Cooke Aquaculture's subsidiary in the United States is facing controversy for possible illegal practices in salmon farming. A few weeks ago, the  Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) announced its intentions to file a lawsuit against the company for violations of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, also known as the Clean Water Act, in 13 of its facilities located in the state of Maine along the Atlantic coast.

 

One of the largest seafood companies in the world, Cooke Aquaculture is a Canadian company based in New Brunswick that is present in 14 countries. In Chile, Cooke has a salmon farm on the coast of the Aysén region, specifically at the Cupquelán fjord inside Laguna San Rafael National Park. The Conservation Law Foundation is an organization based in Boston that advocates for access to environmental justice in the United States.

 

Cooke was notified in a notice letter dated November 14. It is addressed to the company's president, Glenn Cooke, and states that Cooke’s salmon farms in Maine discharged and continue to discharge “pollutants including fish fecal matter, uneaten food pellets, fish (live escaped fish, dead fish, and pieces of dead fish), sea lice, viruses, trash (including discarded ropes, plastic feed bags, plastic tubes, plastic platforms, and pieces of the net pen structure), blood, nutrients (including nitrogen), and chemicals into Maine’s coastal waters.”

 

In a press release, CLF explains that "most of these salmon cage sites are located in coastal communities where lobstermen and fishermen depend on clean and unpolluted water for their livelihoods. Fish feces, uneaten food, and uncollected pieces of dead fish fall through the bottom of Cooke’s cages onto the seafloor to form a thick layer of toxic sediment. That pollution kills the food source for lobster and bottom-feeding fish, like flounder, cod, and haddock." 

 

The organization adds: "Salmon confined to net pens suffer from disease and parasites like sea lice at an unnaturally high rate. These diseases and parasites can spread from the cages to passing wild fish. In addition, Cooke’s cages periodically develop holes from exposure to weather and predators like seals, which allow caged salmon to escape. When cage-raised salmon breed with wild salmon, the genetic fitness of the wild salmon population is diminished."

 

CLF says it will pursue legal action in Maine District Court no sooner than 60 days from the mailing of their letter to the company, “seeking appropriate equitable relief, civil penalties and other remedies.”

 

“These enormous salmon cages are like sewage pipes to the marine environment,” said Heather Govern, Vice President for CLF’s Clean Air and Water Program. “Their solid waste smothers plants and ocean life while disease outbreaks and sea lice threaten nearby endangered wild salmon. We need to enforce our federal laws to protect Maine’s bays and communities.”

 

This situation is similar to the way Cooke operates in Chile, with facilities inside Laguna San Rafael National Park, as well as sanctioning procedures underway by Chilean environmental authorities for overproduction, evasion of the environmental impact assessment System and non-compliance with sectoral permits and operating without an environmental permit.

 

In late October, a humpback whale was found dead in the area of Cooke's “Huillines 3” center, which is now being investigated by the Chile's environmental superintendency, the public prosecutor's office, the national fisheries service and the environmental crimes unit of the Chilean police.