October 30, 2023 — While concerns about fish farming in Maine have been fairly muted for some time in areas like Eastport and Lubec, where it began in the 1980s, towns along the coast that have been the focus of recent industrial-scale projects, including Jonesport, Gouldsboro, Bucksport and Belfast, have been seeing intense debates.
Prompted by those proposals, a group called Protect Maine’s Fishing Heritage Foundation has been working to have municipalities enact moratoriums and ordinances limiting any large-scale proposals.
While eight municipalities have now passed moratoriums, the state has stepped in, questioning if they have the right to do so, since the Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR) has exclusive jurisdiction to lease state waters for aquaculture.
However, both the foundation and some towns are questioning that exclusive authority.
Two municipalities, Cutler and Waldoboro, have approved ordinances regulating aquaculture, and the other towns that have approved moratoriums are Machiasport, Beals, Roque Bluffs, Winter Harbor, Penobscot and South Bristol. Cutler approved its ordinance, which limits aquaculture leases to a half acre, in November 2022. Waldoboro’s ordinance does not allow for any aquaculture leases.
Crystal Canney, executive director of Protect Maine’s Fishing Heritage Foundation, says the moratoriums, which are for six months and can be renewed multiple times, allow towns the time to develop and approve an ordinance.
The foundation is providing municipalities with possible language both for moratoriums on any new large-scale aquaculture projects and for municipal ordinances that would require a permit from the town’s planning board before an aquaculture facility could be built.
“We provide the towns with proposed moratorium and ordinance wording, but we leave it up to the towns on how to word them,” Canney said. The moratoriums provide “breathing room” so that towns can develop an aquaculture ordinance.
Canney noted that “the majority of the concern is Downeast,” and numerous other municipalities have been approached by the group, including Eastport and Lubec, which were not interested in pursuing a moratorium or ordinance. She points out that the foundation is targeting only large-scale aquaculture projects.
“We are not against owner/operated aquaculture that’s properly sited,” she said.
The foundation’s main concerns are both competition with fishermen for space and environmental effects of aquaculture. According to its website, Protect Maine’s Fishing Heritage believes that “fishermen and marine harvesters are losing bottom and fishing space to large aquaculture leases.”
The website states, “We are working to ensure proper state regulations are in place to prevent a rapid, unplanned expansion of aquaculture in Maine. Conflicts are arising up and down the Maine coast for the lobstering, marine harvesters and boating communities. We must find a way to co‑exist without hurting the environment or fisheries that have been well managed and sustained for generations.”
Canney noted it’s possible for an aquaculture company to be able to lease 1,000 acres of state waters, since they can have up to 10 leases of up to 100 acres each.