OLYMPIA, Wash. — Funds from a settlement with the aquaculture company whose floating net pen collapsed in the Salish Sea in 2017 will support salmon habitat in Skagit County.
Cooke Aquaculture’s fish farm failure allowed hundreds of thousands of nonnative Atlantic salmon to escape into the Puget Sound and resulted in a $332,000 fine from the state Department of Ecology.
Funds will be split, with a majority going to the Skagit Fisheries Enhancement Group for salmon habitat restoration along a Skagit River side channel near Marblemount.
What’s left over will go to Ecology’s Coastal Protection Fund.