Cooke plans to go NAFTA on Puget Sound:
http://kuow.org/post/remember-nafta-it-might-keep-atlantic-salmon-farms-puget-sound

A alternative:

http://www.theolympian.com/news/business/article201131419.html

From my reads, there is fault on both sides....Cook for not doing maintenance in a timely/on-going manner. On the state side, there are multiple agencies with different responsibilities for different aspects of supervision. One would think that there were or should have been scheduled inspections and/or unannounced inspections that would have identified issues such as not being anchored within the boundaries, mussel growth on the nets, deteriorating floats and anchor lines......

That said, I think on-land facilities are better for raising exotics.....

The good news is Cooke Aquaculter has already made it publicly clear they see the removal of their permit and right to farm as a “taking” and they intend to SUE the state to seek just compensation to the tone of 70 some million.

Guess if they win their suit the citizens of Washington will be buying farmed salmon after all, about 70 mill worth!

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-new...eles-site-open/

You think its a coincidence that the navy just built that giant dock right next to the fish pens and now they got to go.I will be glad when I don't have to look at that eye sore or swing around it every time I go fishing.

Land-based fish rearing is significantly better option from a variety of perspectives. Certainly the effects of tides and storms are reduced, waste can be collected and treated, etc.

The big BUT is water. Cowlitz Salmon uses, I believe, 100 cfs to rear their production of smolts. Where will you find a couple 100 cfs of clean water and then be willing to keep fish that might carry pathogens out of the water supply? I have been told that there are filtering technologies that could clean up the water but that would add so much to the cost. But, the discussion needs to occur.

That was the big push for the GMO Atlantic salmon. Giving them a Chinook growth hormone and making them triploid significantly cut down on the time needed to grow them to harvest size. They claimed this made land based aquaculture economically viable. But of course these "franken fish" were outlawed. What a shame.

The key will still be clean fresh water.

Re-circulation with supplementation at some percentage on a daily or weekly basis. Any discharge going through UV lights or something similar to kill pathogens.

Not just recirculation but it will need to have the nutrients removed, treated for pathogens (UV at least) and cooled. Simple recirc will get real ugly real fast at commercial loading rates.

Most, especially most successful, government facilities use single pass, especially when reading densities get very high.

Yeah but who the hell wants to eat something like this?

When you buy it in the store you see the flesh and maybe the skin. On a plate in the restaurant even less.

Back in Doc Donaldson's class he told the story of a taste test they conducted with his super trout. Same stock, all fed the same food except that different dyes were added to color the flesh. The color ranged from very pale (no dye) to very red.

The result? North American consumers said the red fish tasted better. Northern Europeans said the pale/white fish tasted better. There was no difference in taste. It was all in the visual perception.

Honestly these look pretty tasty. Glad Canada has some sense.


Here's to Commercial fishermen going the way of market hunters.

Source for the picture.

Did anyone else see those gut-wrenching images of that waste flow of blood pouring out of a fish processing plant in B.C. that was on the local news? Talk about why these farms are not environmentally sound! Lots of evidence that profit is the business model, not protecting the environment. If you can't do it without impacting the water or wild salmon you should NOT be allowed to do this. Bob R

Well since it’s already shaped like a turd, maybe easier to digest for folks with gastrointestinal issues.

An article from the National Fisherman about a large scale land-based Atlantic salmon farm proposed in Belfast, Maine


https://www.nationalfisherman.com/viewpo...re-salmon-farm/

Tanks a million: Maine strikes a deal for an onshore salmon farm
By Jessica Hathaway February 1, 2018

The town of Belfast, Maine, and a Norwegian aquaculture company have entered an agreement that could see the production of farmed salmon in the town to the tune of 60 jobs.*

Nordic Aquafarms plans to invest north of $450 million into a 40-acre land-based tank farm on a site they have contracted to buy from the Belfast Water District. And I think it’s safe to say Mainers are freaking out about it. As much as Mainers ever freak out, anyway.

Responses run the gamut from, “Did you hear about them Norwegians, deah?” to “Well isn’t that cunning?” (OK, maybe that’s just how it goes in my head, imagining old-timers talking about it over coffee and pie at the bean supper.)

But the people of Belfast are cautiously ecstatic. The deal with the water district includes 26 acres and an annual volume of water (the other 14 acres are currently privately owned). Excitement about new jobs and investment is tempered only by unknowns, like what do tanked salmon eat? How will the waste be managed? How many of the 60 jobs in the initial 2-year investment phase will be filled by locals?

Nordic Aquafarms CEO Erik Heim noted that the facility will be designed to produce a low-impact discharge of water that is free of chemicals and medications. He added that all waste will be recycled, and the site design will incorporate renewable energy.

Though my penchant runs toward wild fisheries, I also recognize that fish farming is not going away. Some aquaculture is inherently beneficial to wild fisheries, like mussels, clams and oysters. Ocean net pens have improved over the decades, but they are still far from clean or beneficial — only marginally less harmful, assuming they work as planned. If a company is committed to farming salmon or any other finfish, I much prefer the use of land-based tanks.

Following the West Coast salmon spill this year, net pens are under more well-deserved scrutiny. If we’re going to pour resources into improving finfish farming techniques, why not home in on tanks that keep the farm stock separated from the wild stock?

If Nordic Aquafarms reaches its goal to pump out 66 million pounds of salmon a year (about 7 percent of American salmon consumption), they will certainly be giving traditional salmon farmers a run for their money.

I will follow up with some of my Maine colleagues in AS restoration.

The sensationalism of the WFC is everything that is wrong with the environmental movement right now. The way we are going to save the world is slowly one dirty sweaty day at a time, not misusing information and suing the daylights out of the “bad guys”.

It really bothers me that planners, policy, and attourneys are trying to save the environment from their desks. Good luck with that.

....and another land based AS facility is planned in Maine.....

https://www.nationalfisherman.com/northe...orways-thunder/


By Jessica Hathaway February 27, 2018

Less than a month after Nordic Aquafarms announced a deal with the city of Belfast, Maine, to build the world’s largest aquaculture tanks in the midcoast town, a Maine-based company announced its purchase of a nearby site for the same purpose.

Bucksport’s former Verso paper mill site will be repurposed as Portland-based Whole Oceans’ $250 million investment in farmed Atlantic salmon.

Whole Oceans plans to locate its land-based salmon farm in midcoast Maine.

As with the Belfast site, local stakeholders have questions about water use, discharge and waste management. Last week, Nordic Aquafarms held a public community meeting to answer questions about their operational plans.

“As a commercial fisherman in northern Penobscot Bay, I did have some questions pertaining to the supply of water going into the fish as well as any discharge they would be introducing into my area,” said Travis Otis, from nearby Searsport, who attended the meeting. “With the facility being entirely land based, with the sole exception being the supply and discharge pipes for the brackish water, that really helped to give me a certain level of peace of mind. When they further explained the process during their presentation as to how they would reduce the levels of discharge in comparison to a water-based operation — claims of 90 percent — I was very pleased to hear about how important the local environment is to them.”

While Nordic Aquafarms plans to break ground in 2019, Whole Oceans says it will begin construction in August this year.

Since Verso announced it was shuttering the Bucksport mill in December 2014, the town has entertained potential investors scouting the mill site for various uses. The vacant mill is in a beautiful and strategic location on the tidal and fast-running Penobscot River with access to both brackish and fresh water.

“Aquaculture is a centerpiece of our state’s ocean economy. As a result of careful planning and effort, Whole Oceans is bringing a new opportunity and economic diversification to a former industrial site, creating renewed economic vitality and jobs,” said Sen. Angus King (I-Maine). “The innovative Whole Oceans aquaculture facility will reflect our ocean heritage in a new, environmentally sustainable manner.”

Whole Oceans claims it has presold 10 years worth of production — that’s 50,000 tons a year, or half a million tons total. Nordic Aquafarms projects it will produce 33,000 tons annually.

If this new wave of aquaculture can assuage local fears of water contamination, it will be a veritable home run for coastal Maine.

My Maine contact says that what she has heard is that they have found locations where they can tap deep water (salt). They can continue saltwater culture in an upland situation. It will certainly add costs to pumping but will allow for significantly more treatment of wastewater. Will also allow for much better targeting of the use of medicines. It should also come close to eliminating concerns about mass releases. If an upland site fails so that hundreds of thousands of fish escape then there are probably much bigger problems to be dealt with by society than just the escape of fish.

All this and yet the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch folks list marine pen raised Atlantic Salmon from British Columbia on the "good" list for sustainability and environmentally friendly.

But then again they also list steelhead gill netted from Washington's Humptulips, Queets, Quillayute and Quinault Rivers in their "good" category.....