Salmon growers playing games

Two companies that dominate Maine’s salmon farming industry are playing a high stakes game of chicken with environmental regulators. Despite a growing consensus behind the need to eliminate European strains of Atlantic salmon from Maine fish farms, Atlantic Salmon of Maine (ASM) and Stolt Sea Farm refuse to stop growing these fish, insinuating they will shut down if regulators make them switch to North American strains. Does their position have any scientific, economic or practical justification? Let’s look at the facts.

There is scientific consensus that European farmed fish create a heightened threat to wild Maine salmon. The “dispute” over the environmental impact of European salmon is reminiscent of the global warming debate: how many more independent scientists have to weigh in before industry is finally shamed into accepting a scientific truth?

Over thousands of years, wild Atlantic salmon have adapted to their own river-specific environments. So the further you go from Maine, the greater the difference in environmental conditions and the greater the genetic divergence in the salmon found in distant rivers. Simply put, a Norwegian salmon will not thrive in the Machias River.

Meanwhile, farmed salmon escape. Since farmed fish are selectively bred to live on feed pellets – and not to survive in the wild – any interbreeding between escapees and wild fish reduces the fitness of the offspring. And when farmed escapees in Maine come from European stock, it’s a double genetic whammy.

Not surprisingly, last month the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service informed ASM that growing European fish “continues to constitute a major threat to the survival” of Maine’s endangered salmon. Canada, meanwhile, imposed an outright ban on European stocks years ago.

Economically, Maine salmon farms do not need European fish to be “globally competitive.” The companies argue that they must use the supposedly better-growing European fish in order to compete with Canada, which subsidizes its salmon industry. This claim is simply not credible.

First, ASM’s and Stolt’s major competitor in Maine, Heritage Salmon, has grown only North American salmon here for over a decade, and has signed an agreement committing to do so in the future. Stolt itself grew exclusively North American fish in Maine until 1999, and continues to grow those fish right across the border in New Brunswick.

Second, the companies conveniently ignore the generous subsidies and advantages our own government provides. The state annually charges the companies only $50 an acre to operate their marine feedlots in our coastal waters. And the federal government is handing out more than $15 million to the Maine industry to cover its self-inflicted disease losses, to develop new technology, and to help the industry end its reliance on European fish. The companies reimburse the state a mere penny per pound of harvested fish for a state contractor to dive under their net pens and tell them how much waste they’ve left on the sea floor.

And don’t forget that the government has given Maine salmon farmers a free pass until now on meaningful environmental regulation, allowing the companies to avoid needed pollution reduction measures for years.

North American strain salmon are available. Commercial hatchery managers in Maine and Canada have said they would sell North American salmon eggs to ASM and Stolt. And the federal government is offering to assist Maine companies in locating, acquiring and importing North American strain Atlantic salmon.

What is the next step? To restore public confidence in Maine salmon farming, the industry must run its business without further endangering the wild salmon. Maine salmon farms still growing European fish should immediately place their orders for North American eggs so that native strain fish can be put in sea cages as soon as possible. The best of these fish can be developed as broodstock for future production.

It is time for salmon growers to abandon their destructive brinksmanship over European fish and focus on something productive: turning the goal of environmentally sustainable aquaculture into reality.

David Nicholas is a senior attorney at the National Environmental Law Center. Charles Fitzgerald lives in Maine. They are suing the salmon farm industry in Maine for violating the Clean Water Act.