SEATTLE (AP) — A Washington state jury on Wednesday awarded the Lummi Indian tribe $595,000 over the 2017 collapse of a net pen where Atlantic salmon were being raised — an event that elicited fears of damage to wild salmon runs and prompted the Legislature to ban the farming of the nonnative fish. About 250,000 Atlantic salmon escaped into the Salish Sea when the net pen owned by Cooke Aquaculture collapsed. Cooke paid a bounty of $30 for each salmon recovered by the tribe’s fishers — $1.3 million in all. The Lummi Nation argued that while the fishers had been compensated, the company had not reimbursed the tribal government for responding to the spill.
Jury awards $595,000 to Lummi tribe for salmon pen collapse
