Found this in the Tacoma News Tribune on Christmas morning:

"As the commission adopted new rules for managing commercial salmon net pen operations - which rear Atlantic salmon in Washington marine waters - Commission member Dawn Reynolds shocked industry representatives and her fellow commissioners by moving to list the Atlantic salmon as an "aquatic nuisance species." Such a move would prohibit rearing them in the state.

Alaska already has done this, Reynolds said, and the dangers of disease and genetic pollution posed by Atlantics in Washington is too great.

"We go around patting ourselves on the back because we never allowed farming of elk or deer," she said, "and now, with chronic wasting disease, we're glad we didn't."

Commission Chairman Cahill ruled her motion out of order. The commission hadn't notified the public that the issue would be on the table, and the public had not had opportunity for input.

Reynolds was the commissioner who, during a discussion several years ago about banning use of lead shot on certain state wildlife areas, unexpectedly moved to ban all lead shot for all hunting, statewide.

She didn't get a vote on that motion, either, for the same reason."

Sounds like Ms. Reynolds plays some dirty politics. Luckily the others are aware of it and stop her cold.

Interesting point about "We go around patting ourselves on the back because we never allowed farming of elk or deer,..." We don't allow commercial harvest of deer and elk either, ergo there is no need to farm deer and elk. If we could bring ourselves to discontinue commercial harvest of salmon and steelhead we wouldn't need to worry about fish farming, either.

About Ms. Reynolds, it's obvious she has some significant hidden agendas which have anything BUT the sportsmen in mind. Anyone know more about her?

There are a lot of different opinions about this. I think Alaska's position is largely governed by farmed salmon competing with harvested wild salmon. Prices for commerically caught salmon have been in the dumper in recent years, which hurts Alaska's economy. Low prices paid at the docks tends to reduce commerical catch effort, which means more fish for sportsmen.

That said, Norway has had some serious problems with the waste from salmon pens polluting some of the fiords, so it's apparent that salmon farming is not without it's impacts.

I'd love to read an objective study of the pros and cons, if anyone knows of one.