Cooke Aquaculture held an open house yesterday as a part of their plans to possibly expand the fish farm in Liverpool Bay.
Beach Meadows resident Brian Muldoon has been protesting the expansion in downtown Liverpool for days.
He wasn’t satisfied with the format of the Cooke’s meeting, which featured company employees as well as industry and science experts.
“They have to have at least one public meeting and then they can check off that box, this is considered it,” says Muldoon. “To me it’s not a public meeting, it’s a divide and conquer type (meeting).”
Muldoon is hoping the company will come back for a town hall style meeting so he and others can voice their concerns.
He wasn’t the only one with that thought.
Acadia News spoke to multiple attendees as they left the meeting and most expressed concern with the format and not being able to have their concerns heard.
Meanwhile, Joel Richardson VP of Public Relations for Cooke Aquaculture, says they are following the new regulatory system put in by the provincial government.
Richardson says community consultation is one of the things the public asked for when aquaculture regulations were updated in 2015.
He says they chose the open house format to allow everyone a chance to speak to employees.
“An open house is really a nice format, not everybody likes to be in a position where they’re sort of put on the spot as people from the community,” says Richardson.
He says the open house was an invitation for the community to learn more about the company and their plans to expand.
Richardson says they don’t yet know exactly where the sites would be located nor how many they may apply for.
“It depends on a lot of things, there’s monitoring that needs to be done, there’s site work that needs to be done, there’s mapping that needs to be done, there’s a number of other things,” says Richardson.
Richardson couldn’t speak to how many jobs could be created if they expand or add a site.
He says there are around ten people employed at the current site.
Cooke has six months to look at their options in Liverpool Bay.
In the mean time, Muldoon wants the public to research Cooke themselves before making up their minds.
“We only hear one side of what’s happening here today, Cooke industries and their image and they have some blemishes, some major blemishes.”
He is gathering concerned community members and is hoping Cooke will return for a town hall style meeting in the future.
Story and photo by Brittany Wentzell
Twitter: @BrittWentzell
Email: wentzell.brittany@radioabl.ca
