April 27, 2013 — A Canadian firm that is a subsidiary of the largest aquaculture operator in Maine pleaded guilty Friday in a Canadian courtroom to using illegal pesticides that killed hundreds of lobsters a little more than a mile from Maine’s border.
Cooke Aquaculture, based in Blacks Harbour, New Brunswick, agreed Friday to pay $100,000 in fines and an additional $400,000 in penalties that will fund environmental research and study at University of New Brunswick and restoration and enhancement of fish habitat in the Bay of Fundy region, according to Canadian court documents. The total amount, $500,000 in Canadian currency, is about $490,000 in U.S. currency.
Environment Canada has been investigating Cooke Aquaculture subsidiary Kelly Cove Salmon Ltd. in connection with the 2009 lobster deaths off Deer Island and Grand Manan Island, both of which are easily visible from Maine. According to Canadian court documents, four fishermen found dead lobsters in their traps off Grand Manan in November 2009, and the following month, two more fishermen found several hundred pounds of dead lobsters they had stored in Clam Cove by Deer Island. Clam Cove is roughly a mile and a half away from Pleasant Point in Maine.
In both cases, the dead and dying lobsters eventually were found to have been exposed to cypermethrin, a pesticide that is banned in Canada but which can be used in Maine with advance approval from state officials. Officials believe the cypermethrin was applied in salmon pens to combat the spread of sea lice, parasitic crustaceans that weaken the farmed fish and expose them to infection and disease.
In Maine, Cooke rotates its operations among two dozen salmon aquaculture sites in Hancock and Washington counties that are licensed to several subsidiary companies. The firm also has used legal sea lice treatments in Maine and New Brunswick within the past several years, according to industry officials.
According to a Cooke official, the court case in New Brunswick has no bearing on the company’s operations in Maine.
Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News