April 28, 2022 — American Aquafarms’ plan to raise 66 million Atlantic salmon in Frenchman Bay seems to be dead in the water. But the broad citizens’ coalition, which swelled to include all seven Frenchman Bay towns, the Downeast lobster fishery, Acadia National Park, MDI Biological Laboratory and several land trusts, has kept a steady spotlight trained on the issue for a year and is very much alive.
In fact, Frenchman Bay United is prepared to challenge industrial-scale fish farming in Maine coastal waters in light of the departments of Marine Resources and Environmental Protection’s decisions late last week to terminate the Norwegian-backed company’s project that would have involved discharging 4.1 billion gallons of diluted wastewater into the 14-mile bay.
For over a year Frenchman Bay United, a coast-wide coalition of four groups, has led an aggressive public campaign to oppose American Aquafarms’ proposed operation to farm salmon at 15-pen sites off Bald Rock Ledge and Long Porcupine Island. Its members offered scientific data suggesting the farm’s discharged wastewater would largely remain rather than exit Frenchman Bay and potentially harm fragile marine plants, ecosystems and the lobster, shrimp and scallop fisheries. They staged a 125-boat flotilla of lobster-fishing boats, kayakers and sailors last August in Frenchman Bay as a form of protest and other events to draw attention to the controversial project first proposed in mid-fall of 2020.