Federal permit for salmon farm east of Port Angeles depends on state, local action

PORT ANGELES — Federal action on a permit for Cooke Aquaculture’s proposed $9 million fish farm east of downtown Port Angeles depends on decisions by state and local officials, federal and county officials said Wednesday.

The Army Corps of Engineers is the lead federal agency — with involvement by the Coast Guard — for the permit under the U.S. Rivers and Harbors Act, Corps spokesman Patricia Graesser said.

She said Endangered Species Act consultation is ongoing with the National Marine Fisheries Service.

But for the Corps to finalize a permit, Corps officials would need a determination on the permit’s consistency with the U.S. Coastal Zone Management Act.

The state Department of Ecology makes that determination, Clallam County Planning Manager Steve Gray of the Department of Community Development said Wednesday.

“Ecology would not consider issuing that until we went through our Shoreline Master Program process,” Gray said.

Under Gov. Jay Inslee’s Aug. 19 moratorium on new fish farm permits, Ecology is not considering Cooke’s application.

The Clallam County hearing examiner hearing on the county shoreline permit, which would be issued under the state Shoreline Master Program, was scheduled for Sept. 7 but has been indefinitely postponed by the county DCD.

Cooke Aquaculture requested the delay.

The project would have 14 floating circular net pens spread over 9.7 acres, an increase of 5.8 acres compared to Cooke’s Ediz Hook facility — the facility that the new fish farm is intended to replace.

The project would include a 100-foot barge that would contain up to 350 tons of fish feed.

According to the proposal, farmed salmon production off Morse Creek would increase by 20 percent over the Ediz Hook facility.

The project will move about 2 miles east of the harbor mouth off Green Point, about 4 miles away from Cooke’s existing fish farm off Ediz Hook.

County DCD had issued a mitigated determination of non-significance for the project, deciding it did not need an environmental impact statement, a decision Gray said earlier this week would be reviewed after the Aug. 19 collapse of Cooke’s Cypress Island fish farm.

The new pens’ engineering is superior to those at the Ediz Hook facility, DCD project manager Greg Ballard said in a July 5 report.

Production would increase 20 percent over what’s produced in the 20 Ediz Hook pens, which cover 3.9 acres of surface area 400 feet from the shoreline.

The new pens would hold 900,000 Atlantic salmon that would yield 10 million pounds of fish over the 15- to 20-month growing cycle, Cooke said.

“Based on the new location of the net pen operation in open water with increased wave exposure, the marina-style net pen configuration that exists at Ediz Hook is no longer feasible,” Ballard wrote.

The new pens are built with “heavy walled” plastic pipes, he said.

“These cages are flexible and allow wave energy from rough seas to pass through them.

“These circular cage systems are becoming the industry choice for marine finfish aquaculture operations in unprotected waters.”

A Navy submarine escort vessel pier being built on Ediz Hook will eliminate part of the 22-acre state Department of Natural Resources aquatic lands lease used by Cooke’s Ediz Hook fish farm and will “increase potential environmental and safety hazards to the existing overwater net pen site,” Ballard said in his report.

The new fish farm would operate under a DNR lease for 52 acres, including the area that would be anchored to the sea floor.

The pier is slated for completion in July 2018.

Asked when the Ediz Hook facility would shut down, Cooke Aquaculture spokesman Chuck Brown said in an email: “All I can say is the relocation process is on hold.

“The investigation into the Cypress Island incident will be done carefully and thoroughly — we don’t have a timeline on completion.”

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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 55650, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.