February 12, 2018 — International seafood producer, Cooke Aquaculture is vowing a fight as it attempts to hold on to its operations in Washington state.
The New Brunswick-based company suffered a major setback Thursday when the state senate voted 35-12 to end Atlantic salmon aquaculture operations as leases on cage sites expire over the next six years.
The bipartisan bill passed despite an all out effort by the company in support of an amendment proposed by one senator that would have allowed Atlantic salmon aquaculture to continue using only female fish. The amendment was designed to ensure non-native salmon could not breed should they escape into the wild.
“We‘re going to just continue to look forward, we‘re going to work with legislators,” said Joel Richardson, the company vice-president, public relations. “We‘ve been advocating hard on behalf of our employees. We have 180 employees in Washington.
“We believe those employees‘ jobs are worth saving and we‘re going to do everything we can to save them.”
Cooke has found itself on shifting ground since the Aug. 19 collapse of a net-pen farm that allowed tens of thousands of Atlantic salmon to escape into Puget Sound, raising fears they would stress wild native salmon or otherwise contaminate the marine environment.
This photograph of a fouled salmon-cage net was included in a report prepared by a state investigative panel looking into the collapse of the Cooke Aquaculture salmon farm. (State of Washington)
State officials earlier said 160,000 fish escaped, but a report released this month by an investigative review panel concluded the real number is somewhere between 242,000 and 262,000 — numbers that Cooke disputes.
Read the full story at the Kaplan Herald