Facebook to begin laying cable through fishing grounds off Nova Scotia

Installation of a transatlantic submarine telecommunications cable for tech giant Facebook on the seabed off southern Nova Scotia is set to begin as soon as this week.

The Canadian portion of the route will take the cable through fishing grounds and the Fundian Channel-Browns Bank Area of Interest, an area being considered for designation as a Marine Protected Area because of its deepsea corals and sponges.

Fishing groups in Nova Scotia say their feedback was ignored, including a suggested routing that would avoid key fishing grounds.

"The consultation here was largely non-existent," said Kris Vascotto with the Atlantic Groundfish Council, which represents large fishing companies in the region.

He said industry talks with project consultants started in August 2021 and ended after about one month.

"Then it was radio silence," said Vascotto. "We had anticipated that there would be further discussions, either with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans or with the proponent themselves, and that's why we were so surprised by the communication that we received late last week advising that a vessel was going to be coming into the area and that gear should be removed from the area to facilitate the laying of the cable."

He said the original routing has not changed.

Supply boat to clear the path

Mariners have been warned to stay at least one nautical mile away from cable-laying vessels from mid-February through March.

The offshore supply boat Maersk Clipper will start the installation by clearing the route of ghost fishing gear and other debris on the bottom.

Fishermen are being told to remove gear within half a nautical mile on either side of the route.

The CS Decisive, a cable laying vessel, will lay the 3.8-centimetre-wide fibre optic cable, which will be buried in some places and left on the seabed in others.

Nokia subsidiary Alcatel Submarine Networks is in charge of the installation.

The project received Canadian government approval in December. That included a "letter of advice" from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans on the implementation of appropriate measures to avoid and mitigate harm to fish and fish habitat.

DFO refused to release the letter to CBC News or explain what it expects from the company.

"For privacy reasons, the department is unable to release information related to project applications/reviews without the permission of the proponent or a formal access to information and privacy request,' DFO spokesperson Alexandra McNab said in an email statement.

Cable will have minimal impact on fisheries

Alcatel spokesperson Rachel Van Oppen said the company and its partners co-ordinated with Canadian authorities.

"The cable route and installation methodology were adjusted to minimize both environmental and fisheries impact. Within the Fundian Channel-Browns Bank AOI, the cable will be buried using low-impact technology to keep it free from interaction with fishing gear," said Van Oppen in a statement to CBC News.

The 6,600-kilometre Amitié telecommunications cable will cross the Atlantic from Lynn, Mass., to landfalls in Bordeaux, France, and Cornwall, England.

Facebook owns 80 per cent of the cable. Other partners in the project include Microsoft and Vodafone.

The fibre-optic cable is a significant advance in the movement of data, said Jean-Francois Bousquet, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Dalhousie University in Halifax.

"The cable is pretty impressive because it's going to be allowing huge amounts of throughput. It's new technology in terms of cables and it will allow us to exchange information between Europe and North America really quickly," he said.

Bousquet said the cable "will not be disruptive to the ecosystem."

Vascotto said the fishing industry is concerned about liability in case the cable is damaged by fishing gear. He said there are portions of the sea bottom on the route that are hard and rocky and not easily trenched.

Although Alcatel said the cable will be buried in the Fundian Channel-Browns Bank AOI, Vascotto said DFO is telling a different story.

He said officials have told industry that in order to protect the coral bottom, it directed the Amitié cable be laid on top of the seabed.

DFO declined to clarify what directions it has given for the installation in the Fundian Channel-Browns Bank AOI.

"Discussions with DFO resulted in the proponent revising their initial cable installation plans in order to protect deep water corals and sponges found along the route," DFO regional director of communications said in a statement.

Concerns over cable's course

"So what happens if somebody interacts with this cable? What happens if somebody creates a fault in the cable? This is where our mind turns to: we might have lost an active fishing area because of a cable that we didn't know was coming and were not effectively consulted or accommodated on during the planning process," Vascotto said. 

Fisheries and Oceans said the proponent, not government, is responsible for consultation with industry.

DFO said the company was provided with First Nations and industry contacts in 2020, "as well as detailed information on fishing activity and sensitive benthic features (like corals) in the area, and advised the proponent to engage these groups on the proposed project."

"There are dozens of inactive and active cables in Atlantic Canada and it is likely that other areas of interest and/or [Marine Protected Areas] have cables within them," said McNab.

Should the Fundian Channel-Browns Bank AOI ever be designated as a Marine Protected Area, cables may be prohibited or restricted based on potential ecological impacts to conservation objectives for the area.

"However, under international law, coastal states must allow for the laying of submarine cables in their exclusive economic zone and continental shelf, and are limited to imposing controls on routing for environmental protection purposes only," she said.

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