Conservation group files application to take over expiring Cooke Aquaculture leases

As Cooke Aquaculture’s 15-year net pen leases in Port Angeles and Puget Sound near an expiration date, a conservation group has filed applications to lease the sites with the goal of reopening them for public use.

This week, Washington-based Wild Fish Conservancy submitted applications to the Department of Natural Resources and Commissioner of Public Lands Hilary Franz to acquire the four existing leases in state-owned waters. Cooke Aquaculture’s leases for project sites near Hope Island and in Rich Passage will expire in 2022, while sites located in Cypress Island’s Deepwater Bay and Port Angeles Harbor were terminated in 2017 and 2018.

“For over three decades, these four sites located in Washington’s public waters and the traditional areas of several Tribal Nations have been leased to private industry and used for commercial marine net pen finfish aquaculture,” reads a letter from Wild Fish Conservancy Executive Director Kurt Beardslee to Franz. “Over this time, we have seen the well-documented risks inherent to open water net pens materialize, endangering the health of Washington’s waters which support our culture, economy, wild salmon, and orcas.”

In the letter, Beardslee goes on to blast commercial marine net pen finfish aquaculture for ecological risks such as “rampant levels of untreated and unmitigated daily pollution; the amplification and spread of both endemic and exotic viruses, parasites, and diseases to wild fish populations,” and cited the 2017 fish farm collapse near Cypress Island that sent hundreds of thousands of Atlantic salmon into the Puget Sound.

“The use of these lands for commercial net pen aquaculture does not provide a balance of benefits for all citizens of our state. For thirty years, these facilities have prevented the public from accessing and enjoying 130 acres of public waters located in or adjacent to areas of great interest to the public, including state and local parks, aquatic preserves, unique conservation areas, tribal lands, and areas popular for commercial and recreational fishing, boating, and wildlife viewing,” Beardslee continued. “More significantly, some Tribal Nations have reported net pens restrict their access to traditional hunting, fishing, and gathering areas.”

After the 2017 collapse at Cypress Island, Washington state’s legislature voted to phase out the farming of non-native finfish in March 2018. To continue operations in the state, Cooke has switched to focusing on species native to the Pacific Northwest – the company is in the process of securing permits to farm all-female rainbow trout at its existing farms in Puget Sound and steelhead trout in Puget Sound and the Salish Sea.