Cooke Aquaculture Fined $332,000 For Puget Sound Salmon Pen Collapse

The Washington Department of Ecology has reportedly fined Cooke Aquaculture $332,000 for violations of state water quality laws related to a net pen failure that released approximately 250,000 farmed Atlantic salmon into Puget Sound. Cooke initially blamed the failure on high tides coinciding with the August 2017 solar eclipse; state investigators determined that the pen collapsed because the company failed to clean and maintain the nets, reportedly finding that they were covered with more than 110 tons of mussels, clams and other marine organisms that increased tidal drag and overwhelmed the mooring systems. The state reports that about 57,000 of the escaped fish have been captured.

Before the Puget Sound farm collapsed, Cooke reportedly applied to build a salmon farm in Washington’s Strait of Juan de Fuca. The state has terminated Cooke’s leases for both the Puget Sound location and a second location in Port Angeles and placed a moratorium on new net pen permits. The state legislature is also considering a bill that would prohibit the state from entering or renewing leases for marine finfish farming of non-native species.