Victory! Legislature sends Governor Inslee bill banning invasive fish farms from our waters

A bill that would phase out the farm­ing of inva­sive, non­na­tive fish in Wash­ing­ton’s waters and entire­ly pro­hib­it it in the future has left the Leg­is­la­ture tonight and is on its way to Gov­er­nor Inslee fol­low­ing a suc­cess­ful vote in the Senate.

Engrossed House Bill 2957, prime spon­sored by Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Krys Lyt­ton (D‑40th Dis­trict: Belling­ham, San Juan Islands, Ana­cortes, Mount Ver­non) will put an end to the destruc­tive activ­i­ties of Cooke Aqua­cul­ture, which cur­rent­ly has four fish farms in Wash­ing­ton’s waters. The Depart­ment of Nat­ur­al Resources has ordered the com­pa­ny to shut down two of them (locat­ed at Port Ange­les and Cypress Island respec­tive­ly) and is look­ing at tak­ing fur­ther action against the remain­ing two.

“Inves­ti­ga­tions into the August col­lapse have shown that the indus­try facil­i­ties are in dis­re­pair and safe and secure facil­i­ties are not being main­tained. The prob­lems should have been addressed by the indus­try long ago. Our native salmon are an endan­gered species that the Leg­is­la­ture is work­ing hard to recov­er and this leg­is­la­tion ensures that non­na­tive fin­fish will not be a threat,” said Lytton.

Under EHB 2957, cur­rent leas­es will be ter­mi­nat­ed when they expire (unless they are ter­mi­nat­ed soon­er for lease vio­la­tions), while future leas­es will be banned.

“Cur­rent facil­i­ties will be sub­ject to a height­ened inspec­tion process and state agen­cies are direct­ed to con­tin­ue work­ing on guid­ance for plan­ning and per­mit­ting of com­mer­cial marine net pen aqua­cul­ture,” notes a news release from the House Demo­c­ra­t­ic cau­cus, which cel­e­brat­ed the bil­l’s passage.

“It was great work­ing with Kris as she maneu­vered through a lot of dif­fi­cult per­son­al­i­ties to get a pol­i­cy solu­tion that’s going to be what’s best for the 40th Dis­trict,” said Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Jeff Mor­ris, Lyt­ton’s seatmate.

“The state ban is a strong stance to ensure the pro­tec­tion of our marine envi­ron­ment and native salmon pop­u­la­tions in the Sal­ish Sea,” said Sen­a­tor Kevin Ranker, prime spon­sor of the com­pan­ion bill in the Senate.

(Ranker is Lyt­ton and Mor­ris’ coun­ter­part in the Senate.)

“I want to thank Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Kris­tine Lyt­ton for her key sup­port and lead­er­ship in the House to keep this issue going for­ward. Wash­ing­to­ni­ans will no longer accept this risky indus­try in our state waters,” Ranker added.

“We have invest­ed far too much in the restora­tion of our Sal­ish Sea. The eco­nom­ic, cul­tur­al, and recre­ation­al resources of these incred­i­ble waters will no longer be jeop­ar­dized by the neg­li­gent actions of this industry.”

The roll call in the Sen­ate on final pas­sage of EHB 2957 was as follows:

Roll Call
EHB 2957
Non­na­tive fin­fish escape
3rd Read­ing & Final Passage
3/2/2018

Yeas: 31; Nays: 16; Absent: 1; Excused: 1

Vot­ing Yea: Sen­a­tors Angel, Bil­lig, Chase, Cleve­land, Con­way, Darneille, Dhin­gra, Fain, For­tu­na­to, Frockt, Hasegawa, Hawkins, Hunt, Keis­er, Kud­er­er, Liias, McCoy, Milos­cia, Mul­let, Nel­son, O’Ban, Palum­bo, Ped­er­sen, Ranker, Rolfes, Sal­daña, Shel­don, Takko, Van De Wege, Well­man, Zeiger

Vot­ing Nay: Sen­a­tors Bai­ley, Baum­gart­ner, Beck­er, Braun, Brown, Erick­sen, Hon­ey­ford, King, Pad­den, Rivers, Schoesler, Short, Wag­oner, Walsh, War­nick, Wilson

Absent: Sen­a­tor Carlyle

Excused: Sen­a­tor Hobbs

The Sen­ate’s Demo­c­ra­t­ic mem­bers all vot­ed for the bill with the excep­tion of Sen­a­tors Reuven Car­lyle and Steve Hobbs, who were not present. They were joined by Repub­li­can Sen­a­tors Jan Angel, Joe Fain, Phil For­tu­na­to, Brad Hawkins, Mark Milos­cia, Steve O’Ban, Tim Shel­don, and Hans Zeiger.

The Sen­ate reject­ed dozens of attempts by the oth­er Sen­ate Repub­li­cans to amend the bill, defeat­ing a pletho­ra of amend­ments offered by Shel­ley Short and Jim Hon­ey­ford, who are both from East­ern Washington.

In the House, the roll call in favor of the bill last month was as follows:

Roll Call
EHB 2957
Non­na­tive fin­fish escape
Final Passage
2/14/2018

Yeas: 67; Nays: 31

Vot­ing Yea: Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Apple­ton, Barkis, Bergquist, Blake, Caldier, Chap­man, Clib­born, Cody, Doglio, Dolan, Fey, Fitzgib­bon, Frame, Good­man, Graves, Gregerson, Grif­fey, Hansen, Hayes, Hud­gins, Irwin, Jink­ins, John­son, Kagi, Kil­duff, Kir­by, Klo­ba, Lovick, Lyt­ton, MacEwen, Macri, McBride, McCabe, McDon­ald, Mor­ris, Orms­by, Ortiz-Self, Orwall, Pel­lic­ciot­ti, Peter­son, Pet­ti­grew, Pol­let, Reeves, Ric­cel­li, Robin­son, Rodne, Ryu, San­tos, Sawyer, Sells, Senn, Slat­ter, Smith, Springer, Stam­baugh, Stan­ford, Stokes­bary, Stonier, Sul­li­van, Tar­leton, Tharinger, Valdez, Vick, Wilcox, Wylie, Young, Chopp

Vot­ing Nay: Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Buys, Chan­dler, Con­dot­ta, DeBolt, Dent, Dye, Eslick, Haler, Har­grove, Harmsworth, Har­ris, Holy, Jenkin, Klip­pert, Kraft, Kretz, Kris­tiansen, Man­weller, May­cum­ber, McCaslin, Muri, Nealey, Orcutt, Pike, Schmick, Shea, Steele, Tay­lor, Van Wer­ven, Volz, Walsh

As in the Sen­ate, all nay votes came from Repub­li­cans, who were split on the bill.

NPI called for leg­is­la­tion to ban the farm­ing of inva­sive fish last autumn, and we are delight­ed that the Leg­is­la­ture has fol­lowed up by pass­ing this bill. We’d like to see oth­er press­ing prob­lems receive this kind of prompt response in the future.

We look for­ward to the day when Cooke Aqua­cul­ture is out of Wash­ing­ton’s waters. The Sal­ish Sea is a trea­sure that belongs to every­one. It’s worth protecting.