It’s been a nightmarish year for Washington State’s only active Atlantic salmon farming company — Canada’s Cooke Aquaculture Inc.

On Tuesday, a Cooke subsidiary was found responsible for an August 2017 fish farm mishap that released up to 263,000 Atlantic Salmon into Washington’s Puget Sound — in addition to misleading the public and regulators about the cause, and lowballing the number of fish that escaped.

Those were the key findings of an investigation led by Washington’s Department of Ecology, Department of Fish and Wildlife and Department of Natural Resources (DNR) — which started last fall after a net pen near Cypress Island in Puget Sound (about 50 km east of Victoria) broke up on August 19.

“The collapse was not the result of natural causes,” said Hilary Franz, commissioner of public lands at a press conference Tuesday.  “Cooke’s disregard caused this disaster and recklessly put our state’s aquatic ecosystem at risk.”

On the same day this was announced, the state also fined the company $322,000 for violations of Washington state water quality laws associated with the August incident.

The outcome of the investigation is just the latest setback for Cooke and a nascent Atlantic salmon farming industry attempting to gain a foothold in Washington state — currently the only Pacific U.S. state where Atlantic salmon are farmed in ocean net pens.

In December, the Department of Natural Resources terminated Cooke’s lease of aquatic lands at Port Angeles — one of four sites the company has in the state — alleging multiple violations, and prompting the company to launch legal action that is pending. A month later, a coalition of Washington state tribes demanded that legislators outlaw Atlantic salmon farming in Puget Sound altogether.

But by far the most serious risk to Atlantic salmon farming in Washington state is the threat that lawmakers will phase out the industry for good. A case in point: a bill co-sponsored by Washington Senator Kevin Ranker that would prohibit the state from awarding new (or renewing old) farm leases like those run by Cooke continues to advance.

Could the bad news of this investigation be a final nail in the coffin for Atlantic salmon farming in Washington state?

What really happened?

State investigators say that last August, tidal currents at Cypress Island pushed against a heavy build-up of mussels and other organisms on the nets — weighing 110 tons in all — and overwhelming the pen’s mooring system and crushing the pen. Not only did Cooke fail to remove the mussels and clean the pens as they should have, the investigators concluded, they did not take “necessary precautions” after an earlier July incident that saw the Cypress Island net pens shift under the force of strong currents.  

“The results of our investigative report clearly show a significant violation of Washington’s water quality laws,” said Ecology Director Maia Bellon on Tuesday. “Cooke Aquaculture could have prevented this failure.”

“Cooke Aquaculture could have prevented this failure.”https://t.co/sxp7cAAdo4

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) February 2, 2018

Company underestimated escaped fish: state report

Based on Cooke’s reports, it was widely reported that 160,000 fish escaped as a result of the incident.

But state investigators on Tuesday said Cooke “misrepresented” the number of fish it harvested when the pen collapsed, which ultimately low-balled the total number of unaccounted fish.

Of the 305,000 fish in the pen, the company claimed to have extracted 145,000 fish, but the investigators concluded that Cooke could only have removed a maximum of 62,000 fish. The state now says the real number of escaped Atlantics could be as high as 263,000.

The issue of escapes has been high profile because wild Pacific salmon continue to struggle and the prospects of competition and disease transmission from escaped Atlantic salmon could hasten the decline.

Since the escapes, fishermen in Washington and B.C. have caught about 2,000 Atlantic salmon while Washington’s Lummi Nation, which declared a state of emergency after the disaster, has recovered at least 20,000.

A Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife map details the location of Atlantic farmed salmon caught and reported by anglers.

B.C. First Nations and Washington tribes protest

On January 18, Lummi Nation chairman Jeremiah Jay Julius joined 20 other Washington Treaty Tribal leaders in demanding that Washington lawmakers immediately enact legislation to remove Atlantic salmon from Washington waters.

“Too much is at stake — and the risks are too great — to allow Atlantic salmon aquaculture to continue now,” reads the letter.

This tribal activism in Washington mirrors recent protests in B.C.’s Broughton archipelago — where First Nations and environmentalists have raised alarms about sea lice and disease transmission from farmed to wild fish for years. Late last summer, two Broughton-area salmon farms owned by Marine Harvest were occupied by local First Nations demanding provincial and federal governments revoke their permits.

Newly elected Premier John Hogan met with Broughton-area First Nations last October to discuss their concerns, followed by a meeting in late January.

This week, a joint statement by four B.C. ministers and five Broughton-area First Nations confirmed discussions were continuing, but no changes were announced.

Troubled waters ahead for salmon farming in Washington?

On Tuesday, Cooke Aquaculture Pacific lashed out against the state investigation. Vice president of public relations Joel Richardson told DeSmog Canada the company did not overestimate the number of fish recovered and rejects the state’s explanation for the cause of the disaster, despite a concession that the company “fell behind in [net] hygiene.”  (Richardson says the real cause of the mishap is likely a combination factors, and cannot be solely attributed to the buildup of mussels on the nets.)

The report, the company says, is “intended to fuel the push by aquaculture opponents to put Cooke out of business in Washington.” And putting Cooke out of business is now a real possibility.

Commissioner Franz, whose Department of Natural Resources is technically Cooke’s landlord on the seabed where it farms, is now reviewing the report and will make an announcement in the coming week regarding the future of the Cypress Island facility. Asked if evicting the company was an option from this site, a spokesman for the department said “all options are on the table.”

Meanwhile Senator Ranker’s bill cleared another hurdle this week, advancing past a critical finance committee on Monday.

Regardless of what comes next, it’s clear that Cooke has made powerful enemies in Washington state.

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Fugitive fish from a collapsed salmon farm in Washington State are showing up in the waters off Campbell River, Tofino, Sechelt and Saanich, but, last week, delegates at the Union of B.C. Municipalities convention side-stepped a debate on salmon farm licensing.

Instead, an emergency resolution from the Victoria council asking the province to deny any more open-net aquaculture permits and to phase out existing open-net operations in favour of land-based pens, was referred to the Association of Vancouver Island and Coastal Communities for further discussion.

The Victoria resolution, which also called for a transition plan for workers and adequate consultation with Indigenous governments, said the proliferation of open-net fish farms, stocked with Atlantic salmon, threatens local waterways and wild fish “undermining the economic, social and ecological wellbeing of local communities.”

Opponents of salmon farms fear that Atlantic salmon, packed into pens open to the ocean, spread diseases and sea lice to wild stocks. Escaped farmed Atlantic salmon from the Washington State fish farm, owned and operated by Cooke Aquaculture, have traveled as far as 250 kilometres over the last month. 

Between 2011 and 2017 there have been only three confirmed reports of Atlantic salmon off the B.C. coast, according to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. As the CBC reports, since August 19 the federal government has received reports of 40 sightings.

Ban on New #FishFarm Permits Sidelined as Escaped US #FarmedSalmon Increase in BC Waters https://t.co/sMMEN4XlUe @JeremyLoveday #bcpoli

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) October 1, 2017

First Nations-led protests against salmon farms are continuing at two Marine Harvest fish farms off north-east Vancouver Island and the resolution points out that many fish farms were built in Indigenous territories, without consultation “undermining the shared objective of reconciliation and respectful relations between indigenous and non-indigenous governments.”

Victoria Councillor Jeremy Loveday was hoping the emphasis on finding alternatives for fish farm workers and the shock value of Atlantic salmon turning up in communities around the B.C. coast would be enough to gain the support of delegates.

“In my opinion this is not a satisfactory result. I would have liked to have had a discussion on the floor at UBCM,” Loveday told DeSmog Canada.

“I thought that, after the accident, people would be more willing to have this discussion and put their foot down and say enough is enough,” he said.

But, even though it seems the future of wild fish is at stake and the resolution suggested a job transition plan, some delegates, from municipalities with open net fish farms in their area, worried about job loss, Loveday said.

“There was a sentiment within UBCM delegates that they weren’t supportive of the motion at this time… Some are just opposed and others want more time for discussion,” he said.

Controversy over open-net fish farming has raged for more than three decades, with a resolution similar to the Victoria motion endorsed by UBCM in 2006, but concerns reached a new peak this summer.

In addition to the escape of an estimated 165,000 Atlantic salmon from the Puget Sound farm, a video released to DeSmog Canada, showed blind, diseased and deformed fish in B.C. fish pens.

The video was shot by Ernest Alfred, a traditional leader from the ‘Namgis, Tlowitsis and Mamalilikulla First Nations, who is now leading protests at the farms on Swanson and Midsummer islands.

“We don’t want fish farms in our territory and we’re going to sit here until they’re all gone,” said Alfred.

On Thursday the group Fish Farms Out Now! occupied the offices of Agriculture Minister Lana Popham while members of the Friends of Clayoquot Sound occupied the office of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation Minister Scott Fraser to put pressure on the provincial government to remove open-pen fish farms from territories where no free, prior and informed consent has been given.

The occupations are the first in a series of escalating actions, said a news release from the groups.

Popham said in a statement that she is committed to working with First Nations, the aquaculture industry and Fisheries and Oceans Canada “to ensure B.C.’s aquaculture sector is environmentally sustainable and respects First Nations rights while continuing to provide good jobs for British Columbians.”

In a Facebook posting Popham said the aquaculture file is complicated.

“In the next couple of weeks myself and the Premier will be sitting down with First Nations to have a government to government discussion — the beginning of a new relationship,” she wrote.

“I have also requested that federal Fisheries Minister (Dominic) LeBlanc and the industry join us at another meeting as soon as possible.”

The last new permits for fish farms in B.C. were approved in 2015 and a committee looking at wild salmon and the aquaculture industry is expected to submit a report to Popham by the end of November.

Image: Farmed salmon in a B.C. fish pen. Photo: Courtesy of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and Tamo Campos.

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