It's not quite accurate to say "the State of Washington ... banned open-net pen salmon farms from their waters by 2025."
The state is actually only phasing out
non-native salmon farming. Farming of native species is still allowed, with no plans to eliminate it.
When the non-native farming phaseout bill passed the legislature in 2018, the bill included a non-binding preamble that addressed both non-native and native farming, even though only non-native farming was being phased out by the bill:
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. Given this evidence, the legislature intends to phase out nonnative finfish aquaculture in Washington's marine waters. Because the state of the science and engineering with regard to marine finfish aquaculture may be evolving, the legislature further intends to study this issue in greater depth, and to revisit the issue of marine finfish aquaculture once additional research becomes available.
2018 Wash. Sess. Laws 944–950 (
ch. 179) (emphasis added).
However, Governor Inslee vetoed this preamble section of the bill on the grounds that "[this section] is unnecessary to implement the bill, and I do not agree with all the assertions made in this section."
Id. at 950 (governor's partial veto message).
The governor's partial veto does not negate the phaseout of non-native fish farming, nor does the partial veto "authorize" native fish farming, which was and remains lawful. But the partial veto does serve a political function: to warn legislators and the public that the governor disapproves of some unidentified aspect of the preamble. Presumably, the portion the governor disapproves is the portion relating to "finfish aquaculture in general," since, if he disapproved of the non-native phaseout, he would have vetoed the phaseout.
All of which is to say, we do not have a total ban on fish farms here, and, based on the governor's partial veto message, we may not ever get a total ban. We may be stuck with native fish farming for a long time to come.
Alex
