Cooke Aquaculture USA is sued over salmon-farming practices in Maine
CBC
A conservation group is suing Cooke Aquaculture USA for alleged ocean pollution from its salmon-farming sites along the Maine coast.
Boston-based Conservation Law Foundation filed a lawsuit in the District Court of Maine against the company, part of Saint John-based Cooke Inc.'s wordwide operations.
The 44-page lawsuit focuses on 13 active cage sites for salmon farming in the ocean just off the Maine coast. The sites consist of net pens anchored to the sea floor and to floatation devices on the ocean's surface. They hover in the water and hold the salmon as they grow.
The lawsuit claims that Cooke's net pens are violating the U.S. Clean Water Act by allowing salmon feces, excess food and carcasses to fall to the sea floor.
"Those salmon are stacked into cages," said Heather Govern, vice-president of the clean air and water program at the foundation.
"And we're really concerned about the pollution that is coming from those cages, falls to the sea floor, creates a toxic sediment, which then really kills the food source for lobster and bottom-feeding fish."
Cooke's net-pen sites are near Swans Island, which is near the famed Acadia National Park, Beals Island, Machias Bay, and Cobscook Bay on the U.S.-Canada border.
"Within each lease area, Cooke operates between six and 30 cages," the lawsuit said.
Steven Hedlund, a Cooke Aquaculture USA spokesperson, did not respond to several interview requests but denied all allegations in a statement posted on Cooke's website in November when the suit was first threatened by the conservation group.
The claims are "false, misleading and lack substantive evidence," Hedlund said.
"Cooke's Maine Atlantic salmon farms are routinely inspected by state regulators and subject to regular monitoring reports. These laws are designed to protect Maine waters as well as Maine's heritage fisheries."
Cooke was recently sued by two conservationists for its involvement in a Virginia fishery, but earlier this month, a judge dismissed the case in Cooke's favour.
Govern said the Conservation Law Foundation has been investigating Cooke for two years. The work has involved visiting the sites, interviewing locals and fishermen who have been impacted, and using freedom of information requests to get monitoring data that Cooke submits to the state as part of its permit requirements.
"The company has to report diseases, escaped fish, instances where there are holes in the nets," Govern said, adding that the foundation is concerned about the caged salmon are spreading diseases and breeding with wild Atlantic salmon, which were listed as endangered in Maine in 2000.
Christy Morin says life was never the same in Alberta Avenue after the fires began.
It's small things, like a cigarette or a pair of clean socks, Rachel Montour says, that can go a long way to make you feel more human when you’re out on the street.
Several dozen members of Windsor's Chaldean community and its supporters celebrated in the cold at the corner of Marentette Avenue and Wyandotte Street East Friday, as city officials gave a secondary name to the section of Marentette between Wyandotte and Tuscarora Street: Chaldean Way.
Allison Hill says she tries to make people’s experience at the Thunder Bay Food Bank “as pleasant as possible.”
Two years after a man went missing in Scarborough, Toronto police are renewing the investigation in hopes that the public will bring forward more information.
A musical instrument created in Guelph, Ont., has been thrust onto the international stage — or rather, screen.
More than 1,000 Maritime Electric customers are without power after high winds blew across the Island Friday night into Saturday.
The Supreme Court of Canada is deliberating a case that could shape the way sentences are handed down in cases where both the offender and victim are Indigenous, which some Nunavut lawyers say could have ramifications for the Inuit-majority territory.
A man barricaded in a former church in Welland, Ont., was taken into custody early Saturday, nearly 24 hours into a standoff that began over a fence dispute.
Peel police are investigating after a Friday night shooting in Mississauga left one person dead, police said.
Another busy construction season has come to an end in London, and the city is already looking ahead to next spring when a slew of new projects are expected to begin.
Prime Minister Mark Carney has begun to lay out publicly what he sees as boundaries when dealing with China, as his government wades into a new relationship with the economic giant.
Ferry crossings are cancelled and over a thousand households are left without power Saturday morning, due to high winds and severe weather conditions.