Antigonish Oyster Community Liaison Committee

: Water Depth : 37:05 ’ : This concern was addressed during the CLC public meeting by explaining that site selection was based on low tide soundings instead of marine charts. We selected sites based on low tide soundings which confirmed a depth of 3 feet or more. No areas with water depth less than 3 feet have been found within the selected lease site.... TPO very deliberately focused on finding the 3-foot depth line along the eastern boundary of this site to ensure the lease site is as close as possible to the non-navigable shallow area. This effort was aimed at mitigating effects on other users. We encourage anyone interested in confirming the above to go to the GPS coordinate locations provided in our application and take soundings yourself. Public Meeting Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teftLRmSi6A

: Employment numbers : 52:45 ’ : The opposition group presenters, Peter Bowler and Lou Bilik, during the CLC public meeting, made claims regarding employment in the provincial shellfish aquaculture. ... Paraphrased, their claim is as follows; The total area under lease in provincial waters for shellfish aquaculture is about 5900 hectares. The information available from NSDFA published employment statistics indicates there are 91 full-time and 120 part-time jobs directly related to shellfish aquaculture. Dividing the number of jobs into the total lease area would infer a job rate of about one job per 45 acres. So, for the proposed operation of 90 acres, they claim the employment should equal 2 full-time jobs, not 10 jobs as indicated in the TPO application. For public understanding, it is important to more fully explain the related information. Following are some facts about shellfish aquaculture in Nova Scotia: 1. Only a small portion of shellfish aquaculture leases in the province are approved for suspended aquaculture operationsfarming. Most leases are approved only for collection of naturally occurring oysters from the seafloorharvesting. These leases involve no farming, only harvesting which is far less labour intensive than farming. 2. More significantly, many approved leases are not in operation but instead are inactive and lying fallow so there is no associated employment at all. 3. Many existing leases are for small hobby farms where the operator produces a small number of oysters only for personal consumption. No employment is reported for these leases. Because of 1, 2, and 3 above, the opposition’s premise of claiming TPO’s employment predictions are false is based on incorrect information. As stated during the meeting, TPO has not exaggerated the employment prediction for our proposed oyster operation. Public Meeting Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teftLRmSi6A