Fish Farms’ Fugitive Salmon Declared Living Pollutants State Board Cites Pens’ Waste, Danger To Native Pacific Salmon

Atlantic salmon that escape from fish farms’ floating pens are being added to the list of pollutants in Washington state, right up there with sewage and industrial waste.

The Washington Pollution Control Hearings Board has declared the fish a living pollutant that can be regulated by the state just like factory and sewage-plant discharges.

A quarter of a million Atlantic salmon have escaped from the pens since 1991, estimated the board, which resolves legal disputes over environmental issues.

Atlantic salmon escapees could pose a serious threat to native Pacific salmon, environmental and conservation groups had argued in challenging state regulation of salmon farms as too lax. They also contend that waste from the net pens damages water quality.

“Our goal is to get this industry under control,” said Barbara Stenson of the Marine Environmental Consortium, one of the groups that filed the challenge. “We believe this is not an appropriate use of the waters of Puget Sound.”

The ruling in late May is an intermediate step and doesn’t change the way fish farms are regulated, said Bellevue attorney Richard Elliott, who represents the two companies that operate 10 net-pen complexes in Washington’s inland waters.

Still unresolved are some fundamental questions - including whether the escapees actually do harm native fish and, if so, what the options are.

The board has scheduled a five-day hearing in Olympia, beginning July 24, to address those issues.

The environmental groups would like the fish farms moved inland, where wastes can be treated and escapees wouldn’t be a problem.

Salmon farmers say that would likely drive them out of business.

“We disagree with what the board said,” Elliott said. “But in order to prove that these releases are unlawful, the other side has to prove that escaped Atlantic salmon have a negative impact, and we don’t think there’s any evidence of that.”

“It’s going to come down basically to a battle of experts,” said Seattle attorney Richard Smith, representing the conservation groups.

Washington’s salmon farms are located on the Strait of Juan de Fuca and in Puget Sound, the state’s sheltered marine waters. They are operated by Global Aqua and ScanAm, two companies with Norwegian roots, and produce about 11 million pounds of fish annually, worth about $25 million.

With the global salmon market flooded in recent years by wild harvests in Alaska and fish-farm production in Chile, Norway and Great Britain, the operations in Washington have had to lay off workers and struggle for new markets.

Fish farmers contend wastes from the floating pens are quickly diluted in Puget Sound. The state Department of Ecology, which regulates the industry, agrees.

Critics say fish wastes wind up on the bottom, and cause problems there.

They also contend the penned fish could spread disease to wild fish, and that escapees may compete or interbreed with native salmon.

State fisheries biologists have found no evidence of interbreeding. And they say most of the pellet-fed Atlantic salmon can’t catch food in the wild.

British Columbia has imposed a moratorium on new salmon farms, citing similar concerns, and the province is considering strict new rules for the operations.