It is well known the Port Angeles Harbor is polluted.

This is why parts of it are scheduled to undergo a major cleanup.

It is also well known that open water fish pens pollute.

State House Bill 2957, passed in 2018, ended nonnative fish pens.

It begins with this new section 1:

“Recent developments have thrown into stark relief the threat that nonnative marine finfish aquaculture may pose to Washington’s native salmon populations.

“But just as evidence has emerged that nonnative marine finfish aquaculture may endanger Washington’s native salmon populations, so too has evidence emerged that marine finfish aquaculture in general may pose unacceptable risks not only to Washington’s native salmon populations but also to the broader health of Washington’s marine environment.”

Kurt Beardslee, executive director of Wild Fish Conservancy, calls raising so-called natives “risky business” and worries that viruses, parasites and diseases documented in dense groups of net-pen fish will spread to free-swimming populations of trout and salmon.

It is incomprehensible why the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe would join with Cooke Aquaculture to raise penned fish for human consumption in the harbor environment, or at all given the environmental impacts for human health, the wildlife and the marine ecosystem.

Cooke and the tribe could investigate raising fish upland where the fish would be raised in clean water and would not escape or threaten wild salmon.

It may be more expensive but the fish would be healthier and worth a higher price.

Janet Marx,

Port Angeles