Maine fish farming revisited

In a commentary appearing in the Aug. 20 Bangor Daily News, Sebastian Belle chided me for various things I said in an earlier BDN letter. He said I was trying to pit lobstermen against the aquaculture industry. Actually I was trying to integrate what I have learned from various lobstermen and other sources.

Leroy Bridges, president of the Downeast Lobstermen’s Association, said, “Aquaculture takes away bottom from the lobstermen and uses pesticides that kill lobsters.”

Marsden Brewer, lobsterman and coordinator of the Wild Scallop Stock Enhancement Project, said that aquaculture privatizes the public bay for the benefit of the multinational corporations.

A Cobscook Bay fisherman said that the fish farmers always apply for sites that are also the best scalloping areas. Even though the amount of space they occupy might not seem like much, it is the best bottom in the bay.

Ted Ames, of the Stonington Fisheries Alliance, said, “The state encourages the salmon pens because they think that they bring jobs. Actually … I think that the jobs they gain in aquaculture, they lose in the wild fisheries.” The above were all personal conversations.

Laurence Cook, chair of the Federal Lobster Fishing Area 38 Advisory Board in New Brunswick, said, “We’ve found that the pens cause displacement of the bottom. When the pens were put in, the lobsters vacated. When the pens were removed, the lobsters came back.” (Working Waterfront/Interisland News, June 2001)

The David Suzuki Foundation Report “Net Loss” said that the First Nation Indians in British Columbia have had to close hundreds of acres of clam flats because of salmon pen pollution.

Recent reports from Scotland include a fish pen die-off of more than 500,000 fish from an algae bloom and closings of shellfish fisheries because of shellfish poisoning caused by algae blooms. The algae blooms most often appear in the vicinity of fish pens. There are no reports of how many wild fish have died.

Belle claims the link between salmon farms and the algae blooms that cause fish kills and shellfish poisoning is not proven. The link between insecticide spraying for West Nile virus and the lobster die off in Long Island Sound has not been proven either. Yet on the precautionary principle, we would be wise not to spray a lot of insecticide on the coast of Maine. Similarly, we need to question the wisdom of expanding a salmon industry that elsewhere in the world is threatening wild fisheries.

Also, Belle claimed that I failed to disclose that I own property overlooking the proposed salmon pens off Little Deer Isle. My sister owns property overlooking the pens. I do not.

My last letter’s subject was the subsidies that Maine people give to fish aquaculture. To continue: Property owners near fish pens subsidize the pens, because they have to put up with what a lobsterman from Cobscook Bay called “an eyesore.” They also have to put up with lights and generators at night and with loss of property value. Sometimes they have to put up with slime and farm debris on the beaches. The towns lose money, because the property taxes go down.

Now the fish farm industry is applying to be classified as agriculture by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, so it can qualify for farm subsidies. The fish farm industry will surely apply for these subsidies. This year, all the penned salmon in Cobscook Bay were slaughtered before time because of salmon anemia. As soon as one fish is diagnosed, all the fish in the farm are slaughtered, because they will all soon die anyway. The salmon will almost certainly continue to be slaughtered early for the foreseeable future. If the fish pens come under the USDA, U.S. taxpayers will subsidize their losses. Taxpayers will provide the multinational fish pen companies with corporate welfare and covert foreign aid.

The workers in the Lubec salmon processing plant have been laid off until September 2002 (BDN, July 30). They will probably also be laid off repeatedly in future years. I don’t know whether the fish pen workers in Cobscook Bay have been laid off, but since there are no fish to tend, it seems probable. Is this boom-bust disease-prone industry one we should encourage to grow bigger?

Jane McCloskey lives in Deer Isle.