Since 1970, when Maine granted the first marine lease for aquaculture, a minority of shore land owners have challenged fish farming primarily on environmental grounds.

Opponents have focused on the environment because state laws and regulations don’t allow lease applications to be denied simply because someone’s ocean view is disturbed. And it is the ocean view that is the landowners’ primary concern.

Aquaculture opponents allege that fish farming results in the destruction of animal and plant organisms, upsets the balance of nature, and ultimately endangers human health. In her Aug. 8 letter, Jane McCloskey of Deer Isle sings the opponents’ refrain. Like her microbe-hunting predecessors, Ms. McCloskey attempts to enlist the lobster industry to her cause, by suggesting that disease management on salmon farms will kill lobsters.

This is a wise strategy, given that over 6,000 Mainers hold lobster licenses and are scattered along Maine’s lengthy coastline. Lobstermen have clout in Augusta.

The problem is that the allegations cited by Jane McCloskey continue to be unsubstantiated here in Maine. FDA-approved sea lice treatments have not killed Maine lobsters, Maine salmon aquaculture has not resulted in human strep infections, and farmed Maine salmon aren’t infecting their distant cousins in the wild. The evidence just isn’t there.

What is there are 1,200 new jobs resulting from the careful cultivation of 1200 acres of Maine’s ocean.

Admittedly, these jobs are not risk-free. No natural resource based jobs are. However, the income produced by aquaculture keeps families and communities viable. In the absence of proof that it is doing harm, shouldn’t we be encouraging the aquaculture industry’s expansion?

Michael M. Hastings

The Maine Aquaculture Innovation Center

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