DEP Fines for Cooke Could Mean Good Things for Wild Machias Salmon

by Sarah Craighead Dedmon

Canadian-owned Cooke Aquaculture has partnered with state and federal agencies to raise Atlantic salmon for stocking two Maine Rivers. One of those projects will be funded with fines levied on Cooke by the Maine Department of Environmental Protection. Cooke services many of its Washington and Hancock County fish farms with this fish processing facility alongside Bucks Harbor in Machiasport. Photo by Sarah Craighead Dedmon.

Cooke Aquaculture has been fined $156,213 by the Maine Department of Environmental Protection for violations of its state permit, and those fines will be used to grow wild Atlantic salmon to stock the Machias River. Cooke, a privately-held Canadian company, operates salmon pen farms in Washington and Hancock counties, a fish processing facility in Machiasport, and hatcheries in East Machias and Bingham.

News of their DEP violations broke on the heels of undercover footage showing alleged abuse of salmon grown at Cooke’s Bingham hatchery. The video, produced by animal advocacy group Compassion Over Killing, was titled, “Aquaculture: A Sea of Suffering.”

The consent agreement between Cooke, the Maine DEP and the Maine Attorney General’s office was signed in early September, and details violations stretching back to 2015, when the state says Cooke failed to complete annual stocking notices for its farms in Eastport, Lubec and Swans Island.

The state also cited Cooke for failing to follow proper procedure when several of its Machiasport salmon pens became overstocked in 2016. Cooke’s permit from the state suggests a target pen density of 25kg of salmon, (roughly 55 pounds) per cubic meter, with a maximum density of 30kg. According to NOAA Fisheries data on farmed salmon, that means roughly five to eight 30-inch fish per cubic meter.

Cooke was cited for overages in five pens, where total densities ranged from 30.49–32.09 kg per cubic meter.

As a condition of the state permit, Cooke must test the ocean floor at regular intervals, checking for hydrogen sulfides which serve as a bellwether for the amount of feed and feces accumulating underneath the pen. The consent agreement cites Cooke for failing to perform sulfide tests in compliance with approved methods, and “failing to...demonstrate to the Department’s satisfaction that sulfide levels were within the permitted range prior to restocking the pens…”

According to the state Bureau of Water Quality, hydrogen sulfides are created by anaerobic bacteria which feed on the organic matter deposited by the salmon, and indicate an undesirable, oxygen-depleted ocean floor.

In a written statement, Cooke Vice President of Public Affairs Joel Richardson said that Cooke plans to respond to its violations by submitting net-pen plans and staff training plans on proper sample collection, handling, preservation, analysis and documentation.

Stocking the Machias

Cooke’s statement also expressed enthusiasm for utilizing modern salmon aquaculture practices in service of wild salmon restoration. All of the fines paid by Cooke will go toward creating the infrastructure and hatchery-raised fish necessary to stock the Machias River with 800 adult salmon.

The range of the U.S. Atlantic salmon once extended from New York’s Hudson River to the tip of Maine, including every coastal river in the northeastern United States. In 2000 the United States listed the Atlantic salmon as an endangered species, their precipitous decline due to many factors including overfishing, pollution, habitat degradation and warming waters. Today the last wild populations of the U.S. Atlantic salmon live in just eight Maine rivers.

Cooke is also collaborating with the Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR), NOAA Fisheries and others to raise 5,000 Atlantic salmon for release into the Penobscot River, which has been in the news frequently this year for its above-average returns of adult salmon.

Both the Penobscot and Machias salmon will be raised in net pens placed in Cutler Bay

“This is the kind of project Commissioner Keliher has been envisioning for a long time, working with an aquaculture operation to support salmon restoration efforts,” said DMR Director of Communications Jeff Nichols. “I know he’s very pleased to see this kind of work come to fruition.”

Partnering with the DMR, Cooke will deploy a net pen designed to hold 900 smolts on a lease site in Cutler. The pen and smolts, which will be raised initially in U.S. Fish and Wildlife hatcheries, will be placed in 2021. The adult fish will then be released into the Machias River in 2022-23, where it is hoped they spawn.

Overall, the DMR says the Machias River Marine Rearing of Adult Atlantic Salmon project will last four years from start to finish, producing one “cohort” of salmon. Downeast Salmon Federation (DSF) Executive Director Dwayne Shaw said he plans to raise funds that could continue the project. With Cooke’s infrastructure already in place, the overall cost of raising future cohorts for the Machias River should be less than the cost of the initial cohort.

DSF recently finished releasing its 2019 cohort of more than 50,000 salmon parr into the East Machias River.

Shaw said that his organization has been aware of the DEP / Cooke settlement negotiations and participated in the design of the salmon stocking project for the Machias River.

“It is important to us that this settlement fund is directed to wild salmon restoration and experimentation in Washington County,” said Shaw, whose organization is based in East Machias and Columbia Falls. “It is clear that Cooke has work to do in addressing their compliance with the rules governing aquaculture and we are encouraged to see Maine DEP and Maine DMR monitoring and enforcing the rules that we fought so hard to have put in place.”

Along with DSF and other salmon restoration organizations, the DMR currently participates in salmon restocking efforts across Maine, including on the Narraguagus River in Cherryfield and on the Machias River, where in 2018 they released 144,841 salmon fry and 84,500 eggs.

“While net pens are not new in Maine, utilizing net pens for conservation goals is a relatively new science-based idea that is showing promise in the Bay of Fundy through the Fundy Salmon Recovery partnership,” read Cooke’s statement. “The disappearance of Atlantic salmon poses a real environmental issue and threatens the culture, history and economy of Maine and Tribal communities. Survival of the species depends on human intervention, new thinking and the collaboration of dedicated project partners.”