P.E.I. sport fishermen demand fish kill review

A group of P.E.I. sport fishermen says the province isn't doing enough to prevent fish kills in West Prince.

The Prince Edward Island Bait Fisher's Group held a meeting Sunday night, after learning they won't be able to fish in three rivers for at least two years.

The Trout River, Mill River and Big Pierre Jacques River suffered what scientists are calling catastrophic fish kills the worst in40 years.

Everything from violations to the size of buffer zones should be reviewed to make sure the same thing doesn't happen in other rivers, said Bill Warren, the group's president.

"We're going to try and force every body of government to find out what it is and correct the problem," said Warren.

"If it's caused by a farmer and it's found,he has to pay compensation to hatch and restock that river. And if it's found that 15 feet don't meet the requirement to keep soil and water out of the river, that it be increased to 30 or 40 metres."

The group is contacting the federal fisheries department about the fish kills.

They want to see tougher penalties and bigger buffer zones if it's determined that pesticide run-off is to blame.

"Make each farmer pay $20,000 a year for the next five years to restock a river and if they turn around and say 'we had 15 metres and this still happened.' Fine, double it. Triple it. Quadruple it. It you have to. Keep them away from the river," said Warren.

Warren saidthe kills have put an end to most of the best fishing in West Prince for years.

P.E.I.'s Environment Minister Richard Brown said he would consider tougher laws, depending on the outcome of investigations. But in an interview last week, the Federation of Agriculture said more education is a better deterrent.

"We believe that teaching people and having people understand the importance of doing something in a certain way is appropriate and works very well for the most part," said Bertha Campbell for the P.E.I. Federation of Agriculture.

Provincial environment officials said results from the samples taken at last week's fish kills should be released by the end of the week.

The province said its investigation looking into possible sources of run off is still underway.