The recent announcement by Conservation Law Foundation that they intend to sue Cooke aquaculture is a surprise given the fact that they worked closely with the salmon farmers to develop the very standards they indicate they are going to sue over.

Perhaps this is a case of staff turnover and lack of institutional memory?

Or is it yet another example of big city, opportunist law firms trying to cash in on citizen lawsuits?

In 2002, Maine salmon farmers, under the leadership of the Maine Aquaculture Association approached CLF, Atlantic Salmon Federation, and Trout Unlimited to see if there was a way to all work together to address environmental concerns. We all agreed that if we worked together we were more likely to come up with solutions that were effective.

The environmental community knew what outcomes they wanted to see and the salmon growers had the technical knowledge to design solutions that achieved those outcomes. We also all agreed that having the federal and state regulators part of the process was vital and would result in solutions that were both effective and linked to enforcement tools.

Over three years we met every month to work through the issues and try to develop solutions. The discussions were highly technical and challenged both sides to listen and learn from each other. We often disagreed, but always kept at it and after three years of hard work had come up with a series of best management practices (BMPs) that were the first of their kind in the world.

The BMPs were highly technical and included things such as area management agreements , site rotation and fallowing, a Containment Management System (CMS), third party auditing ,and biosecurity audits.

Many of those BMPs were then linked to state permits as permit conditions. In addition, any time the state issued a permit they consulted with at least four federal and state agencies to ensure their concerns were addressed. Subsequent to those original BMPs the farming community developed a cooperative program with the state and USDA to manage the risk of sea lice and pathogens that may infect the farms from the natural ecosystem.

Although CLF was not part of the development of that last program they were aware of it and did not express any concerns about it at the time. 

Given the fact that CLF and the other groups associated with the proposed suit have not expressed any of their concerns to the farmers and that all of them stand to financially benefit one has to wonder why farmers would ever work cooperatively with these groups to address their concerns. Maine has always been about working cooperatively to develop practical solutions, perhaps we have lost that tradition. That’s a shame but as farmers we are inherently optimists and pragmatists.  With or without ambulance chasing lawyers and purported preservationists we will continue that approach.

Sebastian Belle is executive director of the Maine Aquaculture Association