New Net Pens in PA

Tribes are involved now. Wonder what conflicts or competition will arise between them now?

https://www.knkx.org/post/cooke-aquacult...fish-salish-sea

"The latest and GREATEST new equipment" Where have I heard this before....Please....

Will those hatchery fish be fin clipped so that when they escape they will be harvestable by all fishers? (sarcasm intended)

Native steelhead don't live in net pens......
SF

I don't get it. How does the Tribe benefit from net pen fish? Are they just entering into a business partnership with Cooke for a share of the profits from fish sales?

I think the Steelhead must be similar to ones raised below Grand Coulee in Rufas Woods Res. Those are what we see in local stores. The Colville Tribe started that operation and then sold it to the current owners Pacific Seafoods, who upgraded all the pens. Caught many big fish there when the pens would break open, releasing 5-10#ers. It was a gas on a 5wt. They were fed with shrimp pellets and were so fat they were best smoked.

That would be a reasonable assumption especially given the tribal comment about not enough revenue from catching fish. And if tribes participate it is a way around the recent State ban on new permits.

They didn't need any tribe to participate to get around a state ban on new permits. There is only a ban, effective in 2022, on producing nonnative finfish. Having a tribe as a partner though, does eliminate one possible entity that might object to the permit.

Last I heard was that they are considering steelhead and sablefish/ black cod

If one tribe sees a profit or any benefit at all, then you'll see every other tribe claim "rights" to do the same too

That's what the attached KNKX article seems to imply when they say "Now, Cooke is back with plans to farm two native species in its pens in Port Angeles Harbor." Their application is only for RBT/Steelhead though.

This is not a treaty rights issue. Several tribes have been involved with shellfish and finfish aquaculture for a long time without any others claiming what I suspect you are suggesting would be new rights.

I am sure that there will be more as the story unfolds but right now I have to wonder why Cooke is involving a tribe if there is not some tribal/treaty right benefit to the prospective project.

Support rather than opposition. It was the local Tribes that were very involved in the "cleanup" of the Atlantic escape. Commercial net pen operations are a direct economic threat to their commercial fishing in addition to ecological issues.

Many Tribes have aquaculture programs of some sort. This would be a business decision. What major watersheds do the Jamestown's have to produce salmon? I believe that the only major one is the Dungeness, and it is not putting out much.

I know many here, and all around the WA, are not happy with Tribal involvement in resource management but in my experience they do tend to represent a ecologically-based, long-term view. Still in it for the money, but money over generations and not the next election, which is what now passes for long-range planning.

Four simple words that no doubt go straight to the issue. One only needs to look at the permit debacle over the single lane ramp at Point No Point to realize the extent to which tribal influence has expanded.

It's been over five years that permit application has been on a desk at the USACE; even Judge Judy let's the process move forward in a timely manner.

Cooke knows that involving a tribal partnership in their operation hamstrings the state in having direct regulation authority and ease of saying no. Cooke's chances of getting a net pen approved by themselves is probably zip; either the state says no or another tribe says no. Involving a tribe addresses both of these.

Side tracked...No doubt tribal influence is happening w/ in the state political arena more than ever. No wonder the WDFW is powerless when their bosses have been bought off by the tribes. The more $$ they get from the casino's, that are not taxed by the way, the more they can buy. At some point their will be a break even point when the citizens of this state have less say with their vote than the tribes have to say w/ their buck .I think I've been watching to much Yellowstone.

He treaties don't really matter up there anymore...The tribes done bought the state government and the treaties just allow the feds to be essentially tribal legal counsel. Anything they get involved in becomes a "right" because frankly nobody tells them no and a precedent gets set.

I don't recall forgone opportunity being a treaty right..but for all intensive purposes, that's exactly what it has become

Foregone opportunity came out of the Boldt decision and was first used by the State against the Tribes in the early years when the tribal fleets were smaller and could not take 50%. The state started it, the Tribes just use it now.