Day 15 – North Uist, Outer Hebrides (follow our Scottish & Irish tour online here)
Two weeks into our tour of Scottish salmon farms it is difficult to avoid a sense of depression and decay. Scotland's pristine waters are being used as a dumping ground – a toxic toilet – by foreign multinationals.
Photo: Former fisherman Roddy Campbell on the Isle of Harris – watch video report online here
The 'pollute and move' on mentality is evident everywhere we've visited – from the Isle of Mull to the Isle of Skye and from Wester Ross to the Outer Hebrides. Seagulls swarmed around the Scottish Salmon Company's land-based in Loch Kishorn like flies round shit.
Empty cages lay strewn on the beach like a ghost salmon farm.
Chemical containers gave a glimpse into the horror story behind salmon farming in Scotland.
Norwegian-owned multinationals such as Marine Harvest, Scottish Sea Farms and the Scottish Salmon Company are leaving a trail of diseases, toxic chemicals and mortalities in their wake as they foul Scotland's nest.
Former salmon farmer Jackie Mackenzie told us how the use of toxic chemicals continues across Scotland.
Watch video report online here
At a Marine Harvest salmon farm on the Isle of Skye, chemical containers and disused equipment created an eyesore.
Vats of formic acid carry labels warning that it is corrosive and flammable.
Salmon farming in Scotland is slash and burn salmon farming at its very worst – and eerily familiar to the devastation in Chile when I visited the Region X area 2009 with film-maker Damien Gillis.
Read more via "What ISA Virus Did to Chile"
The shifting cultivation of the sea is all too visible with chemical containers, rusty cages and discarded equipment littering the shoreline. In Loch Roag on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, the wasteland reeked of a post-apocalyptic movie with containers of Salartect (hydrogen peroxide) despoiling the seashore.
Problems with infectious diseases and over-production in Loch Roag has left a lasting legacy of pollution.
The local newspaper carried a message from Marine Harvest reassuring residents of the Outer Hebrides that they were "operating safely and irresponsibly".
However, behind the slick PR and glossy adverts it was hard to escape the conclusion that salmon farming in the Outer Hebrides was far from a pretty picture.
The very future of salmon farming in Scotland is being eroded by the spread of infectious diseases.
Amoebic Gill Disease is Scottish Salmon’s Dirty Big Secret – with mortality rates of up to 70%. On the Isle of Harris, local creel fisherman Angus Campbell was interviewed last month by STV News.
Watch an interview with Angus Campbell featuring the chemical containers used by Marine Harvest – online here
In North Uist, more chemical trucks store hydrogen peroxide destined for Marine Harvest salmon farms in the Outer Herbrides.
Chemical containers and mort bins are piled up at Loch Duart's shorebase at Lochmaddy.
Vats of hydrogen peroxide leach (and bleach) from Marine Harvest's site at Cheesebay in Loch Portain.
The same vats of corrosive chemicals are stored at Loch Duart's shorebase at Lochmaddy.
The use of more and more chemicals – data from the Scottish Government reveals a 12-fold increase since 2005 – is symptomatic of a disease epidemic which is sweeping like wildfire across Scotland.
Creel fishermen across the Hebrides are now being displaced from their traditional fishing grounds as salmon farms spread like a malignant cancer around the coast.
On the Isle of Scalpay in Harris the copper-painted nets stain the dock red.
The net-cleaning equipment bears witness to the salmon farming's stain upon the sea.
Underneath the water, the video evidence of sea-bed pollution leaves a nasty taste in the mouth.
Watch David Ainsley explain the devastation under salmon farms off the West coast of Scotland – online here
For more information watch Bruce Sandison's "Shame Below the Waves"
For the latest video reports from Scotland please see “The
Camera Never Lies (Unlike Salmon Farmers)!”
And watch out for the forthcoming report – "Smoke on the Water, Cancer on the Coast".
Where there's smoke there's fire!