Tag Archives: Nova Scotia Power
Fisherman pulls monster bass from Annapolis River after tidal station shutdown
According to Fisheries and Oceans Canada, striped bass used to spawn in the Saint John, Annapolis and Shubenacadie river systems on the Bay of Fundy. The causeway built across the Annapolis River in 1960 and the Annapolis Royal Tidal Generating Station that opened in 1984 have been widely blamed for driving the fish from that river. Meanwhile the Saint John population dropped off after the Mactaquac Dam was built in 1968. But after decades of protests,,, >click to read<09:50
Annapolis Royal mayor says tidal turbine shutdown won’t hurt town’s coffers
Last week the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans ordered NSP to shut down the iconic electrical power generating station after a review of data, especially in relation to reported fish kills over the past three decades. “From the very beginning the Town of Annapolis Royal has reached out to Fisheries and Oceans to get updates on where the review and the monitoring was,,, SHUT DOWN – He said what the community is learning is that a lot of those reports never found their way to the people who should have been taking that into consideration all these years. >click to read<20:06
Claim that Annapolis tidal turbine violates Fisheries Act puts science under review
Is the Annapolis Tidal Generating Station killing a lot of fish? The protesters waving placards on the causeway crossing the Annapolis River on Wednesday and Thursday claim that it does. Scientists and stakeholders meeting over the same period at the Bedford Institute of Oceanography were attempting to answer the same question. But even as The Canadian Science Advisory Secretariat was performing its review of available data, Fisheries and Oceans Canada and Nova Scotia Power may already know whether the turbine is in violation of the Fisheries Act. According to correspondence obtained via a freedom of information request between high level staff at both the federal regulator and the turbine’s owner, both already know it kills fish. >click to read<
“That turbine was put down there in bad faith.” – Cape Sharp Tidal owner files for bankruptcy in Ireland
A week after a massive tidal turbine was placed in the Minas Passage, its owners have filed for bankruptcy. Local contractors, marine service companies, motels, fishermen and other business people are owed an undetermined amount of money. OpenHydro owns 97 per cent of Cape Sharp Tidal, with the remaining three percent owned by Emera, Nova Scotia Power’s parent company.,, Fishermen claim they were told the turbine would not be installed at the Force site in the Minas Passage until the close of the lobster season at the end of July. “They used all these local resources, hired all these local business people, drove right over all that local lobster gear and they never intended to pay nobody,” said Darren Porter, spokesman for the Fundy United Federation, a fishermen’s organization. One contractor, who didn’t want his named used, estimated that OneHydro owes “tens of millions of dollars” to local companies. >click to read<22:11
Another dead sturgeon found as review of turbines threat remains in planning process
Another dead sturgeon has been found downstream of the Annapolis Tidal Turbine. Meanwhile a promised review of whether the 20 megawatt turbine kills fish at population levels by the Canadian Science Advisory Secretariat remains in the planning process. “The terms of reference for the review have been drafted,” said Debbie Buott-Matheson, spokeswoman for Fisheries and Oceans Canada, in a written response. “We have not yet set a date for a CSAS peer review meeting, but it is considered a priority going forward.” That review was announced in January after a series of stories in the Chronicle Herald detailing how the turbine, which opened in a causeway crossing the Annapolis River in 1982, was never granted an exemption under the Fisheries Act to kill fish. >click to read<18:58
DFO, NSP knew that Annapolis tidal turbine killed fish
Fisheries and Oceans Canada and Nova Scotia Power have long known that the Annapolis tidal turbine kills significant numbers of fish. As a result, Acadia University professor and former Fisheries and Oceans scientist Michael Dadswell is accusing Nova Scotia Power of being in violation of the Fisheries Act and the federal department of not enforcing it. “Either (Fisheries and Oceans) does not pay attention to its own scientists or they have been in cahoots with Nova Scotia Power all these years to deny the extreme decimation of the Annapolis fish populations,” said Dadswell. click here to read the story 18:29
Op-Ed: Something fishy is going on in the Bay of Fundy
If you thought the massive fish and marine animal die-off that took place in Nova Scotia back in December is all cleared up, you’re dead wrong. There have been two more die-offs, but these latest ones are different because they are being caused by man. Besides the massive kill that took place in December that encompassed an area from Annapolis to Yarmouth, there was the mutilated fish brought up in gill nets earlier this month in the Minas Basin area. Now everyone is looking at Nova Scotia Power (NSP) as being the culprit in these latest fish kills. click here to read the story 20:02
Nova Scotia Power blamed for fish deaths in Gaspereau River
Fishermen, members of the three First Nations Communities of Glooscap, Valley and Sipekne’katik, as well as Fisheries and Oceans officers and scientists, descended upon the White Rock hydroelectric station located along the Gaspereau River Monday morning to see for themselves. A crowd watched from the riverbanks as its current carried the dead fish downstream. Some got caught on the banks and rocks, others in nets, and the smell of dead fish lingered in the air. Several local fishermen estimated the mortality is beyond tens of thousands of the species, after Nova Scotia Power started generating power last week. The largest number of fish deaths reportedly occurred after a third incident in the past week, on Sunday, after the flow on the river was turned up again to help a charity rubber duck race that has been part of the Apple Blossom festival for more than 20 years. click here to read the story 10:48
The first of two towering tidal power turbines to enter Bay of Fundy next month
The first of two towering turbines designed by Cape Sharp Tidal to harness the immense power of the Bay of Fundy will be installed next month off the coast of Nova Scotia, an company official announced Thursday. Sarah Dawson, the community relations manager for the project, said one of the five-storey high, two-megawatt turbines built in Pictou by Aecon Atlantic Industrial Inc., will be loaded on a barge during the first week of June and travel around the province until it reaches the test site near Parrsboro. That trip will take a couple of weeks. The new turbines are a bigger and more robust version of a turbine tested by OpenHydro and Nova Scotia Power in 2009 that was heavily damaged by the Bay of Fundy’s powerful currents. Read the rest here 18:04
