Applications for licences to operate an €8.9 million salmon farm in Bantry Bay, Co Cork, must be reconsidered, the High Court has ruled after finding deficiencies in the assessment of the project’s potential effects on the environment.
In a ruling published this week, Mr Justice David Holland determined that he had jurisdiction to make the Aquaculture Licence Appeals Board and Minister for the Marine reconsider the original applications that Ireland’s largest producer of farmed salmon, MOWI Ireland, first submitted in 2011.
He said it would be “quite wrong” to make MOWI go “unnecessarily back to the drawing board” by putting together new applications to rectify the appeals board’s errors in considering its original. He said the justice of the case merited remittal over new applications, considering MOWI’s applications were not assessed with the speed required by law.
The judge previously determined the two salmon farm licences granted by the appeals board and the Minister should be quashed due to an inadequate screening of the potential risks proposed “seal-scarer” noise devices posed to seals in a protected conservation area.
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In a 543-page judgment given last July, he said MOWI intends to deploy the noise deterrents because common seals are known to prey on salmon in salmon farms and can tear cages in doing so, creating a risk of salmon escaping.
The judge found other screening deficiencies, including failings in assessing the risks of salmon escapes.
His decisions came in three High Court cases brought separately by Inland Fisheries Ireland (IFI), Salmon Watch Ireland and experienced environmental litigant Peter Sweetman.
Their cases were against the appeals board, over its grant of an aquaculture licence for cultivating Atlantic salmon in 18 cages over some 42 hectares, and the Minister, over his foreshore licence, as well as other State parties. Two firms trading as MOWI Ireland participated as an affected party.
The interdependent 10-year licences permitted MOW to cultivate Atlantic salmon in 18 cages over some 42 hectares at a site in outer Bantry Bay, south of Shot Head.
The IFI is a statutory body tasked with the “protection, management and conservation of the inland fisheries resource” of the State.
Mr Justice Holland rejected its claim of objective bias against the appeals board, a fellow State agency. The judge said the IFI failed to prove its “very serious allegation” of the board improperly “bending over backwards to grant the licence”.
He agreed with the IFI on certain other points related to failings in assessments of the project’s potential environmental impact and that the appeals board unreasonably delayed in the process of making its decision.
Salmon Watch Ireland and Mr Sweetman shared broadly similar fears about the risk the proposed farm could negatively affect the environment, said the judge.
MOWI disputed their contentions, asserting its production of some 3,500 tonnes of salmon would be highly sustainable. The salmon would be kept in the netted pens for about two years while growing to a suitable size.
Mr Justice Holland held that the appeals board did not sufficiently screen the project for some environmental risks. The licences should be nullified, he held.
There followed a row over whether the applications should be returned to the decision makers for fresh consideration. The IFI, Salmon Watch Ireland and Mr Sweetman contended MOWI’s original licence applications could not go back to the appeals board and the Minister due to legal impediments.
The appeals board, Minister and other State parties involved argued the original applications should be reconsidered.
Mr Justice Holland held that he had jurisdiction to remit the applications.
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