Cooke launches appeal against Washington farm closures
COOKE Aquaculture and the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe have announced they will each be appealing over the decision to end net-pen fish farming in the US state of Washington.
Cooke is taking the Washington Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to the Superior Court of Washington in an effort to reverse the decision not to renew leases for its two remaining net-pen fish farms in the state.
Cooke’s two farms, producing native steelhead (rainbow) trout, were the last remaining marine net-pen farms in Washington, on the north-west Pacific coast of the US. On 14 November, Hilary Franz, the state’s Commissioner of Public Lands, announced that the leases for these sites would not be renewed, and a few days later followed that up with an announcement that net-pen fish farming would be banned altogether.
Franz said at the time: “There is no way to safely farm finfish in open sea net-pens without jeopardising our struggling native salmon… we, as a state, are going to do better by our salmon, by our fishermen and by our tribes.”
The DNR had initially given Cooke just 30 days to harvest the fish at its two farms and remove the pens.
Cooke’s preliminary injunction, to secure an extension to 14 April to safely harvest the fish and remove equipment from the Rich Passage and Hope Island farm sites, was upheld by the Superior Court of the State of Washington.The company had argued that the initial harvest deadline of 14 January would jeopardise safety.
Cooke has pointed out that the strain of sterile rainbow trout grown by the company is the same strain used by the state to stock lakes and rivers throughout Washington.
Cooke has also stressed the devastating effect that the closures would have on its employees, and – in a sign that the gloves are off – explicitly linked Commissioner Franz’s hard line on aquaculture to her re-election campaign, accusing her of launching a fundraising drive on the back of it.
The Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe, which is based on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, is bringing a separate lawsuit to get the DNR’s state-wide ban overturned.
W. Ron Allen, CEO and Tribal Chairman of the tribe, said:“As a tribe, we have always been conscientious stewards of our natural environment and look seven generations ahead in all that we do. Modern, well-regulated aquaculture is the environmentally responsible solution for producing seafood and exercising our tribal treaty rights – now and into the future.”