Runoff from potato farms blamed for fish kills on Canadian Island

Excerpt

With thousands of dead fish—including salmon, speckled trout, and rainbow trout—two fish kills in Prince Edward Island's Dunk and Tryon Rivers in the summer of 2007 serve as a wakeup call for better management of agricultural land in a Canadian province where potatoes are the largest crop.

Fish kills are not new to this small, 150-mile-long island nestled between the Northumberland Strait and the Gulf of St. Lawrence on Canada's east coast. Since 1994 there have been 29 reported fish kills in Prince Edward Island's streams and rivers. All are attributed to agricultural runoff.

Todd Dupuis, director of regional programs for the Atlantic Salmon Federation, talks about the lack of implementation of the Prince Edward Island Environmental Farm Plan and the legislated 10-meter (30-foot) buffer zones. “It's true a large proportion of farmers have gone through the plan, but there is no compulsory need to implement it,” says Dupuis.

Prince Edward Island Environment Minister George Webster, who is a potato farmer in the Maple Plains area, says there are two parts to the buffer zone legislation. One part is enforced, and in the other …