Reaction mixed to EPA rule> Recovery proposal may be months away

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MACHIAS – The decision has been made and the long wait to see what it will mean has begun.

And it will be months or even years before anyone knows the full effect of Monday’s announcement by two federal fish agencies that they are listing the Atlantic salmon in eight Maine rivers as an endangered species.

Paul Nickerson, chief of endangered species for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Northeast region, said it will be early next year before his agency and the National Marine Fisheries Service even meet with state agencies to begin developing the federal plan to help wild Atlantic salmon recover.

The starting point will be the Maine Atlantic salmon conservation plan, Nickerson said. The state developed it in 1995 as a tactic to prevent the federal government from listing the fish as endangered.

And Nickerson said that state effort has some very effective components.

The two federal fish agencies have 30 months to develop a recovery plan, and unlike the decision to protect the fish, the recovery plan must take economic concerns into consideration, according to federal law.

In Washington County, which is home to five of the rivers where salmon are now listed as endangered, reaction to the announcement was mixed Tuesday.

“My major concern is the unknown,” said Gary Willey, chief financial officer for Jasper Wyman & Son, a large blueberry company based in Milbridge. “Hopefully, the listing will have a minimal effect, but it makes it pretty hard to plan ahead.”

Willey, the outgoing president of the Wild Blueberry Commission of Maine, said irrigation is the industry’s biggest concern.

Washington County produces 60 percent of Maine’s wild blueberries, and growers just don’t know what standards will be put in place for water withdrawal from the county’s salmon rivers, Willey said.

Members of the industry have been working with state and federal officials to develop a water use management plan to balance the needs of salmon and irrigators, but a final agreement has been delayed for almost a year.

Nickerson said Gordon Russell of the Fish and Wildlife Service’s Bangor office is involved in those discussions and has told Nickerson there’s been substantial progress.

“We’re going to get there,” Nickerson said. “Not everyone is going to be happy with everything, but the dialogue is continuing with everyone that will be affected.”

For Dwayne Shaw, watershed coordinator for the five Down East salmon rivers, Gov. Angus King’s response to the listing is the biggest concern.

Shaw works with the groups of local volunteers who have been monitoring water quality on the salmon rivers, helping landowners with erosion control efforts and educating people on how to protect salmon habitat.

The watershed councils are part of the 1995 state plan, and everyone involved wants the work to continue. But Shaw noted the governor is on record as saying that all state cooperation will cease if the federal government lists the salmon.

“I think there’s concern because of the governor’s statements,” Shaw said. “We want to make sure that these good faith efforts on the part of landowners are being supported.”

Shaw said watershed councils are operating on seven of the rivers where the salmon are listed as endangered: the Dennys, East Machias, Machias, Narraguagus and Pleasant rivers in Washington County; the Ducktrap in Waldo County; and the Sheepscot in Lincoln County.

And a watershed council is just forming on the eighth water body – Cove Brook, a tributary of the Penobscot River in Winterport, he said.

Almost 90 percent of Maine’s salmon aquaculture industry is located in Washington County, and the fact that economic considerations will play a role in the recovery plan is important, according to Joe McGonigle, executive director of the Maine Aquaculture Association.

McGonigle said some of the demands the fish service agencies are making could drive Washington County aquaculture companies out of business.

The federal fish agencies want the industry to stop using European-strain salmon and to mark all of their fish so that farmed salmon that escape from their pens can be traced to the company that raised them, he said.

The industry needs European-strain salmon, which are bred to grow to market size more quickly. And marking systems that are guaranteed not to harm the fish are prohibitively expensive, he said.

“We already have higher production costs than the rest of the world and additional costs could put us over the edge,” McGonigle said.

The industry has been at loggerheads with the federal agencies on the use of European-strain salmon for years. But at least the two parties are talking again – something they weren’t doing six months ago, McGonigle said.

“We’re not pulling out of Maine tomorrow and we’re still committed to a viable industry, but it will depend on how much time we have to adjust,” he said.

Nickerson said the two federal fish agencies want the aquaculture industry to stop using European-strain salmon because aquaculture escapees could carry diseases or genetically interfere with the few remaining wild fish.

The federal fish agencies will ask the Army Corps of Engineers to make those conditions for the permits they issue for aquaculture cage sites, he said.

Nickerson said Canada prohibits use of European-strain salmon in its aquaculture industry, and one company that is operating in Maine just announced that it was stopping use of European-strain salmon.

“I don’t see how they can do it and remain competitive, but other Maine companies can’t,” Nickerson said. “We don’t want to drive anyone out of business and we don’t blame the aquaculture industry for the decline in wild salmon, but we do want to protect the wild fish that are left.”

The listing of the Maine salmon means that the federal fish agencies will scrutinize any projects near the salmon rivers that require federal permits.

That is already taking place, according to Josh Kratka, an attorney for the National Environmental Law Center. The center is representing the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, which has sued Maine’s three largest salmon aquaculture companies, alleging they are in violation of the federal Clean Water Act.

The group has also accused the federal Environmental Protection Agency of failing to enforce the federal law, which requires that aquaculture operations obtain federal pollution discharge licenses. No Maine company has such a permit, according to the suit.

Kratka said EPA – he believes in response to the lawsuit – has issued its first draft permit for a proposed fish farm in Blue Hill Bay. The draft permit reflects the fish agencie’s concerns about aquaculture escapees, he said.

Nate Pennell, director of the Washington County Soil and Water Conservation District, said his agency works with towns and Washington County businesses to secure state and federal permits. The district has just applied for federal money to help irrigators develop alternative water sources so they won’t have to rely on the salmon rivers, he said.

Pennell said there has been a lot of “rhetoric” about how an endangered species listing will devastate Washington County. Those statements have been political and have scared people, he said.

“The listing does not mean the end of the Down East economy or the aquaculture industry,” Pennell said. “Yes, there will be some expense incurred. But we need to look at all of these things and do what we need to do to protect the salmon.”