Its not surprising that Maine's two US Senators have just become official candidates for the
infamous Golden Fleece Award for wasteful public spending.  The award was originated  by 
Senator William Proxmire in the early 1980's to highlight extreme examples of porkbarrel
politics,

The Fleece is heading for Maine's two senators for their plan for American taxpayers to shell out
more than twenty four million dollars to compensate  three foreign agribusiness giants for
running such  sloppy marine feedlot operations in  Cobscook Bay that a disease epidemic is 
running rampant through  both the companies' finned livestock and downeast Maine's wild
salmon and sea trout.

Senator Collins recently wrote to USDA chief Ann Veneman,  noting that ten years of intensive
fish farming in downeast Maine  have caused the area to remain   "an economically
disadvantaged region 
of our State."   Nevertheless claiming, like Snowe, that  "The state and the Maine Aquaculture
industry do not have enough resources of their own to prevent the spread of ISA,"  Collins, too,
calls for subsidizing these billion  dollar firms. See her letter, co-signed by Snowe, to the USDA 
athttp://www.penbay.org/aqsnowecollins.html 

But observers note  that  the Snowe/Collins plan for "eradicating" the virus consists almost
entirely of financially bailing out the three companies' investors for profits they MIGHT HAVE
MADE on the disease-ridden livestock in their pens in Cobscook Bay.  The diseased animals
must be removed from
Maine waters, killed, and landfilled.   Under the Snowe/Collins plan, Cobscook Bay's natural
environment is expected to heal itself by natural self-cleansing.. 

"It doesn't cost 24 million bucks to clear their infested operations from our state's waters", Huber
said. He called  the plan "a disgusting display of porkbarrel politics at its worst.   Snowe and
Collins certainly are earning their Golden Fleece."

Conservationists also worry that the  induced epidemic of Infectious Salmon Anemia  also
threatens the state's remaining stocks of wild Atlantic Salmon, many of which must migrate
through the microbe infested waters of Cobscook Bay on their way to breeding streams in the
state's interior. 

"In effect,  these blundering companies have turned Cobscook Bay  into a gigantic marine 'plague
blanket'  that could wipe out our indigenous wild salmon and sea trout." said Herb Hoche, a
retired commercial fisherman. 

Residents of the area  also worry that if the companies' sloppy management qualifies them for
getting  federal  livestock insurance, there will be few incentives to control disease and escapes,
and incetives fo rfishpen  expansion into more of Maine's waters