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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Vessel noise is already hindering endangered southern resident killer whales from communicating and finding fish and the noise bombardment will get worse if proposals for coal terminals and pipelines in B.C and Washington State are approved, said scientists and environmentalists at a conference looking at the health of the Salish Sea.

"Ships dominate the soundscape of Puget Sound," said Scott Veirs, Beam Reach Marine Sciences and Sustainability School program coordinator and professor, speaking at the Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference.

Veirs and his students take underwater sound recordings off Lime Kiln Park on San Juan Island, an area where the killer whales are known to spend time, and then model the echo-location and communication consequences for the resident killer whales. The resident killer whale population has dropped this year to 80 animals in three pods, the lowest number in more than a decade.

Sounds of swooshes, rattles and bangs echoed through the room as Veirs demonstrated noises surrounding the whales every day and audience members covered their ears as he played the screeching and metallic grindings made by a ship with a damaged propeller.

"At least one ship is present about 40 per cent of the time and when that ship is going through it reduces the range that whales can communicate by 68 per cent," Veirs said.

That means the whales miss about 37 per cent of calls and, if traffic doubles – as it could with increases in oil tankers from twinning the Kinder Morgan pipeline from Alberta to Burnaby and with 21 per cent more carriers and barges from proposed coal terminal expansions in B.C. and Washington – it is estimated the whales will miss 44 per cent of the calls, he said.

Current noise levels mean whales are already finding almost 50 per cent less fish than they would otherwise and a doubling of traffic would increase that to 58 per cent, Veirs said.

The noise is having a significant impact as chinook salmon is already scarce, Veirs said.

Canadian and U.S. government studies have pinpointed lack of salmon – and particularly the whales' preferred diet of chinook – noise and pollution as the major threats faced by the resident killer whales.

Juvenile chinook salmon. Photo by Roger Tabor, USFWS.

Ship owners should be offered incentives to properly maintain their vessels and the noise could be mitigated by ships slowing down or rerouting through Rosario instead of Haro Strait, Veirs suggested.

"Every knot you slow down, you come down about one noise level," he said.

However, that would mean more time in the vicinity of the whales, which would increase the possibility of oil spills, he said.

Concerns about shipping noise changing the whales' behaviour was echoed by Marla Holt, research wildlife biologist with the U.S National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Vessel noise affects acoustic signals that are important for foraging, Holt said.

"The behavioural changes in response to vessels is quite concerning as one of them is decreased foraging," she said.

NOAA used digital acoustic recording tags, temporarily attached to whales with suction cups, to estimate noise levels.

The minimum noise level recorded, with two stationary and one slow boat in the vicinity, was 88 decibels and the maximum, with a large ferry less than 300 metres away, was 141 decibels, Holt said. Sound charts equate 140 decibels with the sounds of a jet engine at 100 feet.

Last year, the behaviour of the whales was different than in previous years, said Jenny Atkinson, executive director of The Whale Museum in Friday Harbour, Washington.

The Whale Museum documented sightings in the Salish Sea and found that, especially during the summer, when the whales typically spend their time around Juan de Fuca Strait, Haro Strait and the Strait of Georgia, the animals spent more time off the west coast of Vancouver Island and did not get together to socialize in their traditional areas.

It is not known whether the behaviour changes are connected to salmon runs or noise, but the result is that no one is observing the greeting ceremonies or the three pods coming together in a superpod, Atkinson said.

"They're not spending too much time socializing and making babies," she said.

The only calf born in 2013 washed up dead and no births have yet been reported this year.

An additional problem is that southern residents reproduce more slowly than northern residents, possibly because of lack of prey availability or contamination, said Dawn Noren of NOAA.

But other whale populations are doing well, with increases in the northern resident and transient killer whale populations and a resurgence of humpback populations, Atkinson said.

"So what is going on with the southern residents?" she asked.

Howard Garrett of Orca Network has watched the changing behaviour and believes prey availability is the most likely cause.

"It may be that it's not just lack of food on the inside, but an abundance on the outside," he said.

The whales appear to like the protection of inland waters as it allows them to congregate, but that will likely start happening again once they are well fed, Garrett said.

Superpods are important for mating as there are strict rules within the pods that do not permit mating with family members, Garrett said.

"Maybe they're having superpods off the west coast, but the chance of that seems slighter because of the rougher water," he said.

Image Credit: vijay_SRV via Flickr

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As the Obama administration revisits its decision on whether to approve the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, DeSmog Canada decided to take a look at how the project became a cause célèbre.

We asked ourselves: Of all the environmental causes to fight, what was it that mobilized Hollywood celebrities, renowned scientists, environmental activists and a handful of Texans to face jail time protesting a proposed pipeline from Alberta to the U.S. Gulf Coast?

What’s more: How did a decision on the project – which Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper once brushed off as a “no-brainer” – get sidelined by the U.S. government ahead of a crucial 2012 presidential election?

While the Stephen Harper government has been quick to point fingers at so-called foreign-funded “radicals” and First Nations, we believe the answer lies much closer to home.

In fact, if the Obama administration decides to reject TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline, the Harper government will need to face facts: Its own environmental policies and PR tactics will be largely to blame.

Its pro-pipeline campaign, which vilifies environmental groups and suggests Canadians must choose between the economy and the environment, is backfiring. Keystone XL could very well be the first failure case study, followed by other anti-pipeline movements such as the one organizing against the Enbridge Northern Gateway.

Where exactly did the Harper government go wrong? The bungling of the issue dates back to 2006, when the newly elected Harper administration began backing away from the Kyoto Protocol climate change agreement, going against the trend of most other developing nations.

At a time when climate change concerns started to resurface as a top issue for Canadians, the Harper government was signaling its plans to loosen environmental targets for heavy-polluting industries, in particular oil and gas and tar sands. Its argument was that the targets were unrealistic and uneconomic.

That said, as the 2008-09 recession took hold, the pro-development message resonated with many Canadians. While climate change concerns remained, polls taken during the global financial crisis showed those worries took a back seat to the economic worries.

However, as the economy recovered in 2010 and 2011, so too did environmental concerns. Still the Harper government continued to drive home its commitment to expanding the Alberta tar sands and played down the importance of meeting emissions targets.

When it officially withdrew Canada from the Kyoto Protocol in 2011, amid international backlash, the Harper government and its friends in the oil industry continued to treat climate change not as an environmental issue, but as a public relations problem.

Once the U.S. announced it would delay the Keystone XL decision, the Harper PR machine went into overdrive. Instead of seeking collaboration with environmental groups and First Nations, the government doubled down, ramping up its rhetoric about environmental “radicals,” while at the same time increasing its advertising spending to promote the Harper administration as environmentally responsible.

Consider the response to a February 2013 report from the federal environment commissioner, Scott Vaughan, which found shortcomings in how the government protects citizens from pollution risks associated with resources development. Commenting on the findings in his final report Commissioner Vaughan said, “we need a boom in environmental protection in this country.”



Instead of responding with a commitment to do better the Harper Government sent Canadian Ambassador to the US, Gary Doer, out to the media to suggest that Keystone XL critics have overblown the estimated net increase in greenhouse gas emissions from the Keystone pipeline project.

He was quoted by Postmedia News saying: “If you ask the question: Do you want oil from (Venezuelan President) Hugo Chavez or (Alberta Premier) Alison Redford I think I know the answer.”


With all due respect to the Ambassador this is just a bad political shell game that has already backfired once. People can see that he is asking the wrong question. What Americans want to know is: Why isn’t the Harper government working quickly to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the tar sands and other sectors of the Canadian economy?

In its newest advertising campaign, the government continues to promote itself as greening the tar sands, even though its emission targets remain largely unchanged. This greenwashing only serves to inflame the critics, as we’ve seen with the fresh round of Keystone XL climate change protests in Washington.

Now, as a result of the Harper government’s muted response to environmental concerns, Keystone XL has become about much more than just a pipeline. As a recent opinion piece in The Guardian points out, Keystone XL will become a climate legacy issue for the Obama administration at a time when the environment has once again become top-of-mind for many Americans, particularly in the destructive aftermath of Superstorm Sandy.

Instead of attempting to address society’s growing concern about climate change, the Harper government’s response has been to try to spin its way out of the issue through denial and misleading PR campaigns. What’s worse, these government-sponsored ad campaigns are being funded by Canadian taxpayers, many of whom disagree with the Harper administration’s position on the environment, according to polls.

Still, as global climate change concerns continue to grow, the Harper government continues to dig in its heels. It’s that stance that is fuelling environmentalists not just with Keystone XL, but Northern Gateway and other resource projects across North America.

Opposition to Canada’s tar sands expansion efforts is growing globally, and the Harper government has only itself to blame.

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