Saving Seafood

WASHINGTON: A company linked to Patagonia’s founder got the edge in Washington’s land-based salmon race. Some wonder why.

February 20, 2024 — An introductory meeting was enough for a little-known Canadian group with links to the founder of outdoor clothing retailer Patagonia to initiate a partnership giving it first crack at revolutionizing the salmon farming industry in the US state of Washington.

Nova Scotia-based Sustainable Blue left that meeting, in January 2023, with agreement to draft a Letter of Intent (LOI) to develop the first land-based salmon farm in the state, according to multiple emails and documents obtained by IntraFish.

Just three months later, Washington State Commissioner of Public Lands Hilary Franz – a key decision-maker on aquaculture policy in the state, and a participant in that meeting – announced the partnership to the public.

The unusual speed of the deal between Sustainable Blue and Washington’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has raised questions among established aquaculture companies, several of which say they were excluded from the selection process or consulted only after the LOI was signed.

The agreement has also invited scrutiny of the relationships between Franz, Patagonia and a non-governmental organization by the name of Wild Fish Conservancy, each of which has campaigned on different fronts against farming salmon in netpens.

This month, Franz was a keynote speaker in Reykjavik at the launch of Patagonia’s new film, “Laxaþjóð: A Salmon Nation”, which is part of a campaign to end netpen salmon farming in Iceland.

Read the full article at Intrafish

WASHINGTON: ‘Sustainable Blue’s entry into Washington state far from slam dunk’

December 11, 2023 —  Sustainable Blue, a Nova Scotia land-based aquaculture company, recently
suffered a large die-off at one of its Canadian facilities, with Undercurrent News reporting
100,000 fish killed on November 4. According to Undercurrent, the die-off is one of several
technical problems facing the company, which recently signed a high-profile letter of intent to
operate in Washington state, and the relatively untested field of land-based aquaculture.

Reviewing email correspondence between Sustainable Blue and Washington Department of
Natural Resources (DNR) Undercurrent found several potential technical issues with the plans in
the letter of intent, which would raise up to 10,000 metric tons of salmon per year. Most
notably, there are concerns over the amount of water the project would require, which would
be 264,000 gallons initially, with an additional 8,600 per day once the facilities are operational.

According to Undercurrent, “This high water consumption has been flagged in the DNR emails
as a ‘potential limiting factor.’ This is because the farm would need year- round consumptive
water rights or to be situated within city limits where traditional utilities could be utilized.”

There are also concerns over claims made by Sustainable Blue about its claims to have zero
environmental discharge in its operations. Emails reviewed by Undercurrent found that,
instead, “outgoing effluent contained 25% solid waste and 75% water.

A final concern raised by Undercurrent is the proposed sites for the land-based facilities,
especially given water use requirements. Several of the sites are in Whatcom County,which is
facing a drought.

“This past July, the county was placed under a full drought emergency. One of these sites is also
identified as a forested or wooded wetland, which adds to the concerns,” said Undercurrent.

The Undercurrent report notes that, despite these mounting environmental concerns and
technical issues, the Washington DNR fully supports the project. Undercurrent’s analysis of
available emails concludes that the “correspondence underscores the DNR's concerted efforts
to advocate for Sustainable Blue's arrival and to endorse the concept of land-based salmon
farming, as evident in the allocated staff resources and promotional strategies for the project.”

Read the full article at Under Current News