How Maine should regulate the growing number of salmon farms that dot the state’s coastline will come under increased debate and scrutiny in the next few weeks.

On Tuesday, more than 200 petitioners from Hancock and Waldo counties will present the Maine Department of Marine Resources with a proposed rule that would increase environmental monitoring of fish farms and require the department to consider whether a proposed aquaculture lease will detract from the scenic character of the Maine coast.

On Feb. 7, the Legislature’s Joint Standing Committee on Marine Resources will conduct a public hearing on a bill to revise the state’s aquaculture lease laws.

Rep. David Lemoine, the Old Orchard Beach Democrat who is the House chair of the Marine Resources Committee, said members are seeking public comment on a wide range of aquaculture issues, including whether the industry pays a living wage and a proposal to place a moratorium on new aquaculture leases from Penobscot Bay west.

“There is going to be a lot of attention paid to aquaculture over the next two months,” Lemoine said Sunday.

Lemoine said he is particularly interested in hearing from the public on the issue of DMR’s relationship with local municipalities when it comes to issuing an aquaculture lease.

As it stands, DMR’s authority supercedes that of local communities and the department has submitted draft legislation that would emphasize that authority. But committee members disagreed with it, according to Lemoine.

“We clearly give local communities a great deal of siting authority for what happens on the shoreline,” he said. “It doesn’t make sense for municipal control to end as soon as your feet get wet.”

The issue of where a municipality’s authority ends and DMR’s begins is also of concern to the East Penobscot Bay Environmental Alliance and the Conservation Law Foundation – the organizations that drafted the proposed rule that will be presented to DMR Tuesday and the proposed moratorium.

Jane McCloskey, a member of the alliance from Deer Isle, said Sunday that 195 people signed the petition in Deer Isle, Stonington, Brooksville, Bar Harbor, and Rockland. As of Sunday morning, the Ellsworth and Blue Hill petitions weren’t in, but were expected to contain another 30 to 50 names, she said.

“It was very easy to gather these signatures and the people who signed were not all environmentalists and shorefront property owners, which is how DMR has characterized its opposition,” McCloskey said. “We have lobstermen, crab pickers, carpenters, artists, cleaning ladies, restaurant owners, florists, beekeepers, housewives, retirees, caretakers and teachers.”

Concern about salmon aquaculture has been growing in Hancock County for several years as the industry – which began in Washington County – moves further down the coast in search of new lease sites.

Proposed leases in Blue Hill Bay and most recently in Penobscot Bay – near Scott and Pickering Islands off Little Deer Isle – have been extremely controversial. The alliance sponsored a meeting on the Little Deer Isle proposals in August and drew several hundred people.

During that meeting, the applicant – Jorn Vad of Pittsfield, a former production manager for Atlantic Salmon of Maine – said pollution is no longer a problem with fish pens.

In November, however, DMR Commissioner George LaPointe issued notices of violations to three fish farming companies – Atlantic Salmon of Maine, Trumpet Island Salmon Farm and Maine Coast Nordic. The notices and requests for remedial plans were based on fall inspections of their sites.

Atlantic Salmon of Maine was cited for bacterial mats and excessive feed and anoxic conditions under its pens at Cross Island in Machias Bay and Toothacher Cove off Swan’s Island. The company’s Black Island farm site off Frenchboro was cited for bacterial mats and excessive feed.

Trumpet Island’s site off Hardwood Island in Blue Hill Bay was cited for bacterial mats and anoxic conditions.

LaPointe’s letter to Bill Groom and Barry Calder, the leaseholders for Maine Coast Nordic, cited bacterial mats, excessive feed and anoxic conditions under the company’s pens at Spectacle Island and Sand Cove off Beals Island.

DMR will approve or disapprove of the remedial plans submitted by the companies by Feb. 1.

Despite the recent enforcement action, the department’s regulations regarding contamination under fish pens are not strong enough, according to Robert Gerber, a Portland hydrogeologist who owns an island in Penobscot Bay.

Gerber helped draft the proposed rule that the East Penobscot Bay Environmental Alliance and CLF will present to DMR on Tuesday.

Gerber said last week that DMR doesn’t consider beggiatoa bacterial mats a problem unless they cover 50 percent of the site beneath the cages. He said beggiatoa occurs when fish excrement beneath the pens builds up to the point that normal bacteria can’t “eat it” and interferes with normal sea life under the pens. The proposed rule limits beggiatoa mats to 10 percent of a site.

Other provisions of the proposed rule would require DMR to consider the impact that escaping farmed salmon would have on wild Atlantic salmon and whether the lease would interfere with privately conserved land that preserves the scenic character of Maine’s coast and coastal islands.

Roger Fleming, the staff attorney for the Conservation Law Foundation in Rockland, said privately conserved land provides the same benefits to the public as publicly conserved land because landowners are preserving the cultural heritage of Maine’s coastline.

CLF and the alliance are asking DMR to adopt their proposed rule as an interim measure until a task force can identify areas of the coast where aquaculture can take place and those where it should be prohibited, Fleming said.

The task force would include DMR, representatives of the industry and conservationists and the goal would be to put in place regional baywide plans that would address the conflicts between aquaculture, traditional fisheries and conservation interests, he said.

Such planning would benefit fish farmers because they would know where they could site their operations without the public opposition that has marked recent lease applications, Fleming said.

Gerber said procedural rules in Maine permit citizens to initiate rulemaking through a petition signed by at least 150 registered voters. A state agency – in this case DMR – isn’t required to adopt the rule, but does have to advertise it and put it out to public hearing, he said.

The proposed rulemaking and stricter siting controls come at a critical time for Maine’s salmon aquaculture industry.

Earlier this month, DMR and the U.S. Department of Agriculture ordered Cobscook Bay salmon farmers to slaughter the remaining 1.5 million fish in the bay in an effort to prevent the spread of infectious salmon anemia.

Salmon anemia is a deadly virus that kills salmon, but doesn’t harm humans. It was first detected in Cobscook Bay last February and led to the early harvest or slaughter of almost one million fish in the months before the DMR and USDA eradication order.

Cobscook Bay is home to 446 of Maine’s 749 acres of salmon farms. Half of the bay will be restocked this spring and the other half in the spring of 2003, but total production will be reduced by 25 percent.

That means that fish farmers will be looking for other sites.

Lemoine said his committee wants to hear from the public on all the issues involved in both finfish and shellfish aquaculture.

“If we’re leasing out state land, we want to do it in a way that benefits the citizens of our state,” he said.

The hearing will be at 1 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 7, in Room 437 of the State House in Augusta.