying the limit and asked for it to be withdrawn. It was not “appropriate” to adopt the limit “without any further consideration of its suitability as a regulatory control for the activities of marine fish farms,” said Salmon Scotland.
The environmental charity Fidra, based in North Berwick, pointed out that salmon farmers had known for years that a new limit was coming. “The industry should be capable of making the transition in a very short timescale,” it said.“Consideration should be given to breaches being routinely fined, which has the possibility to influence industry to monitor its discharges more stringently to avoid breaches,” it said.
“The ministers responsible should be ashamed of themselves for allowing this process to be dragged out over such a long time,” said the network’s John Aitchison. The delay was “the best fit with planning and investment horizons allowing operators to make the improvements or mitigate the effects on their operations,” said a government spokesperson.
“We have begun work to calculate updated licence conditions. These will reduce the quantities of emamectin that can be discharged and enable the progressive recovery of the environment from the effects of past discharges.