The Salmonid Association of Eastern Newfoundland recently paid a visit to Salmon Cove in Conception Bay North to speak with residents about the presence of blue-green algae in the local watershed among other issues.

Vice-President and director of projects with SAEN, Kevin Power hosted a town hall in the town last week that coincided with the latest algal bloom.

SAEN has been investigating fish kills in the Salmon Cove watershed for the last number of years, and Power says they made a presentation on their findings to-date, followed by questions and discussion from the public.

“Obviously the algal bloom was a dominant part of the discussion, but we did receive input from other people around, including some of the anglers….and other issues that we’ve identified in terms of threats to salmon in the system.”

Minister responsible for the environment and municipal affairs, Chris Tibbs met with the local town council last week to hear their concerns about the algal blooms.

Tibbs says the important thing to note is that the latest blooms are not toxic, but Power says it’s still a concern.

“We don’t know if the algae event in 2021, which I think was the time frame of the previous one where there (were) mortalities, I don’t know if that would have been deemed toxic, but generally when they talk about toxic, I would imagine that the province is talking about toxicity to humans or dogs or things like that.” He says algae itself, “it does have an impact on the waterbody, depending how serious it is.”