A large floating platform with six underwater turbines was launched Monday near the mouth of the Bay of Fundy, marking the latest high-tech bid to generate electricity by harnessing the bay’s powerful tides.
Sustainable Marine Energy Canada started testing a smaller but similar catamaran-style platform near Nova Scotia’s Brier Island in 2018, The Canadian Press reports. The bigger, second-generation platform is expected to undergo testing this winter and spring in the same area, known as Grand Passage.
It will be towed later this year to the bay’s Minas Passage, near Cape Sharp, NS, where it will be permanently installed in a test area that experiences the world’s highest tides. The company describes the 420-kilowatt PLAT-I 6.40 platform as Canada’s first floating tidal energy array. It is expected to produce 50% more power than its predecessor.
The turbines look like inverted windmills and are designed to flip up for maintenance like a boat’s outboard motor, CP says. The platform includes a turret that will allow it to align itself with the tidal flow. It was built by A.F. Theriault and Son Ltd. in Meteghan, NS, the site of Monday’s launch.
Sustainable Marine, whose Canadian office is located in Dartmouth, NS, says its Pempa’q In-stream Tidal Energy Project will eventually include two other platforms and produce a total of nine megawatts of electricity—enough energy to supply 3,000 homes. Pempa’q is the Mi’kmaq word for “rise of the tide.”
The federal government contributed C$28.5 million to the project in November. Sustainable Marine’s parent company is based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Its major shareholders include the Canadian government, Schottel GmbH of Germany, and Scottish Enterprise, based in Glasgow.
“This tidal technology is the result of a tremendous international effort combining world-class scientific and engineering expertise from our German, Scottish, and Canadian teams,” Jason Hayman, CEO of Sustainable Marine Canada, said in a statement released Monday. “(It) is the culmination of a decade of research and development.”
The Bay of Fundy has been the site for several tidal turbine demonstration projects over the years. In 2009, an in-stream prototype turbine that sat on the bottom of the Minas Passage was torn apart by the bay’s powerful currents, which can move at 18 kilometres per hour.
In November 2016, a larger turbine built by Cape Sharp Tidal was hooked up to Nova Scotia’s electric grid—a historic first—but the turbine was later removed for inspections and servicing in June 2017.
In July 2018, Cape Sharp Tidal successfully connected a massive, two-megawatt in-stream tidal turbine to the grid. But the venture collapsed a day later when one of its owners, Dublin-based OpenHydro, was forced into bankruptcy proceedings.
In November 2018, court documents revealed the turbine had been damaged beyond repair only two months after it was deployed on July 24, 2018. The inoperable turbine is still sitting on the floor of the bay.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published February 1, 2021. It has been reprinted with permission from The Energy Mix.
Turbine Noise Killing Herring in NS?
In the discussion forum there is an article from December 2016, written by Cathy Belliveau, of Fall River, Nova Scotia. She lays out the problems the province had with this project’s predecessor. It’s a great article.
“This is an insult to these health care workers who have always been helping to keep our health care system secure and operational throughout this pandemic.” — Jason MacLean, NSGEU President.
Halifax (21. Dec 2020) — As a special thank you to our health care heroes for the holidays, Nova Scotia Health (NSH) has announced their plan to contract out the work done by 91 hospital employees from the NSH to a private, American-owned company. The Nova Scotia Government and General Employees Union (NSGEU/NUPGE) informed the provincial government of the NSH’s plan to contract out this work, but the government has allowed it to proceed.
Outsourcing health care jobs inconsistent with “health care heroes” pandemic messaging
“This is an insult to these health care workers who have always been helping to keep our health care system secure and operational throughout this pandemic,” said NSGEU President Jason MacLean.
“The work our members do is incredibly valuable, and it is not in Nova Scotians’ best interest to allow a private company to take over our citizens’ health records management,” said CUPE Nova Scotia President Nan McFadgen.
There are growing calls for rent control in Halifax from tenants who say finding a new apartment in the city is simply not feasible anymore.
Danielle Murphy and her family of five have lived at the same apartment in Herring Cove, N.S., for the past seven years, but they were recently forced to move after the owner put the home on the market.
“It went on the market and it sold really quick,” said Murphy. “Now we have to be out.”
At the time when it was sold, Murphy was paying $1,250 for the three-bedroom home. Now, she says she’ll have to pay anywhere from $2,000 to $3,000 a month, a price she says her family simply can’t afford.
“Honestly, with the prices, we’re looking at a family of five living in a one- or two-bedroom apartment,” said Murphy. “We don’t have the flexibility to pay the ($2,000 to $3,000).”
The Sipekne’katik band will not fish its commercial lobster licences this season in southwest Nova Scotia, citing intimidation and violence that followed the launch of its moderate livelihood fishery in St Marys Bay.
The decision followed an emergency meeting Friday with fishermen working in the band’s commercial fishery.
“The consensus is that they don’t want to fish in the upcoming season due to concerns of safety. There is also the concern of not being able to sell our lobster,” said Chief Mike Sack.
“As of right now, our people aren’t comfortable taking that big risk and especially risking their life for that.”
Sipekne’katik’s decision means band members won’t fish the nine lobster licences Sipekne’katik holds in Lobster Fishing Area 34 when the season opens next month.
The First Nation still has the option to lease those licences to non-Indigenous fishermen, which could be worth as much as $450,000.
The Assembly of First Nations is coming under fire for exercising their rights
Members of the Sipekne’katik First Nation prepare to go fishing in Saulnierville, N.S., on, Sept. 17, 2020.THE CANADIAN PRESS — Andrew Vaughan
The Assembly of First Nations is coming under fire for exercising their rights under a treaty signed in the Treaty of 1760-61. According to the treaty Mi’kmaq have a right to barter and trade any goods they can acquire by hunting, fishing, and gathering, so they can make a moderate living. In the 1999 Marshall Decision, the Supreme Court of Canada upheld the treaty rights of the Mi’kmaq and other Nations along the Atlantic coast when it was disputed.
Mi’kmaw are facing aggression from non-Indigenous fishermen in Saulnierville, Nova Scotia where Sipekne’katik First Nation is launching a fishery. They are having their boats surrounded, so they are unable to drop their traps and engage their rights.
Related posts from the forum
Vandalism, threats, and assault. These are just a few of the violent incidents Mi’kmaw fishers are facing in Nova Scotia
‘We want answers’: MPs hold emergency debate over handling of N.S. lobster dispute
In the past month, the Sipekne’katik First Nation and the Potlotek First Nation placed lobster traps in bays at the opposite ends of Nova Scotia. Each community had developed a management plan based on their treaty rights to earn a moderate livelihood.
The response to these actions by non-Indigenous fishers has led to national and international coverage of the ensuing violence, including damage to property and assault. Both non-Indigenous fishers and the Fisheries Department (DFO) have since seized some of the lobster traps.
The conflict has largely centred on whether the lobster stock is threatened by out-of-season fishing, and the definition of a “moderate” livelihood. However, this focus misses the root of the Mi’kmaw livelihood issue, namely the question of who has the authority to govern livelihood activities and how it is done.
Researching the issue
We’re part of a small group that has been examining these very issues since 2014, and includes scholars with expertise in ocean governance and marine policy and colleagues from the Assembly of First Nations. Our research project, Fish-WIKS, aims to understand how Indigenous and western knowledge systems can be used to improve the sustainability of Canadian fisheries.
The processes that feed into decision-making in fisheries in Canada have been primarily influenced by western science‐based knowledge systems that focus on a reductionist approach to understanding problems. In contrast, Indigenous ways of knowing are based on world views and values that are integrative and holistic, or as Elder Albert Marshall of Eskasoni First Nation once spelled out, “wholistic.”
Who would have guessed that our results from examining an alternative governance structure for the livelihood fishery in Nova Scotia through the lens of both knowledge systems, referred to as “two-eyed seeing,” would coincide with the current conflict playing out in the lobster fishery?
Two-eyed seeing
In two-eyed seeing, knowledge is viewed as a system that comprises what is known and how it is known. But a knowledge system, whether western or Indigenous, is composed of many things.
Conceptual illustration of components of a knowledge system. (A. Giles, L. Fanning, S. Denny and T. Paul, 2016)
What we know, how we practise our knowledge, how we adapt to it and how we transmit and share knowledge are the more familiar elements. But the values and beliefs that underpin these elements, and which actually distinguish one knowledge system from another, are often ignored.
This is a problem because the values and beliefs underpinning one system are often at odds with those of another system, potentially creating a barrier to collaboration. However, the Fish-WIKS projects showed there are similarities that can bridge these knowledge systems and lead to greater understanding of the differences.
Governance gaps
Our research identified a number of gaps in governance that have contributed to the lobster fishery situation we have today.
There is still no federal policy to address livelihood fisheries and the issue of livelihood as a treaty right is not mentioned in the Aboriginal Fisheries Strategy, the primary policy guiding the federal response to Indigenous fisheries
There are also conflicting views on who has the authority to manage fisheries, which stem from the perceived legitimacy of each governing system. Legitimacy influences whether a political action is perceived as right or just by those who are involved, interested and/or affected by it.
The two sets of rules for fisheries arise from the protection of Aboriginal and treaty rights in sections 25 and 35 of the Constitution, complicating the issue of legitimacy. This legal pluralism gives DFO the authority over non-Indigenous commercial fisheries while limiting its capacity to govern Indigenous fisheries.
A Mi’kmaw fisher holds his son on his boat before heading out to set traps in Saulnierville, N.S. on Oct. 21, 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS /Andrew Vaughan
In addition, Canada must justify any limits it places on the rights of Indigenous people engaged in fishing practices, as determined by the Supreme Court of Canada in R. vs. Sparrow in 1990. The court also affirmed Miʼkmaw treaty rights in R. vs. Simon in 1985 and R. vs. Marshall in 1999.
Our research confirms that Mi’kmaq are aware of challenges with the exercise of treaty rights and supports the necessity for Mi’kmaq to develop fishery and fishing rules that are legitimate in the eyes of Mi’kmaw fishers, non-Indigenous fishers and DFO. Some communities have developed such rules, incorporating knowledge from both western and Indigenous systems.
However, the question remains, does DFO have the justification to intervene with Mi’kmaw lobster livelihood fishing practices if, as Dalhousie University fisheries expert Megan Bailey pointed out, there is no scientific evidence that the current practice of the lobster livelihood fishery threatens the sustainability of the stock?
This needs to be cleared up. The Fisheries Act gives the DFO broad regulatory authority and this may extend to Indigenous fisheries. But the Marshall decision narrows that authority to apply only “where justification is shown.”
Moving forward
Canadians need to recognize that this current conflict playing out in Nova Scotia represents not only an operational nightmare for DFO but is a deep-seated governance issue. It requires developing a mechanism by which Mi’kmaq can legitimately contribute to the governance of fisheries as an integrated whole.
Short-term solutions will be identified, but a longer-term solution must address the legal pluralism that exists in Canada and facilitate the adoption of other forms of governance models in which DFO does not have exclusive authority.
The current focus on the lobster livelihood fishery and finding a dollar definition for “moderate” misses the fact that the underlying governance gap is the crux of the issue.
