A seven-year-old unpublished report indicates 100 per cent of a sample of Cultus Lake sockeye salmon tested positive for a potentially deadly salmon virus.

The undated report (likely from 2004) produced at a Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) station in Nanaimo, tested wild Pacific—sockeye, chinook and pink—from various locations, including Cultus Lake.

Twenty-two per cent of the salmon, or 117 out of more than 500 samples tested positive for ISA, with more than half of the positive tests from the Fraser River.

And more than half of all the positive test results came from the 64 out of 64 samples of Cultus Lake sockeye found with ISA virus.

While it is unclear why the report was shelved when it was first produced, co-author Molly Kibenge sent a Nov. 4, 2011 email to another co-author asking permission to now submit the work for publication to a scientific journal.

"I would like to submit it to Diseases of Aquatic Organisms or Journal of Fish Diseases," Kibenge wrote to Dr. Simon Jones. "What do you think?"

In an email that same day, Jones declined to give her permission, saying that DFO scientists disagreed with her results. He also said that the Cohen Commission was scheduled to reconvene in December to hear evidence on ISA virus in B.C.

"I will wait to hear the outcome of these processes before further discussion on a seven-year-old manuscript," Jones wrote.

The emails and the report were posted on an anti-salmon farm blogger's site, superheroes4salmon.org. On the site, the write said the report was made available on Nov. 23 to participants in the Cohen Commission, the judicial inquiry looking into the decline of Fraser River sockeye salmon.

When asked Tuesday by a Seattle Times reporter, DFO declined to answer questions and issued a brief statement that said, in part: "Based on the best science available, it was concluded that her results had produced a false positive."

Infectious Salmon Anemia virus (ISA) was in the news a month ago when federal officials said reports that the deadly virus was infecting B.C. salmon were unfounded.

"There are no confirmed cases of ISA in wild or farm salmon in B.C.," said Con Kiley, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency's national aquatic animal health program director.

"There's no evidence that it occurs in fish off the [coast] of B.C."

Earlier test results found 48 sockeye smolts tested positive for the deadly European strain of the virus, but DFO said the samples were degraded rendering the conclusions useless, which is the same thing the agency said of Kibenge's results.

Groups opposed to the aquaculture industry in B.C. say the big questions is, if ISA is in the province, was imported on salmon eggs by Norwegian-owned salmon farming companies, and what would happen if it got into fish farms, mutated and spread to wild populations.

Mary Ellen Walling, executive director for the B.C. Salmon Farmers Association, said her organization was "dismayed at the way campaigners used this to create fear about our operations."

The 2004 the report does not address the source of the ISA virus, including whether it is linked to fish farms.

The Canadian government may be disputing the recent ISA test results, and the results from the 2004 study, but American politicians are acting.

On Nov. 17, the U.S. Senate passed a bill introduced by Washington Senator Maria Cantwell, and backed by all eight western state senators, that calls on the National Aquatic Animal Health Task Force to evaluate the risk the virus could have on wild salmon off West Coast and Alaskan waters.

While those inside DFO question the results from seven years ago, the aquatic habitat specialist for the David Suzuki Foundation said the implications of the unreleased report were appalling.

“Someone should be going to jail over this,” said Werring wrote in an email to other environmental organizations on Nov. 23. “Never in my over 20 years of doing my work have I seen such duplicity by our government. The closest thing I can relate to is when whistle blowers in the U.S. released documents showing that tobacco companies knew their product harmed people. This document (2004 draft) shows our government has known for years that ISAV has been in the Pacific and they have done nothing except cover it up. Appalling!”

phenderson@chilliwacktimes.com