Tippets: Patagonia’s Chouinard and Public Lands, Farmed Salmon in the Skagit, Soda Butte Creek Mine Cleanup

December 20, 2017 By: Erin Block

  • In the escalating fight over public lands, Utah Representative Rob Bishop has invited Yvon Chouinard to testify before the House Natural Resources Committee. “Despite Bishop’s language pointing toward having a dialogue,” writes J. Weston Phippen, “he’s clearly luring Chouinard and the company into what amounts to a showdown. Chouinard should embrace that.” Read more via Outside Online.
  • More than three months after a net pen failure at a Cooke Aquaculture fish farm near Cypress Island, farmed Atlantic salmon are being caught nearly 40 miles up the Skagit River. “The concern is that if we’re catching this many Atlantic salmon in this small area of the river, it’s not a stretch to assume they are upstream in spawning areas and interfering with wild fish,” says Scott Schuyler, Upper Skagit Indian Tribe Natural Resources Director. Via The Bellingham Herald.
  • In 2018, Montana’s Soda Butte Creek will be removed from the list of impaired streams, “a move that follows major abandoned mine cleanups they say fixed water quality problems.” Read more via The Bozeman Daily Chronicle.