At Maine supermarkets, shoppers can find plenty of choices for Atlantic salmon. It’s sold smoked, filleted and frozen. And while some of it comes from far-off countries such as Chile, millions of pounds of it are raised closer to home in the Gulf of Maine.
“Seafood from the Gulf of Maine has fewer miles to travel so it arrives fresh at its best,” said one banner at a Hannaford supermarket, beneath a seafood case that sold salmon packaged under the brand True North.
In fact, Maine has a controversial and outsized role when it comes to Atlantic salmon. It’s now the only remaining state where what’s known as the King of Fish can be farmed in ocean net pens, after Washington state banned the practice this year. But it’s also the only state where endangered wild Atlantic salmon survive, in a handful of rivers.
To salmon conservationists, those two are at odds with each other, pointing to concerns that the pens could be contaminating surrounding waters and putting wild salmon at risk.
To Cooke Aquaculture, owner of the pens and the only business currently raising salmon in Maine — including through its product line True North — its operations are an important economic engine that can most easily meet the growing domestic demand for salmon.
A lawsuit against Cooke filed earlier this year highlighted those lingering conflicts over ocean-based pens as demand for domestically raised salmon continues to grow — overall, the fish is now the second most popular seafood in the country — and alternative proposals for growing salmon in land-based farms have stalled out in Maine.
Wild-caught Atlantic salmon hasn’t been sold commercially since the fishery was closed in 1948, but Maine companies have been raising them since the 1970s. Cooke Aquaculture, based in New Brunswick, bought out several ocean-based operations in the early 2000s and now runs sites off Eastport, Machiasport and islands outside Bar Harbor, along with a processing plant in Machiasport and three inland hatcheries where the young salmon are raised before being moved to ocean pens to reach full size.
Cooke’s operations in Maine have experienced a 50,000-fish escape after a suspected seal attack and several large die-offs, and the company was once fined $156,000 for violating state regulations. In 2013, it paid $450,000 in fines in New Brunswick for using illegal pesticides that killed lobsters.
In January, the Conservation Law Foundation sued the company, alleging its Maine operations violate the Clean Water Act. Five years ago, Cooke was also sued by animal welfare group AnimalOutlook for alleged false advertising over calling its fish sustainable, but that lawsuit was dismissed for procedural reasons.
In the new suit, the foundation alleges fish waste from the pens create thick layers of toxic sediment on the ocean floor, and that the fish themselves spread disease and parasites. It also argues that farmed fish escape and breed with endangered wild salmon, and the operations put trash into Maine waters.
The two parties are now in settlement talks, according to a spokesperson for the foundation. Cooke did not respond to requests to confirm that.
But Cooke spokesperson Steven Hedlund did say the company is fully in line with Maine law and “vehemently denies” the allegations in the lawsuit, which he called false, misleading and lacking any substantial evidence. He said the operations are sustainable and the only practical way to raise salmon.
Hedlund also noted that its operations have proved more commercially viable than land-based fish farms, which some conservationists argue are a better option than raising salmon in ocean pens.
“There is not a full-scale Atlantic salmon land-based grow-out facility on the planet of any scale that is both environmentally and financially sustainable,” Hedlund said.
Proposals for multiple land-based fish farms in Maine have failed to take shape in recent years. Nordic Aquafarms abandoned a controversial salmon farm proposal in Belfast because of continued pushback and legal challenges. Whole Oceans proposed another in Bucksport seven years ago, but has let its town permits lapse. Another land-based proposal to grow yellowtail fish in Jonesport was held up by legal challenges from conservationists and landowners but may move forward.
A land-based operation by Great Northern Salmon is also under construction far away from the coast in Millinocket. Its backers have promoted the economic security of domestically grown salmon, calling them “tariff-proof” in a March press release subtitled “the future is inland.”
While it was not land-based, one other proposal by American Aquafarms for two 60-acre pen sites in Frenchman Bay had its permits terminated in 2022 because of egg-sourcing issues, amid larger community pushback about the farm’s potential effects on the coast.
Cooke’s website says it will continue to grow in Maine to meet the rising demand for its products. It has highlighted the fact that the state imports most of its seafood, a key argument that’s made more broadly by supporters of the aquaculture industry.
Environmental groups also rate farmed salmon from North America as a more sustainable choice than that from Chile and other countries.
In the first nine months of 2024, 87 percent of Canadian salmon exports went to the U.S., according to the United Nations, and producers are now concerned tariffs could limit that. The U.S. imported 357,782 tons of Atlantic salmon overall during that time, close to half of it from Chile, followed by Norway and Canada.
Cooke also touts its economic impact in Maine, where it employs 230 people. On its 20th anniversary of operations in the state last year, the company said it spends more than $10 million on local goods and services.
In that press release, Chris Gardner, the executive director of the Eastport Port Authority, said Cooke and salmon aquaculture are woven into Washington County’s economy.
Maine farmed salmon is carried by grocery stores including Hannaford. A spokesperson for the chain, Caitlin Cortelyou, says most of its salmon is raised and processed in the state.
Products labeled “Gulf of Maine” may occasionally include fish raised in Canada; if they are also processed in Canada, they are labeled as a product of Canada rather than a product of the U.S., she said.
Seafood Watch, a Monterey Bay Aquarium program that rates seafood choices by sustainability, recommends buying Maine salmon over most other places of origin, based on comparatively limited use of antimicrobials and pesticides along with reduced escapes.
It does note that passing pathogens and sea lice onto wild salmon is a continued risk, though some research suggests that happens minimally. Use of antibiotics and pesticides to control sea lice are another concern.
But the biggest threats to wild salmon conservation efforts are dams and culverts blocking the fish from good upstream habitat, along with international fishing and changing water conditions, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s fisheries program.
It lists interbreeding with fish escaped from aquaculture farms as another threat.
In January, Washington state finalized a ban on commercial net-pen fish aquaculture following the 2017 collapse of a Cooke-owned net pen array that released 250,000 Atlantic salmon into Puget Sound, the native home to Pacific salmon. Any wild-caught salmon now on store shelves are Pacific species.
In Maine, escapes are “a problem because these domesticated salmon can breed with and ‘dumb down’ our wild fish, making the offspring less well adapted to their environment,” Dwayne Shaw, executive director of the Downeast Salmon Federation, wrote in an editorial to the Working Waterfront newspaper earlier this year.
In it, he called for Maine to phase out salmon farming.
The current lawsuit doesn’t seek to do that or drive Cooke out of business, the Conservation Law Foundation’s vice president of clean air and water, Heather Govern, wrote last year; it wants stronger regulations, more oversight and more transparency for the overall health of the ocean.
“We should all view these enormous salmon cages as sewage pipes to the marine environment,” she concluded. “And, if we allow this practice to continue unchecked, we risk turning Maine’s pristine waters into nothing more than industrial wastelands, poisoned by waste and diseased fish.”