Cooke Aquaculture — the company responsible for the estimated 105,000 farmed Atlantic salmon that spilled out of a ripped net off the coast of Washington this summer — offered to pay the Lummi Nation an extra $12 per fish if the tribe would not push for the prohibition of net-pen aquaculture.
“Your demand to keep quiet for a few extra dollars is insulting,” Timothy Ballew II, chairman of the Lummi Indian Business Council, responded in a Sept. 14 letter, rejecting the offer. The tribe said that amount “didn’t begin to cover the tribe’s cost for staff, paying its fishermen and related expenses,” says Alaska Dispatch News. “The company agreed to pay more — but there were strings attached, letters between Cooke and the tribe show.”
The aquaculture company denied trying to stop the tribe from advocating.
Nell Halse, vice president for communications at Cooke, claimed the offer “was not an attempt to muzzle or insult the Lummi Nation, but rather an effort to negotiate toward common ground and respect the interests and concerns of both parties at the table …”
Ultimately, Cooke did end up paying the Lummi Nation $30 per fish, to the tune of $1.3 million. The company is one of the largest aquaculture firms in the world, with almost $2 billion in annual revenue. Cooke has also promised to fund a study into the impacts of the farmed fish that escaped into the tribe’s fishing waters.