EASTPORT – Petitioners who want to make significant changes to Maine’s aquaculture lease laws met with a wave of opposition Monday during the first of three public hearings conducted by the Maine Department of Marine Resources.

State law requires DMR to conduct public hearings on the petition spearheaded by the East Penobscot Environmental Alliance and the Conservation Law Foundation and signed by more than 300 people.

The waters off Eastport and Lubec are home to the majority of Maine’s 26 salmon farms, and Monday night’s hearing in Eastport hearing drew approximately 35 people – including fish farmers and representatives of the $110 million industry.

With the exception of three people, all who spoke objected to the petitioners’ proposals for stricter siting requirements and increased environmental monitoring of fish farms.

“Do you think fin fish aquaculture could survive if these regulations are adopted?” resident Dana Urquhart of Machiasport asked as Sal McCloskey, alliance president, explained the proposed changes.

“Absolutely,” replied Roger Fleming, CLF staff attorney. “It would make applications go much more smoothly.”

Fleming said CLF and others had just spent the better part of a week at a DMR public hearing in Perry on two aquaculture lease applications in Passamaquoddy Bay. If adequate siting information had been required of the applicant, that hearing would not have stretched to three days, he said.

The petitioners are asking that applicants for fin fish leases be required to supply more information on a proposed site, including longer and more in-depth studies on the characteristics of the ocean bottom, marine and plant life beneath the proposed pen site, and environmental conditions, including wind speed, tidal actions and water quality.

The petitioners also want the application to include a description of all commercial and recreational fishing in the lease area and all existing or potential uses of the area for recreation, habitat for wildlife or marine species and the conservation value to publicly or privately protected riparian lands.

That is “a ridiculous amount of information” to require of an applicant, according to Robert Costa of Perry.

“They’ll be set up as a target for someone to throw darts at,” Costa said. “Making this process so difficult has brought in foreign firms. Why don’t we just take our national treasury and ship it to Canada or Norway?”

The large Canadian and Norwegian companies that dominate Maine salmon aquaculture are part of the reason the petitioners are seeking stricter regulations, according to one of McCloskey’s opening comments on the petition.

DMR’s existing regulations were developed at a time when aquaculture was “small-scale and mostly shellfish,” she said.

“The face of aquaculture has changed,” McCloskey said. “It has become agribusiness.”

Jeff Kaelin, governmental affairs coordinator for Connors Bros. Aquaculture, testified that his company supports that part of the petitioners’ request that has to do with expanded public notice of lease applications, but said he personally views other parts of the proposed changes as “an effort to zone the coast.”

“I think the real issue here is recreational,” Kaelin said. “We went through all of this in the Legislature.”

Earlier this year, the Joint Standing Committee on Marine Resources considered proposed changes to Maine’s aquaculture lease law, including those requested by the petitioners and others proposed by DMR. The members failed to reach unanimous agreement and the bill never left committee.

Not everyone who spoke opposed the proposed changes.

Steve Crawford, president of the Schoodic Chapter of Maine Audubon, said his organization supported the proposed changes. Crawford said he did not believe the additional information required of lease applicants would be burdensome.

Lt. Gov. Edward Bassett of the Passamaquoddy Tribe at Pleasant Point said the tribe supports the proposals. Bassett said he believes current regulations do not address the cumulative impact of waste that goes into the water from pen sites.

Bassett gave Andrew Fisk, the DMR aquaculture coordinator who conducted the hearing, pictures he said he had taken of the refuse, including broken fish pens that washed up on the shore from all sites in the area except those off Estes Head.

Brian Theriault of Perry testified that he didn’t agree with opponents’ arguments that shoreline property landowners shouldn’t have anything to say about what they could see in the waters off their homes.

Salmon pens are permanent structures that are staffed eight to 24 hours a day – making them very different from lobster traps and herring weirs, which are tended by fishermen who – like grandchildren – then go away, he said.

The third and final hearing on the petitioner’s request takes place at 6 p.m. today at the Yarmouth High School cafeteria. The second hearing was Tuesday night in Ellsworth.

Fisk said the hearing record will remain open for public comment until May 20. After the record closes, DMR will consider what, if any, of the proposed changes will be implemented and what recommendations the department will make to the Legislature.