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Fishermen say a pipe expected to carry treated sewage into the harbour at Ingonish Ferry, N.S., could have a big impact on their business.
But Victoria County officials say the wastewater system is needed for commercial and residential development and government regulators say the project meets federal and provincial rules.
Matthew Smith, whose family has been fishing out of Ingonish Ferry for generations, said the problem is the harbour does not flush out easily.
“Our water, it doesn’t move in this harbour,” he said. “It just circulates. This is a bathtub, for a lack of better terms.”
Smith has used his fishing boat’s sonar to create a three-dimensional map of the harbour.
It shows the basin is more than 20 metres deep, but its connection to the Atlantic Ocean is only four metres deep.
Smith said that means the tide will not diffuse effluent from sewage treatment very well.
He said fishermen aren’t opposed to development or sewage treatment but the outfall should go out in the ocean.
Victoria County is building the $15-million sewage treatment plant to accommodate development at Ski Cape Smokey, where Cape Smokey Holdings is building 74 condominium units at the foot of its ski hill.
It also has plans for a hotel, brewery and more condo units.
The treatment plant is still under construction, with a pipe running out into the harbour.
The outfall is next to where Smith and others regularly set lobster traps and is less than a kilometre from Smith’s lobster pound.
He stores his catch in cages in the harbour while waiting for a buyer.
Fisherman Stewart Whitty also has a lobster pound on the opposite shore but said he draws harbour water not far from the outfall to keep his catch alive.
At a public meeting earlier this year, engineers said the temperature of the treated effluent would be 18 to 22 C.
Smith said treated wastewater could cause lobsters to stop moving around so they won’t crawl into a trap.
“Lobsters are very temperamental when it comes to water temperature,” he said. “Two degrees up or two degrees down will make a lobster stop moving entirely.”
It will also leave them with soft shells, making handling fatal.
‘A lot of life in this harbour’
People also fish for mackerel, striped bass and trout in the harbour, and it produces crabs, oysters and mussels.
Gaspereau also travel through the mouth of the harbour to spawn in Freshwater Lake, which is connected by Dunphys Creek, in Cape Breton Highlands National Park.
“There’s a lot of life in this harbour,” Smith said. “This harbour is really, really a large ecosystem and it doesn’t need to be heated up.”
The fishermen and others are also concerned about how the sewer outfall was installed. They say heavy equipment was driven into the harbour, stirring up silt and potentially harming fish and crustaceans.
However, the wastewater treatment project has federal and provincial permits.
The Department of Fisheries and Oceans says it has reviewed the project and has no concerns.
Nova Scotia’s Environment Department has issued a permit to build the system, but once that’s done, a different permit will be needed to operate the treatment plant.
Tim Donovan, a county councillor, said he trusts the engineers and environmental experts who have OK’d the project.
“Personally, I live on the harbour,” he said. “My home is on the harbour and I really don’t have that level of concern.”
Smith and Whitty said they were not properly consulted by the county during the planning of the new system. They say people who attended a meeting for fishermen earlier this year were allowed only one question each.
“There was no public consultation and it wasn’t the question-and-answer period we expected,” Smith said.
“It was a slide show on what they planned on doing and they only wanted one question apiece, which I have a thousand questions myself.”
Donovan said consultation could have been better but he is available to answer questions or get answers from experts, and the county provides public updates on its website.
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