Maine Coast News *** Maine Coast News
For immediate release September 12, 2003
Contact Penobscot Bay Watch 207 594-5717 *** Email
NEWS: Aquaculture Task Force meets, gets briefed on shellfish farms & baywide management.
State officials chided for withholding information from Task Force.
Walpole. The Maine Aquaculture Task Force held its second meeting last week at the University of Maine's Darling Marine Center, a marine science campus on the bank of the Damariscotta River. See agenda here (pdf file)
The two day meeting on September 4-5 was chaired by Maine SeaGrant director Paul Anderson and focused on giving task force members a look at the business and ecology of shellfish farming, aquaculture's impact on public access to Maine state waters and on existing coastal tourism and fisheries businesses and on the biological and economic carrying capacity of each of Maine's bays and tidal rivers. In addition, Andrew Fisk, the state Aquaculture Coordinator, announced he was leaving the Department of Marine Resources.
A tour of shellfish farms scheduled for the first day of the task force meeting was cancelled due to inclement weather. Discussions were held on the use by the industry of public trust waters, and on sizing up the economic impacts of introducing aquaculture in waters where sustainable coastal tourism, recreation and fisheries are already taking place
Chris Davis shellfish farmer and marine educator led a discussion of the Damariscotta River shellfish farming industry, followed by a presentation by Conservation Law Foundation attorney Roger Fleming on Baywide Management. Fleming presented the Task Force with a White Paper on baywide management, and led a lengthy discussion discussion of how the concept, already receiving wide application in northern Europe
Fleming's presentation on Baywide Management described three 'layers' to the problems with aquaculture: The most apparent layer is that aquaculture has undesirable environmental effects and conflicts with other users, such as the transmission of ISA to wild salmon, and an loss of bottomfishing grounds. Fleming described the leasing process as the second layer of the problem with local local citizens feeling disenfranchised, with little opportunity to participate in future planning for aquaculture.
The final layer of the problem with aquaculture, he said, are so-called "root causes". These include population growth, the changing coastal economy and new technologies. Fleming also noted that the state's training of shellfish growers was itself increasing the number of leases, since once trained, shellfish growers want to use their knowledge. Another root economic cause, Fleming said, was the trend of the aquaculture industry, government and the public to focus narrowly on short term economic gain, and rarely on the long term consequences of our decisions on the environment.
Others that spoke during Fleming's review and discussion included members of the Bay Management Coalition, Steve Perrin of the Friends of Taunton Bay, Sally McCloskey of EPBEA, Vivian Newman,of the Sierra Club of Maine and Dick Davis of the concerned citizens of Sorrento.
U Maine scientist Neal Pettigrew and John Sowles gave presentations on Carrying Capacities of Bays from a technical point of view.
Along with the Task Force, members of the Stakeholder Advisory Panel and the general public also gave presentations to the task force, including waterfront innkeeper Sally Littlefield, Naturalist Steve Perrin, Penobscot Bay island owner and conservationist Sally McCloskey, Sierra Club Maine Chapter conservation co-chair Vivian Newman, and Dick Davis, a resident of Sedgewick. Saint George harbormaster Dave Schmanska also spoke to the task force.
Aquaculture coordinator Andrew Fisk discussed with the Task Force his memo on the external impacts of aquaculture, The memo purports to lay out both sides of each major issue of aquaculture's impacts on the surrounding environment and economy.
Task Force members and Stakeholder advisory panelists seemed surprised by the admission by three DMR officials that they were withholding from the Task Force the many letters and emails sent it by the public and fishing and conservation groups since the task force began.
Queried by a task force member, DMR aquaculture official Andrew Fisk said that he was not sending the task force the emails it received at the official Task Force email address, though he would at some future date. DMR scientist Paul Anderson told the Task Force that he had received emails to the Task Force, but would decide which of them he would let the task force read. DMR Assistant Commissioner David Etnier too, had not released to the Task Force the emails he and staffers Sue Inches and Dierdre Gilbert had received from the public, businesses and interest groups.
None of the officials had an explanation for why they had been withholding this information from the Task Force, nor did they say how many emails and letters they had received. Fisk, who also announced he was leaving his position at Maine Aquaculture Coordinator for the Department of Marine Resources later this month, said he would make the emails sent to the task force at marine.aqua@maine.gov (the official designated email address for the task force,) available "soon". Fisk will take up a position as head of the Bureau of Land and Water Quality at the Maine Department of Environmental Protection.
A brief discussion was held on the controversial essay on marine aquaculture written by former DMR commissioner Spencer Apollonio. The essay - Marine aquaculture in Maine, has received numerous critical responses due to its inflammatory, sneering rhetoric. Task Force chair Paul Anderson termed the Appollonio paper biased and divisive, and asked that the link to the Apollonio paper and the task force website be removed. making it clear the Aquaculture Task Force does not endorse the paper.
DMR Ecology Division head John Sowles led a technical discussion on salmon farm waste pollution and its impact on fish habitat and water chemistry.
For more information about the Maine Aquaculture Task Force, visit the Penobscot Bay Advocates' Aquaculture Task Force oversight webpage
Audio CDs of the September 4-5 Task Force meeting are available. Contact Penobscot Bay Watch at 207 594-5717 or by email at coastwatch@acadia.net
Penobscot Bay Watch, People who care about Penobscot Bay
END