Land basing the salmon farms would most likely kill the industry. It started out with big profits in the 1980s. Previously most local salmon farming had been limited to pan size coho from saltwater pens. The chinook and Atlantic salmon farms are huge in comparison. The cost of pumping all that salt water might be enough to kill the industry, but we would likely have to require that the pump intakes be screened to our WA and northwest region screening criteria. Maintaining those screens in a saltwater environment seems like it would be prohibitively expensive to me. As far as I know, using salt water pens in the public water domain is essential to the economic viability of commercial salmon farming.

In the mid-80s I favored salmon farm development for many of the same reasons already expressed in this thread. For the last several years I've become a lot more apprehensive about them.

Sg