BLUE HILL – As state officials consider proposals to limit fish farming in Penobscot Bay and other areas along Maine’s coast, the Department of Marine Resources is set for a public review next month of applications for two 36-acre aquaculture leases for sites off the east side of Long Island in Blue Hill Bay.

Acadia Aquaculture has filed applications for the two sites, which would be used to raise approximately a half-million market-size Atlantic salmon each. Each proposed site covers just under 40 acres. Hearings on the two applications will be held at 10 a.m. and 3 p.m., respectively, Wednesday, March 13, at Blue Hill Town Hall.

If the applications were approved, the sites would be among the largest salmon farms in the state – and the largest in Blue Hill Bay.

Acadia Aquaculture, owned by Erick Swanson, already operates a 35-acre salmon farm off Long Island between the locations of the two proposed sites. Swanson, operating as Trumpet Island Salmon Farm, also has another 25-acre salmon farm off Hardwood Island in Blue Hill Bay.

The state has issued 44 aquaculture leases for finfish operations covering almost 750 acres. In addition, DMR has issued 39 leases for shellfish operations over 392.35 acres. Action on other leases is pending.

Swanson proposes to use the two new sites and the Hardwood Island site as a single operation, according to information provided to DMR in his new applications. With three sites available, he plans to stock them with smolt (young salmon) on a rotating basis and allow one site to lie fallow regularly after market fish have been harvested.

Granting the 10-year leases would give Acadia Aquaculture an exclusive right to use the lease area to raise Atlantic salmon.

In his applications, Swanson estimates that, using a 10-cage system, he would have 100,000 smolt per cage during the first year, which would result in an estimated 40,000 marketable fish per pen. When the two sites were up to full production, the operation would increase to a 14-cage system.

One of the proposed sites is a little more than a football field length to the north of Acadia Aquaculture’s site east of Dunham’s Cove and almost two miles north of the Hardwood Island site. The other proposed lease site is about 2,760 feet south of the Dunham’s Cove site and a little more than a mile north of the Hardwood Island site.

The department already is considering issuing shellfish leases near the Dunham’s Cove site.

The company plans to use Bartletts Landing in Pretty Marsh and the Seal Cove landing in Tremont for access to the site, according to the application. Swanson anticipates that crews would make one or two trips per day to the site.

Feeding would be done by automated feeders during both the smolt and market stages of the operation. The feeders will be located on a 20-by-40-foot barge and a 140-ton barge. The fish will be fed two or three times per day during the growing season. There would be one or no feedings daily during the winter months.

Nets would be changed four times between spring and fall, and would be washed with a high-pressure washer on site two or three times during the summer.

Aquaculture projects, particularly finfish operations, have drawn opposition from local people and groups concerned about the environmental and aesthetic effects of such operations. The Friends of Blue Hill Bay has locked horns with Swanson in the past, and recently filed suit against his Trumpet Island Salmon Farm, charging that it has violated the Clean Water Act because it never obtained a federal permit for the operation.

Trumpet Island has denied the charges included in the suit.

Friends of Blue Hill Bay already has begun an ad campaign concerning the latest lease applications.

Meanwhile, the Legislature’s Marine Resources Committee is scheduled to meet today for a work session on draft legislation, including a two-year moratorium on finfish leases for the area west of Bass Harbor Light and a measure the would give communities veto power over aquaculture leases off their shores.