BAP was asked to clarify what we mean for auditors and facilities to do in case facilities qualify under one of the exemptions to the BAP effluent monitoring requirements as described in the Finfish and Crustacean Farm Standard Section 5 (5.2 and 5.3). Since the standard as it is presently written says that basically all of Standard 5 is not applicable, but this is not in fact what we intended – we only meant to say that the facilities are exempted from monitoring effluents, but we still want the estimates of water volume used by farms to produce their aquaculture crops.
We have re-worded some of the clauses in Section 5, and these will be included in a revised version of the FCFS (Issue 2 Revision 3, November 2016) that will come out later this week (there will be minor revisions and additions to a few other sections of the standard also).
As guidance to audits carried out using the current standard (Issue 2 Revision 2, April 2016), please note the way 5.2-5.4 have been revised in the new version (changes shown in red):
5.2: If the applicant’s facility operates within an irrigation system such that effluent water is exclusively destined to irrigate agricultural crops, Clauses 5.5 and 5.6 do not apply. Must be verified by auditor.
5.3: Clauses 5.5 and 5.6 do not apply for farms of less than 50 ha that avoid regular discharges of effluents into natural water bodies such that less than 1% of the culture water is exchanged daily on an annual basis – for example, by reusing all water or practicing infrequent, limited exchange of water.
5.4: Records on volume of farm intake water use and results of effluent monitoring (if applicable) shall be maintained and available, as detailed in the Implementation Guidelines.
BAP does want the records of water use by farms, regardless of whether they qualify for any of the exemptions. It will always be a useful statistic, to know how much water it took to grow a given aquaculture crop.