MEDIA RELEASE

CONTACT:

Darlene Schanfald, Vice Chair

Sierra Club North Olympic Group

360-681-7565

Clallam County’s Planning Department intends to permit the first industrial built floating Atlantic Salmon net pens in WA State, and without an environmental impact study.  The pens will be sited in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, a mile and a half north of Greenpoint, a high activity area for protected mammals, marine birds and fish.

Kurt Beardslee, Executive Director of Wild Fish Conservancy and Chris Wilke, Executive Director of Puget Soundkeeper Alliance will lead a discussion on floating Atlantic Salmon net pen impacts on marine systems.  Both Beardslee and Wilke will demonstrate problems through power points.  The free public forum will take place on Tuesday, August 29 from 6-8 PM in the Sequim Transit Center, located at 190 W. Cedar Street.  There will be plenty of time for public questions.  The event is hosted by the Sierra Club North Olympic Group.

Pen owner Cooke Aquaculture is an international corporation with salmon farm operations in Chile, Spain, Scotland, Canada, and Maine.  Cooke unveiled a plan to expand its operation in Puget Sound into an epicenter of Atlantic Salmon net pen production.  Here in the Strait, in heavily turbulent water, planned are 14 large pens within easy site of bluff homeowners, penning 900,000 Atlantic Salmon over 9.7 acres of water and 52 acres of bottom land, 4,000 to 8,000 thousand anchors and chains and 24/7 below and above water lighting.  The fish are injected with antibiotics and with coloring to turn them orange. 

High-density open water net pens have been breeding grounds for infection, disease and parasites that have spread to wild salmon.  In WA State waters, where pens now exist in coves, there have been thousands of escaped Atlantic Salmon, a major viral outbreak and decades of pollution, especially to bottom lands beneath pens.

Washington State relies on unenforceable recommendations for this industry. Washington allows the industry to self-monitor and the industry lacks transparency and has the ability to hide behind the veil of "proprietary information".   A safe option for raising penned Atlantic Salmon is in upland contained systems. 

For more information on open water farming of Atlantic Salmon, go to: https://www.oursound-oursalmon.org/learn/#learn-more

Also: There will be a Public Hearing on the Shoreline Substantial Permit for the Cooke Aquaculture Pacific project before the Public Hearings Examiner. Thursday September 7, 2 PM, Clallam County Commissioners Room, Clallam County Courthouse, 4th and Peabody, Port Angeles.