Ottawa is launching a review after testing of "bloodwater", or fish blood and parts flushed into the ocean, confirmed the presence of a contagious fish virus.
Diver Tavish Campbell shared his video of the red fish effluent gushing into the Pacific from a Campbell River processing plant with CTV News. The resulting story got the federal government's attention. The environment minister is sending an inspector to the plant identified as Brown’s Bay Packing Company, which processes Atlantic farmed salmon for overseas buyers.
The virus, Piscine Orthoreovirus or PVR, is believed to infect 80% of all farmed salmon in the province. It's also associated to a potentially fatal disease in fish, Heart and Skeletal Muscle Inflammation (HSMI), that causes heart lesions and hemorrhaging.
BC Green MLA Sonia Furtsentau says the discovery is alarming because wild salmon stocks are in peril, and there are 109 fish processing plants along BC's coast.
"Well I think it points to a wider problem. And I certainly would like to see an inspection of all the fish processing plants on the coast, and a general review to make sure that the practises that are happening at these plants are not putting the wild salmon in danger."
The diver also filmed a second pipe spewing bloodwater off of Tofino.
Furstenau says it concerns her that the monitoring of industrial activity in B.C. is falling to citizens, instead of government.
Meantime a spokesman for the farmed salmon industry maintains members follow the highest waste treatment standards, and plan to conduct their own review of fish plants.