Saving Seafood

MAINE: Army Corps review of salmon farm requested

May 19, 2021 — Frenchman Bay Conservancy has formally requested that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers conduct an environmental review and issue a statement under the U.S. Environmental Policy Act before any final decisions are made on American Aquafarms’ plan to raise 66 million pounds of Atlantic salmon annually at two sites in Frenchman Bay.

Frenchman Bay Conservancy has preserves totaling 8,000 acres in a dozen Maine towns and townships, including seven Hancock County communities.

The Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR) is currently reviewing for completeness American Aquafarms’ March 3 lease applications to grow salmon at two 15-pen sites northwest of Long Porcupine Island and northeast of Bald Rock Ledge in Frenchman Bay. The Norwegian-backed company is expected to file by month’s end its wastewater discharge permit application to discharge a total of 4 billion gallons daily with the Maine Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). The company is proposing to release 2 billion gallons daily (23,775 gallons per second) at each of the 15-pen sites.

Sent to the U.S. Army Corps’ Senior Project Manager and Team Leader Jay Clement in Augusta, Frenchman Bay Conservancy’s May 17 letter also was signed by Hancock’s Crabtree Neck Land Trust, the Downeast Salmon Federation, the Maine Center for Coastal Fisheries in Stonington, Friends of Acadia, Friends of Frenchman Bay, Friends of Eastern Bay, Friends of Schoodic Peninsula as well as Springtide Seaweed LLC, Frenchman Bay Oyster Co. owner Graham Platner, Maine Coast Sea Vegetables proprietors Shep and Seraphina Erhart, Hancock fishermen Zach and Tyler Piper, MDI Biological Laboratory senior scientist Jane Disney and College of the Atlantic biologist Chris Peterson.

Read the full story at the Ellsworth American

Exploring Atlantic Salmon’s Battle for Survival: A Story Map

May 14, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Wild Atlantic salmon stocks in the United States have declined significantly since the late 19th century. Historically, dams, overfishing, and pollution led to large declines in salmon abundance.

The Kennebec River, Androscoggin River, and Sheepscot Rivers of the Merrymeeting Bay region have a long history of human development. This story map tells the history of this area’s many dams and our restoration efforts to recover the populations of endangered Atlantic salmon.

salmon

Read the full release here

MAINE: Frenchman Bay salmon farm application filed

March 11, 2021 — American Aquafarms reported Wednesday that it had filed two draft lease applications for a closed-pen, Atlantic salmon farm in Frenchman Bay. The proposed two ocean sites, north of Bald Rock and The Hop islands, are in conjunction with the Portland-based company’s plan to buy East Coast Seafood Group’s seafood-processing facilities in Gouldsboro’s Prospect Harbor village. A fish hatchery would be built there as part of the project.

American Aquafarms’ March 3 submission of draft applications are part of the Maine Department of Marine Resources’ multi-step process for considering new aquaculture ventures. DMR has 30 days to determine if the applications meet its standards to proceed to a scoping session. If deemed complete, state authorities next would study the applications, conduct a site visit and hold a public hearing before issuing a final decision.

American Aquafarms CEO Mikael Roenes said the company’s project would result in hundreds of new jobs in the Downeast region. The 100-000-square-foot Maine Fair Trade facility and its wharf would become the base from which the fish farm’s barges and other craft would embark from to tend the Frenchman Bay ocean pens. The harvested fish would be processed on site. The existing warehouse would be converted into a hatchery for producing juvenile salmon and possibly cod to replenish harvested fish.

“Maine is the ideal location for this project,” Roenes said in a March 10 press release. “By leveraging the state’s deep water assets with next-generation, eco-friendly technology to sustainably produce food close to its market, we have the opportunity to set a new standard in the United States. Additionally, we are confident that Maine has the workforce we need to fill the year-round, good-paying jobs we’re creating.”

Read the full story at The Ellsworth American

$1 Million Available for Atlantic Salmon Habitat Restoration Projects

March 8, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

NOAA is announcing the availability of up to $1 million in funding in 2021 for projects to restore habitat for Atlantic salmon in the Gulf of Maine region. The Gulf of Maine distinct population segment (DPS) of Atlantic salmon is listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act. It is also a Species in the Spotlight, one of nine species most at risk of extinction in the near future.

Atlantic salmon are an iconic species of the Northeast. They once returned by the hundreds of thousands to most major rivers along the northeastern United States. Now, they only return in small numbers to rivers in central and eastern Maine. These populations comprise the Gulf of Maine DPS.

Degraded habitat is one of the largest obstacles facing the recovery of threatened and endangered species like Atlantic salmon. Habitat restoration helps repair areas that have been destroyed by development, blocked by dams, or otherwise subjected to habitat destruction. Through funding and technical assistance, NOAA supports projects that restore the habitats that threatened and endangered species need to survive.

In addition to species recovery and rebuilding fish populations, habitat restoration projects yield community and economic benefits such as increased coastal resilience and recreational opportunities. Restoration projects also create an average of 15 jobs for every million dollars invested.

Proposals for this funding opportunity are due April 12, 2021. NOAA will accept proposals with a federal funding request between $300,000 and $1.5 million over a three-year award period. For more information, view the Fiscal Year 2021 Atlantic Salmon Habitat Restoration Partnership Grants funding opportunity.

Read the full release here

MAINE: Final Penobscot salmon estimate for last year drops by nearly 200 fish

January 7, 2021 — The Maine Department of Marine Resources has reduced its estimate of Atlantic salmon returns to the Penobscot River by nearly 200 fish, but the final estimate for 2020 — 1,440 salmon — is still the highest annual return since 2011. In November, state fisheries scientists announced an estimated 1,603 Atlantic salmon had returned to the Penobscot River.

Jason Valliere, a marine resource scientist for the DMR, said each of his regular reports filed since July have included a disclaimer explaining that the official year-end estimate of returning fish was subject to change. Those counts are adjusted after data becomes available, taking into account individual fish that are captured, returned to the river to free-swim to spawning grounds, then re-captured by fisheries staffers at the Milford Dam.

The 2020 total was up from 1,152 in 2019, and is the largest run of salmon since 3,125 salmon returned to the river in 2011. The average run for the eight years from 2012 to 2019 was just 708 salmon per year.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

New research signifies “an important step forward in aquaculture genomics”

November 20, 2020 — New research highlights the possibilities that genetic variation in Atlantic salmon offers for advancing aquaculture production.

Spearheaded by Alicia Bertolotti, the new research involved sequencing the genomes of 492 Atlantic salmon in a project led by professor Dan Macqueen at the Roslin Institute (University of Edinburgh) in partnership with Xelect, the University of Aberdeen, and many international collaborators – including the Norwegian University of Life Sciences.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

AquaBounty announces Kentucky as next planned GE salmon farm site

October 30, 2020 — AquaBounty Technologies announced that Mayfield, Kentucky, U.S.A., has been selected as its favored site for a future 10,000 metric ton (MT) land-based salmon farm.

The new farm would be the first large-scale commercial facility for the company’s AquAdvantage salmon – a proprietary genetically engineered Atlantic salmon. The new location would be eight times the size of the company’s existing farm in Albany, Indiana, which currently has a production capacity of 1,200 MT.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

WASHINGTON: Local salmon project gets boost from Cooke Aquaculture fine

August 7, 2020 — A plan to offer recreation opportunities and improve salmon habitat where a bend in the Skagit River hugs Marblemount is getting a boost in funding.

The $265,600 being given to the nonprofit Skagit Fisheries Enhancement Group comes from a penalty levied against Cooke Aquaculture for a 2017 incident in which a company net pen broke, allowing Atlantic salmon to get into the Salish Sea.

The money will allow for completion of Pressentin Park, which has been in the works for several years in coordination with Skagit County Parks and Recreation.

“This is a really high-priority project we have been working on for a long time to support native juvenile chinook,” Skagit Fisheries Executive Director Alison Studley said.

Read the full story at Go Skaggit

MAINE: This Atlantic salmon has returned to the Penobscot more than once. Here’s why it’s special.

June 4, 2020 — Atlantic salmon are returning to the Penobscot River at a steady pace thus far. Fisheries staffers from the Maine Department of Marine Resources said the 176 salmon that have been counted thus far are the fifth most to have reached the counting facility by May 29 in the 42 years that salmon have been counted on the river.

Among those fish was a rarity: A male that was making a return trip to the river to spawn.

Jason Valliere, a fisheries resource scientist for the DMR’s Division of Sea Run Fisheries and Habitat, said not many salmon are able to head to the open ocean twice and return to the Penobscot successfully, and called the fish “extra special.”

“We previously captured this fish on June 10, 2018, when we tagged him and sent him to Craig Brook National Fish Hatchery [in Orland] as a brood fish to support the smolt stocking program, a program that he is a member of. He was stocked out as a smolt in 2016,” Valliere said.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

Conservation group removing barrier to salmon on Maine river

January 6, 2020 — A salmon conservation group plans to remove an old hydropower station straddling the Dennys River in Maine so more alewives and Atlantic salmon can make their way upstream into Meddybemps Lake.

The abandoned hydroelectric station, built in the 1940s, sits over an artificially narrowed bottleneck in the river in Washington County.

Work on removing the structure, which does not impound any water, is expected to begin Monday, the Bangor Daily News reported.

The project is expected to allow hundreds of thousands of alewives to repopulate the lake and to support a commercial alewife fishery in the river, as well as to help sustain the river’s ecosystem, according to the Downeast Salmon Federation.

Read the full story at the Associated Press