Salmon firms ordered to pay $1.2M in fees

PORTLAND – A federal judge on Tuesday ordered two large salmon farming companies to pay more than $1.2 million in attorney fees and other costs to an environmental group that sued.

U.S. District Judge Gene Carter ordered Stolt Sea Farm and Atlantic Salmon of Maine to pay the costs to U.S. Public Interest Research Group.

The expenses were part of the research group’s lawsuit accusing the Norwegian-owned companies of violating the federal Clean Water Act by not possessing permits to discharge pollution into the ocean from their salmon farming operations in eastern Maine.

Carter last year fined the companies $50,000 each and ordered sweeping changes in their future operations. That ruling included a ban on the stocking of European strains of salmon and a requirement that salmon pens remain fallow for two years before being restocked.

Carter’s ruling orders Atlantic Salmon of Maine to pay roughly $678,000, and Stolt to pay about $582,000.