There are renewed calls to halt seismic testing off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador after the province’s budget set aside another $20 million for the oil and gas industry’s exploratory work.

While the Liberal government called an election just days after tabling the budget — and before it was passed — Ryan Cleary, president of the Federation of Independent Sea Harvesters of Newfoundland and Labrador (FISH-NL), said it’s evidence the concerns being expressed about the impact of seismic testing are falling on deaf ears.

“The Grand Banks are desperate for a break,” he said.



“While Ottawa preaches caution when it comes to fisheries management, (Premier) Dwight Ball throws that caution over the side of a seismic boat.”

He said their concerns come as plankton levels have plunged in the province’s waters.

Data collected by federal scientists with Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) late in 2018 revealed a steady decline over the last five years in phytoplankton and zooplankton. The tiny organisms live near the ocean’s surface and underpin the entire marine food web, feeding the smallest and largest of creatures that call the ocean home.

What started off as a dip in their numbers has become more profound, with values now about 50 per cent of what they were five years ago.

“That’s a substantial decline,” Pierre Pepin, a senior researcher with the department in St. John’s, N.L., told iPolitics in January. “And it’s not only a decline in the overall biomass; we’ve also seen a shift in the composition of the plankton.”

READ MORE: Calls to end seismic testing off NFLD and Labrador as plankton levels plunge

Presented with that data, in January he called on the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board (C-NLOPB), which regulates the province’s offshore industry, to suspend seismic work until more research is carried out about the impact it’s having.



The Green Party of Canada did the same, but the board rejected the request.

Cleary said he doesn’t think it’s a coincidence that many commercial fish stocks are also in a critical state as an important food source struggles.

“I’ve taken part in three of DFO’s science briefings this year on northern cod, capelin and northern shrimp. At each of those briefings, they have mentioned declining plankton having an impact.”

READ MORE: Green Party calls for end to seismic testing on East Coast

Seismic surveys produce the loudest human-made sounds in the ocean aside from explosions. The process involves towing air guns behind ships and shooting loud blasts of compressed air through the water and into the seabed to find oil and gas deposits that may be buried there. The guns release at high pressure and can go off every 10 seconds around the clock for months at a time — and the sound from each blast can travel 3,000 kilometres.

In the waters around Newfoundland and Labrador, seismic testing has increased dramatically in recent years. Since 2011, the province has spent nearly $180 million to gather seismic data, which is used to spur private interest in the offshore oil industry.

An Australian study published in 2017 in the journal Nature found that seismic testing can destroy plankton populations.

The research by the University of Tasmania and Curtin University found that within the 1.2-kilometre range sampled, air-gun signals that are commonly used in marine petroleum exploration can cause a two- to three-fold increase in mortality of adult and larval zooplankton.

“There is a significant and unacknowledged potential for ocean ecosystem function and productivity to be negatively impacted by present seismic technology,” the authors found.

Although there are technological alternatives to the air guns that are quieter and safer, and may glean better geophysical information to find deposits under the ocean, the C-NLOPB has said it has no plans to change its practice, nor mandate they be used.

A spokesperson said there is “no conclusive scientific evidence” that would change its approach to authorizing seismic activity.

With its fisheries management, DFO has moved to adopt a precautionary approach, which it notes on its website consists of “being cautious when scientific knowledge is uncertain, and not using the absence of adequate scientific information as a reason to postpone action, or failure to take action, to avoid serious harm to fish stocks or their ecosystem.”

Cleary wonders why the oil and gas industry doesn’t have to do the same?

“I know they say there’s not a direct link. But in the absence of all the facts and considering the delicate state of our marine ecosystem and (fish) stocks, they should be erring on the side of caution and they’re not,” he said.

“(Instead), they blast the Grand Banks first and down the road they’ll determine if it has an impact. I think that’s absolutely foolhardy. It will be too late.”

At this point, the extent of the testing planned for this summer and fall isn’t clear, but Cleary said there will be at least four seismic boats operating, as he’s spoken to members of their crew.

“It’s only when the Board receives/reviews/approves applications for specific seismic acquisition programs that we will know for certain which programs will proceed in 2019 and how much seismic plans to be collected,” Lesley Rideout, spokesperson for the C-NLOPB, said in an e-mail.

“A seismic program cannot commence until the board issues an authorization. Our expectation at this stage is that a couple of 2D and a couple of 3D programs will be carried out this season.”

2D seismic data shows a single slice of the seabed, while 3D data shows a volume of it.

While the $20 million allotted in the provincial budget appears to be less than last year, Cleary said it’s actually the same amount for the work on the water. Last year just saw an additional $8 million allocated later to review seismic data that was collected in 2017.

In the summer of that year, the province’s Natural Resources Minister Siobhan Coady described the 3D seismic program in the province as one of the largest in the world, and said the 2D program was “unrivalled in the modern exploration era.”

“The seismic work on the Grand Banks has been intense,” Cleary said, and despite the concerns about its impact on the marine ecosystem, it’s “still full steam ahead.”

“I don’t get it. A seismic blast underwater can be heard 3,000 kilometres away. That’s further than here to Ottawa and they say it has no impact. If I was next to that, I’d be deaf. And if I was still standing, I’d be walking around like a zombie.”

But given the province’s current cash-strapped state, he said not enough people are raising concerns, as they’re seeing oil bring much-needed money in.

“The Newfoundland and Labrador government is absolutely obsessed with oil. They’re addicted to oil. Everything else be damned,” Cleary said.

“And I believe it will be damned with seismic — fisherman believe that too. The money can’t be at the expense of everything else.”

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