Authorisation guidance: Pen layout changes at marine finfish farms

Published: March 2024

1. Authorisation of pen layout changes

1.1 All pen layout changes require prior-authorisation from SEPA. To obtain authorisation, operators must apply to SEPA to very their existing SEPA permit.

1.2 All such applications will be subject to screening, environmental risk assessment (see section 2). This assessment will determine whether or not further, more complex risk assessment is required.

1.3 Proposals not requiring further, more complex assessment will be authorised by an admin variation. For layout changes requiring more complex risk assessment, operators must apply for a technical variation.

1.4 In all cases, operators should discuss their proposals with SEPA before making an application to ensure they understand the information SEPA requires them to provide before it can process their applications.

2. Screening environmental risk assessment

2.1 For a pen layout change to be authorised by admin variation, the answer to all the screening checklist risk assessment questions must be "no". A link to the checklist can be found under Administrative variations.

3. Compliance and environmental monitoring

3.1 All pen layout changes have implications for environmental monitoring, including for the identification of monitoring locations. Where necessary Operators must revise their monitoring plans to reflect any changes to pen layouts and then submit their revised plans to SEPA for inclusion in the varied permits.¹

3.2 There may be situations where operators identify monitoring locations for the new layout that coincide with areas of the seabed that were in the mixing zone of the previous layout. Where this is the case, operators should decide whether future compliance assessments could be affected by residual impacts from the mixing zone of the previous layout. If they believe compliant assessment could be so affected, they will need to:

a) differentiate the residual impacts from the effects of the operation of the farm in its new layout; and

b) demonstrate that, in the absence of those residual impacts, the farm would meet the required environmental standards.

3.3 Operators are advised to consider this when preparing revised monitoring plans. For example, operators may wish to consider collecting baseline information about residual impacts, particularly those impacts close to, and beneath, the previous pen layout where seabed recovery is likely to take the longest.

¹ Operators are responsible for demonstrating that their farms are meeting environmental standards. To do this, operators must monitor the environmental footprint of their farms on the seabed in accordance with an environmental monitoring plan. Operators prepare the plans, which then form part of their SEPA permits.

Appendix 1: Identifying sensitive, protected seabed features

To identify sensitive, protected seabed feature, operators must use:

1) information on NMPi on the locations of the sensitive seabed features listed below.

2) such additional information they may have, including from seabed surveys that they have undertaken in the vicinity of their farms.

List of seabed features most sensitive to finfish culture with link to individual NMPi layer for each feature:

Maerl beds.
Flame shell beds.
Horse mussel beds.
Blue mussel beds.
Northern sea fan and sponge communities.
Seagrass beds.
Fan mussels aggregations.
Serpulid aggregations.
Other reef features in the following SACs (Firth of Lorn, Loch Creran, Loch Laxford, Loch nam Madadh, Lochs Duich, Long and Alsh Reefs, Sunart, and Sound of Barra).

Notes:

1) Where the link below is to a Marine Scotland information page, the NMPi information on the feature can be found by clicking the "Access this map on NMPi" link in the bottom right corner of the landing page.

2) The distance-measuring tool in NMPi should be used to measure the approximate distances from farms to sensitive seabed features.

3) Native oyster beds are also sensitive to the deposition of organic solids form finfish farms. To avoid the risk of potentially illegal harvesting, the precise locations of native oyster beds are not shown on NMPi. Only one active finfish farm is known to be close to a native oyster bed.