Washington State’s Department of Ecology has fined Cooke Aquaculture $332,000 for what it calls the "negligent" release of hundreds of thousands of Atlantic salmon into Puget Sound.
State investigators from the Department of Ecology, the Department of Natural Resources and Fish and Wildlife says last August's net-pen collapse at Cooke Aquaculture off Cypress Island could have been prevented.
State officials at a news conference in Olympia didn’t hold back Tuesday.
“Cooke Aquacullture was negligent,” said Maia Bellon, the director of the Washington Department of Ecology. “Cooke's negligence led directly to the Atlantic salmon net pen failure.”
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The multi-agency report found Cooke failed to properly clean their nets, which led to an excessive build-up of mussels and other organisms and triggered the collapse.
“Cooke's disregard caused this disaster and recklessly put our state's ecosystem at risk,” said Hilary Franz, commissioner of Public Lands at the Department of Natural Resources.
After last summer's collapse, the Department of Fish and Wildlife even released a video on how to identify the non-native salmon.
Investigators say Cooke failed to take action after a near disaster a month earlier in July.
“They knew there was an issue and Cooke could have and should have prevented this incident,” Bellon added.
Cooke originally reported 160,000 salmon were released.
The state also accused Cooke of lying about how many escaped. Officials said the real figure is anywhere between 243,000 and 263,000.
Cooke Aquaculture criticized the state's findings in a news release.
“Cooke Aquaculture was shut out of this investigation by the state agencies,” said Joel Richardson, vice president of public relations at Cooke, Inc. “As a result, investigators with limited experience in aquaculture or net-pen operations have produced an inaccurate and misleading document that appears to be intended to fuel the push by aquaculture opponents to put Cooke out of business in Washington state.”
Meanwhile. a moratorium on any new or pending permits for fish farming in the state is still in place.
Governor Jay Inslee said the state needs to conduct an intensive review of the downsides of fish farming in the Puget Sound.
“And that will take some time, but we need to look at the scale and damage and understand where the fish went and what they did,” Inslee said.
Franz said she will make an announcement on the future of Cooke's Cypress Island facility in the coming days.
In December, DNR terminated Cooke's lease in Port Angeles.
Cox Media Group
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