Fishermen decry Perry-area salmon proposal

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PERRY – As a state hearing on a proposal to create two 16.5-acre salmon farms in Passamaquoddy Bay heads into a third day, the message has been clear:

Area commercial fishermen have lost enough of their traditional fishing grounds to Maine salmon farms and oppose additional pen sites.

More than 15 hours of questions and testimony from opponents of the project have occurred since the state Department of Marine Resources hearing began Monday.

It continued Tuesday and will resume Thursday.

On Monday, Leo Murray, the chairman of the Cobscook Bay Fishermen’s Association, said DMR had issued 759 commercial fishing licenses to fishermen in Cobscook and Passamaquoddy Bays, more than in any other area of the state.

Fishermen have a cooperative relationship with existing fish farmers, but don’t want to give up any more ground, Murray said.

“We’re dead set against any more salmon pens,” Murray told DMR staffers. “I just feel we’ve been pushed as far as we can be pushed.”

Murray’s testimony came five hours into the hearing Monday and was greeted by applause from the 80 people who filled the Perry Municipal Building.

All who spoke opposed the lease application by NorWestFish Inc., and many voiced environmental concerns about the salmon aquaculture industry in Maine and neighboring New Brunswick.

Of chief concern to local opponents was the density of farm sites in Cobscook and Passamaquoddy bays. The area is home to 22 of Maine’s 27 active salmon farms and the 17 sites in Cobscook Bay were emptied of all farmed salmon in January to prevent the spread of infectious salmon anemia, or ISA.

Bay fish farmers are awaiting DMR permits to begin restocking half of the Cobscook Bay farm sites this spring under increased oversight by both DMR and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.

Canadian fish farms on the New Brunswick side of Passamaquoddy Bay also are experiencing problems, according to two speakers.

Inka Milewski of the Conservation Council of New Brunswick said half to two-thirds of farm sites in New Brunswick have problems with fish feces accumulating under cage sites, and she said her organization is concerned about harmful algal blooms in Passamaquoddy Bay.

Janice Harvey of Alexander said the Canadian government isn’t permitting any new sites on Passamaquoddy Bay because of problems with nutrient overloading – the buildup of feed and feces under cages.

Opponents, including a number of organizations and individuals represented by lawyers, were well-organized, despite what appeared to be short notice of the application.

DMR hearing officer Laurice Churchill said the department sent a notice of the NorWestFish Inc. application to Perry officials last October.

But local landowners and area fishermen said they didn’t learn of the company’s lease application until mid-March, just days before the announcement of the public hearing was published in a local newspaper.

Fishermen and landowners on Loring Cove and Lewis Cove – the proposed sites of the NorWestFish farms – sought advice on how to fight the application from Hancock County groups that have opposed lease applications in Blue Hill and Penobscot Bay and from the Conservation Law Foundation.

Jorn Vad, a Pittsfield aquaculture consultant who located the sites and developed the application for NorWestFish, explained the proposal, saying the pens would cover one-third of each of the two sites.

Vad, who served as the production manager for Atlantic Salmon Maine from 1989 to 1998, said he chose Passamaquoddy Bay because of its deep water, good current and infrastructure, including access to wharves, fish processing plants in Eastport and Lubec and feed plants in New Brunswick.

Each site would be used to raise a single year class of salmon, and the site would lay fallow from two to four months after the fish are harvested. Each site would employ four to six full-time people who would, within three years, be paid about $30,000 a year plus benefits, he said.

All fish cages would be equipped with underwater cameras so site managers could turn off feed machines if they saw pellets flying around the cages – an indication that the fish had finished eating.

A cone-shaped collection system designed for Norwegian fish farms would be installed at the bottom of the net pens and would pump dead fish, excess feed and fish feces to the water surface, where they would be collected and disposed of, Vad said.

Jon Lewis, the DMR scientist who inspected the proposed sites with his assistant, Marcy Lucas, showed video of the ocean floor beneath the proposed site. Lewis said he saw no evidence of lobster and that the few scallops he saw were large.

Properly maintained farm sites can provide a refuge for scallops and herring, Lewis said. There are several active herring weirs in the vicinity of the two lease sites, but opinions on how salmon farms affect herring is divided, he said. Salmon farms can either pull herring away from weirs or attract the fish to the weir, Lewis said.

Lewis expressed reservations about the effectiveness of the collection system that Vad described for dead fish, excess feed and feces. He said the technology is, as yet, unproven and works best in shallower waters where currents aren’t as strong as those that make the best salmon farm sites.

Members of the Hancock County groups Friends of Blue Hill Bay and East Penobscot Bay Environmental Alliance were on hand for the hearing.

Roger Fleming, staff attorney for the Conservation Law Foundation, represented the newly formed Concerned Citizens of Passamaquoddy Bay and the Schoodic chapter of Maine Audubon Society – two organizations that were granted intervenor status in the DMR proceedings. Intervenors are parties with a direct interest in the application.

Other intervenors include: the town of Perry; the Passamaquoddy Tribe at Pleasant Point; state Sen. Kevin Shorey, R-Calais; Passamaquoddy Bay Lobstermen’s Association & Downeast Fixed Gear Association; the Cobscook Bay Fishermen’s Association; and Audrey and Dolly Patterson. Douglas B. Chapman, an attorney from Bar Harbor, represented the Pattersons, and John P. Foster, a Calais attorney, represented the lobstermen, herring fishermen and commercial fishermen.

DMR’s Churchill said the department will make a decision on the NorWestFish application within 120 days.