Fish farm in the Salish Sea, a sight that will not be repeated in the territorial waters owned by the Washington State.
Photo: Adobe Stock.
On Tuesday, January 7, the Washington State Board of Natural Resources ratified the ban on commercial net-pen aquaculture on state-owned aquatic lands. By a vote of 4-0 in favor and 2 abstaining, the Board upheld the rule the Commissioner of Public Lands - Hilary Franz, who chairs the Board - and her staff in the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) drafted as a result of the 2022 Executive Order announcing her intent to ban commercial net-pen fish farming in WA.
The industry has received the news with the general feeling that, with this ratification, science loses and politics wins. So commented Jeanne McKnight, the Northwest Aquaculture Alliance (NWAA) Executive Director, in an email statement to WeAreAquaculture.
"The January 7 vote ignored the testimony presented to DNR and its Board by numerous aquaculture experts, civic leaders, scientists, and Tribal leaders. Without a doubt, the eco-activists who made the most noise had the least credible science or no science at all," she said.
"Science lost. In the end, the Board came to the meeting with their minds made up to give Hilary Franz her parting 'gift' of the ban she so rushed through without due process. I doubt a single member of the Board read the hundreds of pages of testimony that we presented; and I doubt a single one of them has ever visited a commercial fish farm," McKnight added.
Later, in the official statement issued by the NWAA, Jeanne McKnight noted that Commissioner Franz pushed for the ban vote before her term at the helm of the DNR ended next week, at 12:01 AM on January 15, 2025.
"Franz insisted on rushing the rule-making process so that the Board could vote on the proposed ban in its January 7 meeting, largely to appease her supporters—which we view as short-sighted and politically motivated. In doing so, Franz deprived the Board of the ability to thoughtfully deliberate and review the enormous body of peer-reviewed science in the record," McKnight said, adding that "had they done so, they would not have voted for this unsupportable ban."
Earlier in the same statement, Northwest Aquaculture Alliance President, Jim Parsons - also CEO of Jamestown Seafood -, had said that, at the 11th hour, the outgoing Governor, Jay Inslee, pushed for the Board to vote for the ban under his watch, adding that the record before the Board did not support this decision.
"In addition to being a blatant disregard for the hundreds of pages of thoughtful testimony from aquaculture experts, civic leaders, respected fisheries scientists, veterinarians, Tribal leaders, and consumers, the January 7 decision sets a dangerous precedent that should serve as a warning to anyone in the business of growing food in this state on leased land—be it producers of shellfish, apple, grapes, or beef—that the Department of Natural Resources could shutter any business or sector that the Commissioner of Public Lands doesn't like," he said.
Although it has been in operation for nearly four decades, Washington net-pen aquaculture jumped into the public spotlight in 2017 following the collapse of a net-pen fish farm on Cypress Island, which dumped more than 250,000 Atlantic salmon north of Puget Sound. An investigation by state agencies determined that the collapse was due to negligence by the company that owned the cages, Cooke Aquaculture, in cleaning and maintaining them.
As a result, commercial farming of exotic species in net pens was banned in 2018, prompting Cooke to create a joint venture with the Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe to raise sablefish and steelhead in net pens. However, the DNR denied the net-pen lease, which led the Canadian family-owned company to engage in a lengthy court battle against the DNR that it ended up dropping in March 2024.
The incident at the Cooke facility continues to resonate in the Washington State public opinion, and in that of Commissioner Franz as well. According to information from the local U.S. media Courthouse News Service, during her intervention at the Board of Natural Resources meeting - which, as mentioned, she chairs -, she said the top priority is ensuring the protection of habitat and fostering public access for future generations.
"The ability to generate income comes only when it is in actual concert and support of those two significant goals, ensuring environmental protection and encouraging the direct public use and access for our waterways," Franz said. Moreover, she added that Washington State lags behind other U.S. coastal states such as Alaska, Oregon and California, and even neighboring British Columbia, Canada, in enacting a ban.
"Given the state of our Puget Sound, the number of listed threatened and endangered salmonids and orcas and the continued annual decline, as we heard from many of our tribal leaders today, avoidance of impacts, I believe, is our legal and moral responsibility," Hilary Franz added, Courthouse News Service reported.
Among the indigenous communities supporting the ban is, for example, the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe. Two days before the vote, its chairwoman, Frances Charles - along with Swinomish Tribal Community chairman, Steve Edwards, and Leonard Forsman, chairman of the Suquamish Tribe - had signed an op-ed in the Seattle Times urging state leaders to approve the net-pen ban.
"In the opposition of the net pens, the tribe strongly believes the adoption and the proposed rule ban and commercial net pens aquaculture on the state-owned aqua lands is the most responsible action the board can take to safeguard the tribe's treaty rights and protect the salmon runs," the Lower Elwha Klallam's chairwoman said in the public comments preceding the Board's vote, Courthouse News Service reported.
The same local media also included statements by Lauren Rasmussen, attorney for the Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe, in favor of net-pen finfish farming in the waters of Puget Sound. "This ban is overbroad and it bans the Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe from engaging in net pen aquaculture in its own historical territory," she said in the public comments.
In 2022, this tribe, which, as mentioned, has a joint venture with Cooke Aquaculture - Salish Fish - sued the Washington Department of Natural Resources over the ban on net-pen aquaculture in Puget Sound.
"By taking legal action today, the Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe is strongly defending its sovereign right of self-governance and self-reliance by utilizing marine net-pen aquaculture to provide traditional sustenance and guarantee Tribal food security from our established fishery in our Usual and Accustomed Treaty Area in Puget Sound and the Salish Sea," the Tribe claimed then.
Months later, the Northwest Aquaculture Alliance joined that lawsuit after a court ruled in its favor, recognizing its members' interest in the Tribe's cause against the closure of Washington's fish farms.
As the Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe did in that sue of 2022, in the NWAA statement this week, its President, Jim Parsons, remarked how the commercial fish farm ban in Washington State will affect food security, especially with the protectionist policies announced by incoming President Donald Trump.
"At a time when tariffs threaten to raise the prices of imported seafood and the cost of groceries for average Americans remains very high, the Washington State Board of Natural Resources has voted to take away from our citizens an important and affordable source of protein that can be sustainably grown right here in our own waters," Parsons said.
