"BELLINGHAM -- A salmon-farming company with net pens in Rich Passage has agreed to pay $332,000 in fines after one of its floating pens collapsed in 2017, releasing a quarter-million nonnative Atlantic salmon into Puget Sound near Cypress Island, about 10 miles southwest of Bellingham.

The state's Department of Ecology announced Monday that Canadian-based Cooke Aquaculture had dropped an appeal and agreed to pay the full fine.

Ecology officials said several government agencies investigated the incident near Cypress Island. Lummi Nation fishermen discovered the incident when they started finding Atlantic salmon in their nets for chinook, according to published reports."

The Kitsap Sun and the Associated Press had the story April 30, 2019. [2]