MACHIAS – After years of failed negotiations with Maine fish farmers, two federal agencies have set a deadline for one of Maine’s largest salmon aquaculture companies to eliminate European-strain salmon from its farm operations.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service have directed Atlantic Salmon of Maine to stop the use of brood stock with European genes and to remove all European hybrids from all phases of production “in no more than four years.”

European-strain salmon – already banned in Canadian fish farms – are “a major threat” to the survival of the few remaining wild salmon in five Washington County rivers, according to the two federal agencies.

The Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service listed the wild salmon in eight Maine rivers – including Cove Brook, a tributary of the Penobscot- as an endangered species in 2000.

The four-year deadline was announced in a June 28 letter to David Peterson, chief executive officer of Atlantic Salmon of Maine, from Michael J. Bartlett, supervisor of U.S. Fish and Wildlife’s New England office, and Mary Colligan, the endangered species specialist for the New England region of the marine fisheries agency.

Bartlett and Colligan were responding to the company’s May 14 proposal to phase out the European-strain salmon over 12 to 16 years. But their decision will affect all fish farms in Maine with the exception of those owned by Heritage Salmon Inc.

Heritage Salmon is the U.S. division of Connors Aquaculture, and Heritage stopped using European-strain salmon more than a year ago.

Steve Page, environmental compliance officer for Atlantic Salmon of Maine, said Wednesday that he first saw the letter Tuesday because it had been faxed to Peterson, who is on vacation.

With both Peterson and the company’s lawyers out of the office this week, Atlantic Salmon of Maine could not comment on the decision, Page said.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife and the Marine Fisheries Service identified that threat to the wild salmon as early as 1995, when they first proposed listing the Maine salmon as endangered. The concern is that aquaculture escapees will enter the salmon rivers and breed with the wild fish, altering the genetic makeup of the last self-sustaining wild runs of Atlantic salmon in the United States, according to the fish agencies.

Atlantic Salmon of Maine disputes that finding, and Peterson and Page said during an interview June 19 that the European-strain salmon are critical if the company is to compete in a global market.

The European hybrids were developed by breeders in Norway and other salmon farming countries and the fish grow to market size more quickly than North American salmon, they said.

Bartlett and Colligan question the company’s contention that it cannot compete without the European hybrids.

“We continue to be confused by this claim as some Maine companies and all Canadian companies are currently using North American strain and are competing in the same marketplace” as Atlantic Salmon of Maine, they wrote.

Peterson said in the June 19 interview that Atlantic Salmon of Maine would go out of business if forced to immediately discontinue use of European hybrids.

But Bartlett and Colligan say the prohibition on European-strain salmon should not be news to Maine salmon farmers.

The guidelines for U.S. Army Corps of Engineers permits for aquaculture cages have required fish farmers to use only North American-strain fish or eggs since 1988, they said.

A 1995 Maine law prohibits importation of non-North American fish or eggs, but the fish service agencies learned in 1998 that fish farmers were getting around that prohibition by importing European sperm, according to a January 2000 interview with Dan Kimball, the Atlantic salmon recovery specialist for the Fish and Wildlife Service.

Bartlett said in an interview before he and Colligan wrote the June 28 letter that neither of the fish service agencies wants to see Atlantic Salmon of Maine go out of business.

The agencies have been trying to reach an agreement with Maine fish farmers to stop using European-strain salmon since 1998, he said.

Now, the federal agencies are giving Atlantic Salmon of Maine two options to meet the deadline.

It can either buy North American-strain salmon from other companies to use in their next production cycle or the company can genetically screen its brood stock before spawning begins – taking out any with European genes. The company could then supplement the North American fish in their hatcheries with North American-strain salmon bought from other hatcheries, according to the fish service agencies.

Farmed Atlantic salmon are spawned in freshwater hatcheries, where they grow to smolt stage over a period of approximately 18 months. The fish are then transferred to ocean pens for grow-out – a process that takes another 15 to 18 months.

The decision by the Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service comes less than two weeks after U.S. District Judge Gene Carter ruled that Atlantic Salmon of Maine and Stolt Sea Farm are in violation of the federal Clean Water Act because they are discharging pollutants – including European-strain salmon – without proper discharge licenses.

The suit was brought by the National Environmental Law Center on behalf of the U.S. Public Interest Research Group and three Maine residents who sued the two companies two years ago. Heritage agreed to a $750,000 out-of-court settlement before Carter’s ruling.