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Cascade Aquafarms Devastated by Landslides - US
01/13/09
Editor's note: The following are a series of communications with Brian Mencke, owner of Cascade Aquafarms in Washington State. His Arctic Char facility on the Tilton River was severely damaged by landslides caused by heavy rains.
Dan, landslides came down from logging areas and cut all my water off at Tilton facility. All fish lost which includes present and all next years crop. (We still have fish at Cinebar and babies for 2 years from now). Haven't heard if Governor has declared this area a disaster area or not. Will need money for those future crops. Looks like road will be closed leading in and out of this area because the state hwy. will have extensive damages. Must go now, will be back tonight. Brian
Dan, thanks for your concern. The slide came in using 4 routs and covered the intake flume and blocking the water. The slide cannot be removed until we get some dryness. The water is still blocked to the fish and all fish are gone. We had increased our volume to be able to ship 800,000 pounds. We were targeting the Winter Olympics and other large sales for next winter and had stocked large quantities of fish for that incl. regular customers. Naturally as you can imagine, we had lots of money into those fish. At the present, it is important to get all fish into holes before they turn bad. The main access road is blocked by slides (on our property) and is impassable at the present. One must walk in and out. On top of everything, Hwy 508 has another slide in bear canyon and the road is going to cave in. The Hwy. is blocked now and the route east on Hwy. 12 to Morton and doubling back on Hwy. 508 is the only route now. Will cost us huge amount of money for that extra travel. We must, if we can, try and get money to help with feed for the next group of fish. Cinebar is untouched and is carrying the next group of fish but they are just hatching now. The answer to protect the Tilton hatchery is to put a cap on top of the intake flume and any furthur slides will simple go over top and will not affect fish. Thanks again for your help and I will stay in touch and update you later. Brian
In fish value we had numbers of arctic char to deliver 800,000 pounds for a value of 4.05 per pound. $3,200,000 and we had steelhead trout of 160,000 pounds already market size and ready to ship with a price of $3.25 per pound totaling $520,000. Can you believe! Any furthur ideas let me know. Brian
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