EdD, you’ve hit the nail on the head. This type of aquaculture is adaptable to salmon farming,totally sustainable and incredibly low impact on the wild population, in comparison to methods which are more commonly used, such as sea pens. However, many producers find the inital cost to be prohibitive, and despite the best efforts of environmentally conscious citizens, anglers and politicians, it will probably remain under utilized and rare. :roll:
They used to be dime a dozen in WA and OR also. Guess what happened.
The White Man moved in?
Doug 
Escaped atlantic salmon have already been recorded in over 80 rivers in British Columbia, and even in the Copper River in Alaska. Not adults running upriver to spawn, but alevins and smolt from adults that have already spawned! The escaped atlantic salmon have already invaded the west coast!
At 32 years of age, i hate it when i find myself talking about the good old days when there were no atlantic salmon competing with native species that were already in trouble.
Jeff
I don’t know what your seafood case looks like where you shop, but the market I was in a couple of hours ago would be hard pressed to sell anything but farmed fish. Tilapia, flounder, basa, catfish, trout, salmon, scallops, roughy, and several others I can’t remember, as well as the shrimp and prawns, were all farm-raised. They had a bit of wild halibut and salmon that looked like it had taken up residence there, because the price approached ten bucks a pound. The answer to the problem is to fly to Alaska, catch your own fish, Fed-x it home, and have the best fish on earth, and factoring in the cost of fish, and how much of it you ship home, you could pay for the trip. You would be supporting the local economies, and competing with the farmers to boot. At least you’d eat real good.