An environmental law non-profit has filed intent to sue Cooke Aquaculture over the Saint John company’s salmon farming operations in the Gulf of Maine.
The Conservation Law Foundation filed notice to Cooke Nov. 14 that it intends to sue under the U.S. Clean Water Act, claiming that Cooke is failing to satisfy its operating permit by allegedly discharging effluent from its salmon pens in the Gulf of Maine and affecting other water uses, including fishing and lobstering.
In a statement Nov. 14, Cooke said it “vehemently denies” the allegations, saying that it is satisfying its regulatory obligations and that its Atlantic salmon operations do not negatively affect lobstering.
Heather Govern, vice-president for the foundation’s Clean Air and Water Program, said the group has been investigating Cooke’s operations for two and a half years. It operates out of six New England states engaging in environmental advocacy, Govern said.
“We began this investigation due to a number of local communities up and down the Maine coastline who were worried about the impacts of salmon net pen farms,” Govern said. “What we found out is the solid waste coming from these net pens … smothers plants and ocean life, there’s also potential for disease outbreaks.”
She said the Clean Water Act allows the foundation to “step into the shoes of the regulators” by filing a lawsuit, she said.
“We’re able to investigate and bring actions against companies that are not abiding by their permit conditions,” she said.
The lawsuit targets 13 sites around Swans Island, Eastern Bay, Machias Bay, which is about 50 kilometres west of Grand Manan Island, and Cobscook Bay, which is about 20 km west of Campobello Island. Each site has between six and 30 pens, according to the lawsuit, each holding tens of thousands of fish.
The suit alleges based on “information and belief” that the pens pollute the surrounding waters by discharges of fish feces, dead and uneaten food, disease, sea lice, escaped fish and trash. Cooke’s net pen permit expired in 2019 but has been “administratively continued” since it expired, the suit said.
Govern said that the pollution settles on the ocean floor, where it affects food sources for haddock and lobster, impacting the livelihood of those in fishing and lobstering. She said that the company’s permit doesn’t allow it to “impair other water users,” including commercial use or recreation.
Cooke denied the allegations, saying that they are “false, misleading and lack any substantiating evidence,” saying it’s “proud of its contributions to Maine’s iconic seafood industry,” and that it employs 230 people in the state. The release says that it is in “full compliance with the laws set forth” by Maine’s department of environmental protection (DEP) and department of marine resources (DMR), as well as its operating permits.
“Finfish aquaculture has coexisted with heritage fisheries, such as lobstering, in Maine waters for more than 40 years,” Cooke said in the release. “Lobster landings are not negatively affected by Atlantic salmon farms. In fact, lobster gear is set alongside and within aquaculture lease boundaries.”
The lawsuit points to regulatory reports where it says some information is missing or would be different if the terms of Cooke’s permit were being followed. Govern also says the foundation has made freedom of information requests dating up to 2023 and part of the litigation will be developing expert reports detailing the environmental impacts.
The lawsuit also mentions a discharge of 50,000 salmon in Machias Bay in 2023 after an alleged seal attack, a 10,000-fish “die-off” in 2021 at Black Island, and another large die-off in Eastern Bay in 2024.
Cooke USA spokesperson Steven Hedlund said that in June, the company removed mortalities near Jonesport and Beals that were “a result of naturally occurring marine algae” which dissolved oxygen in the water and then dispersed after a few days.
“All livestock farmers encounter and manage mortalities,” he said, saying Cooke took reasonable steps in accordance with its own procedures and notified the DMR. Brunswick News asked how many fish were involved in the mortalities and did not receive a response.
Salmon net pens in Cobscook Bay near Eastport, Maine, are seen in a supplied photo from the Conservation Law Foundation.
Glenda Beal is a selectman on the governance body on Beals Island, Maine, population 450, which was working on an aquaculture ordinance and passed a moratorium in late July after concerns related to the die-off. She said that there was no notification to the select board to give them a heads up about the die-off and they had to hear it “from the grapevine.”
“We got no notification from Cooke. It seems to me that if they were being good neighbours ethically, it would be something they would want the fishermen to know about,” she said. “It could affect the whole bay, depending on what caused it.”
Beal said that the lobster catch in Maine is down but she said there’s “no way to tell” if finfish farming is impacting that or not, in response to Cooke’s claim.
“If I can’t say if they are, neither can they,” she said. “You’d have to track it for decades … it’s nothing you can really pin down because lobsters can be caught in one area and not in another.”
She said that lobstermen from her area had reported issues in Eastern Bay including aquaculture vessels severing their traps, as well as mooring for the vessels creating a navigation hazard and free-floating cords getting tied up in engines. There were also concerns about plastic tubing from the pens washing up on nearby beaches.
Govern alleged that there isn’t much oversight over the operation, and that regulation has been light since Cooke’s entry into the state 20 years ago. Cooke entered the market in 2004 by purchasing Atlantic Salmon of Maine, a subsidiary of Norway-based Fjord Seafood, according to its website.
“There’s no 24-hour camera footage that anyone can get a hold of, so it’s hard to know what exactly causes these releases, these escapes,” she said, saying that they could get more information from the litigation. “The public deserves to know that, as well, this should be all public information. When Cooke can hide what’s happening, that’s never good for the environment and the communities.”
DEP deputy commissioner David R. Madore said that the department has a “variety of enforcement actions” available to it when licence conditions are broken, and that in 10 years, Cooke has received six letters of warning, 20 notices of violations and entered into one administrative consent agreement.
Madore said Cooke’s permit remains in effect until it is formally renewed, which the department intends to do but has not yet completed due to delays around staffing limitations.
Sebastian Belle, executive director of the Maine Aquaculture Association, said the lawsuit was “surprising” because he said that the state or federal governments could have moved in and threatened to pull their permits, “and as far as I know, that hasn’t happened.”
Belle says an operator in Maine has to abide by federal and state regulations, but the federal government delegates its authority to the state. He said that the federal government could step in and revoke Maine’s ability to regulate on its behalf if it was unhappy with the outcome.
“It’s a very powerful system with a lot of cross-checks,” Belle said, saying the system was “refined” following Cooke’s entry to the state to target the most important metrics.
He said environmental groups like the CLF were involved in developing best practices for the industry in 2002.
Belle previously worked for Maine DMR before joining the association, an industry group that represents large and small producers who work with different species and has representation from Cooke on its board of directors.
In Cooke’s release, it says it is “routinely audited and certified by third party programs,” including the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch, which rates its Maine-farmed salmon as a “good alternative.” That rating, equivalent to yellow on a traffic light, is a recommendation to “buy if a green-rated option is not available.” Its report cited a lack of fish escapes since 2003 but was issued in 2021, prior to the 2023 fish escapes.
Cooke also cited its participation in Global Seafood Alliance’s Best Aquaculture Practices program, which requires all of its facilities to be audited for “environmental responsibility, social accountability, animal health and welfare, and food safety.”
In May, 76 environmental groups, including the Conservation Council of New Brunswick and Protect Maine’s Fishing Heritage Foundation, signed an open letter accusing the program of “greenwashing” by having basic requirements that are “too weak” to protect wild salmon.
Cooke was forced out of the state of Washington after 300,000 Atlantic salmon escaped into Puget Sound after a net collapse in 2017. In 2022, the state’s department of natural resources banned finfish net pen aquaculture in state-owned waters and did not renew Cooke’s remaining licences.
In March this year, the state said the “fight” was over after Cooke withdrew its remaining appeals, which Cooke said it did because the state had delayed necessary documents and it would be “futile” to proceed without them.
Govern said that situation was different because of the environmental impact of releasing Atlantic salmon into the Pacific Ocean and because of the scale of the release. But she said that on the East Coast, “millions of dollars” have been spent on measures to bring back endangered wild Atlantic salmon.
“What doesn’t make much sense is you’re allowing a commercial or industrial operation to be here and potentially damage what little Atlantic salmon population we’re trying so hard to bring back,” she said. “It happened out west, if you have an enormous storm or weather conditions that knock these pens over, it’s millions of these farmed salmon (across all sites) that would then infect and affect negatively this wild salmon population.”
In June, B.C. announced a ban on net-pen salmon farms effective in 2029. Govern said that Canada is dealing with some of the same pollution issues but has stronger regulations. She also mentioned enforcement campaigns in Iceland and Norway.
“We’re developing better understanding now, the scientists, the regulators, around the impact of having what is essentially a sewage pipe … that is just allowed to drop into the ocean,” Govern said.
Belle said that in the early days of Maine’s salmon farming, companies were “exceeding the carrying capacity of those sites, they were doing it because they didn’t know any better.”
He said that with better regulation and monitoring, “everybody has learned that they have to farm to the carrying capacity of those sites.”
“When that happens, the impacts on the bottom around the farm are minimal,” he said.
He noted that the Clean Water Act’s lawsuit stipulation allows companies to settle, creating a chance for the plaintiff to financially benefit.
Unlike what happened out west, Govern said the lawsuit is not intended to shut down Cooke’s operations, but compel it to meet its obligations. Of the 230 employees Cooke says it employs in Maine, Govern said far fewer work directly with the pens. Hedlund told Brunswick News the number is about two-thirds, or about 150.
“People think, oh are you trying to shut down Cooke and shut our business here? That is not the point. In fact, Cooke will have to hire more employees,” Govern said, including expert monitoring and operators. “We’re not getting rid of jobs, in fact CLF wants to add jobs, but Cooke’s gotta pay ’em, and be willing to affect their bottom line a little bit by protecting the environment.”
The Clean Water Act requires a 60-day notice period before CLF can files the papers in U.S. federal court. Govern said that Cooke could approach the CLF to discuss a settlement, but that they would have to accept terms that would benefit the environment.
Richardson declined a request for comment on whether Cooke would be open to settlement talks.
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