Cooke Aquaculture's application to transport and stock 365,000 steelhead trout to its Hope Island facility has been approved by the State of Washington, another milestone in the group's long-term effort to continue farming fish in the state.
A catastrophic netpen collapse almost four years ago to the day caused the escape of more than 300,000 Atlantic salmon, an incident that led to to a state ban on farming non-native fish in its waters.
The Hope Island application, which was approved Thursday, still requires Cooke to provide "approximate dates" for stocking the netpens.
