Aquaculture Lease Renewals in Downeast Maine

We have a great deal of information for you today in case you want to submit comments regarding the renewal of the six Cooke Aquaculture lease sites in Downeast Maine. Here is the link to the chart below. https://www.maine.gov/dmr/aquaculture/maine-aquaculture-leases-and-lpas/pending-lease-applications

Once you open the link, you will have to scroll to the bottom to the renewals section. If you open the App (application) link it will show you details about the location.

Law Change

LD 1722 was approved in the legislature and signed by the Governor. Lease renewals are no longer adjudicatory, so there is no longer an option to request a public hearing.

However, there is still a 30-day written comment period, which is the opportunity to submit feedback on the renewal request as it relates to applicable criteria.

Anyone who wants to comment must submit written comments that address criteria for renewal only.

Criteria as listed on the DMR website:

Before the lease expires, the holder may submit a renewal application to DMR requesting that the term be extended for up to 20 years. Standard leases may be renewed if they meet the conditions established in 12 M.R.S.A. §6072(12) and Chapter 2.45:  

  • The lessee has complied with the lease agreement during the term of the lease;  

  • The commissioner determines that renewal of the lease is in the best interest of the State; 

  • The renewal will not cause the lessee to become a tenant of any kind in leases covering an aggregate of more than 1,000 acres; and 

  • The lease is not being held for speculative purposes.   

The State must notice riparian landowners within 1,000 feet of the lease site.

Address Comments to DMR Commissioner Carl Wilson and if you have concerns, explain why these leases should not be renewed using the criteria listed above.

Deadlines: The deadline for comments to be submitted is Sept. 28, 2025, at 4:00 pm.

Submit to: DMRaquaculture@maine.gov

DMR Commissioner Carl Wilson will be the final decision maker on whether the state renews the leases.

If you have questions, please feel free to reach out to Protectmaine@gmail.com

Good News in Lubec!

We are pleased to share some very big news! On August 6, 2025, Lubec residents enacted an ordinance that addresses industrial scale aquaculture in their waters. This is a significant victory for the people who love to fish, lobster, and recreate on the water.

The vote was 94-81. This brings the total number of towns that have enacted aquaculture ordinances or moratoriums to eight (Penobscot, Winter Harbor, Harpswell, Cutler, Waldoboro, Gouldsboro, Beals, Lubec) and we are working with towns all up and down the coast that want a say in their future. Each town has either used our ordinance in full, adapted it or chosen to develop their own completely. We applaud each town for doing what is best on their body of water.

While Lubec citizens made their voices heard, the governor chose this session to limit citizen input on aquaculture lease renewals. LD 1722 is a disastrous piece of legislation introduced by a member of the Marine Resources Committee who is also an aquaculturist.  

This could directly impact the lives of lobsterman and women and communities in Downeast Maine several hundred miles away from southern Maine and Augusta. It eliminates public hearings on lease renewals. A nod goes to DMR for testifying against the bill as did Protect Maine’s Fishing Heritage Foundation. 

We will have more on this later this month including an analysis of what it means and our efforts to combat it. This was an emergency bill signed into law by Governor Janet Mills. Mills has on several occasions publicly backed Cooke Aquaculture, a company that was chased out of Washington State and most recently is being sued by Conservation Law Foundation in Maine for allegations around environmental impacts on Maine waters at the farmed salmon pens. Cooke, headquartered in Canada now leases more than six hundred acres of the Maine water for farm raised salmon. Cooke has been sued by many entities including Wildfish.

Other communities around the world are choosing to eliminate farm raised salmon completely. If you want to see what can happen, this short piece of work from British Columbia is amazing. The work was provided free to us by Tavish Campbell and Deirdre Leoniwata & Moonfish Media. 

https://www.protectmaine.com/videos

On a lighter note, Protect Maine’s Sammy the Salmon was in Bangor and Union educating about the effects of industrial scale aquaculture. In Union, Sammy was invited up on the stage to highlight the effort. For a chuckle go to this link.

Protect Maine supports small owner operator aquaculture but not foreign ownership of leases in our Maine waters.  If you believe like we do that industrial scale aquaculture is bad for Maine, please consider supporting this work. 

We can only do this work with your support and if you can donate, please go to this link.

We are a small but nimble crew of people with the good fortune of having three lobstermen, including Protect Maine’s board President.

Lubec Residents Push Back on Industrial Scale Finfish Farming

While Lubec residents earlier this month narrowly adopted a local aquaculture ordinance in response to two salmon farm lease renewal requests, whether the ordinance will be legally binding and whether the town has the capacity to administer it are questions that have not yet been determined. Voters approved the ordinance 94 to 81 at the August 6 annual town meeting that drew a large crowd. The close vote may be partly reflective of changing demographics in the Quoddy area, which for decades has been fairly accepting of fish farming.

Ecological Consequences of Oysters Aquaculture

The source, an article from the Journal of Fisheries & Livestock Production, examines the ecological repercussions of oyster cultivation, an extensive global industry employing various techniques. It highlights how improper farm design or management can lead to environmental harm, despite the economic benefits of oyster farming. The paper reviews several negative impacts, including competition for phytoplankton, alterations in seabed topography due to biodeposition, the introduction of invasive species and diseases, adverse effects on the benthos, and habitat modification impacting seabirds. Ultimately, the article proposes solutions such as proper site selection, effective farm management, integrated culture methods, and robust pest and disease control to mitigate these environmental challenges and promote sustainable oyster farming practices.

Maine’s ocean potential is vast if science leads the conversation

Making a living on Maine’s ocean is indeed a tough job. Just ask anyone in the traditional fisheries — lobstermen and women, clammers, and marine harvesters of all sorts. It’s dirty, physical work. 

The ocean is the next battleground for so many projects including large-scale industrial aquaculture, offshore wind, and climate change. Embedded in all these conversations is what we want to produce and how we want to do it in our oceans. What are the impacts from any and all of these proposed projects? Maine likes to create task forces, but rarely does it let science or long-term data reviewed by marine industry experts – meaning those people who make their living on the water, lead its decision making.

June 2025 Update

We hope this Protect Maine update finds you and your family well and looking for opportunities to get out on the water whether it’s to make a living, go recreational fishing, boating, or swimming. 

We have a lot of work ahead of us to continue to protect Maine waters and keep foreign owned corporations from owning the Maine coast. 

A Family Oyster Farm is Caught in a Bitter Fight Over Maine’s Waters

Business grew quickly after Dan Devereaux and Doug Niven started their oyster farm in Brunswick a decade ago. They sold 10,000 oysters in their first season. Three years later, they were growing 25,000 a year to sell at the local farmers market, with so much demand they aimed to grow them by the millions in the coming years.

Today, Mere Point Oyster Co. employs 10 people year-round and 10 more in the summer, shipping its products to high-end, award-winning restaurants.

The farm has become a shining example of what Maine’s aquaculture industry says it can do for the state. With approval from state regulators, the family-run business has expanded and provided new economic opportunities, demonstrating what it says is a responsible alternative way to sustainably raise food on Maine’s coast.

But the operation has been controversial almost from the start, taking fire from neighboring landowners and wild seafood harvesters who have expressed concern about its impact on the environment and the ability of vessels to navigate through its growing areas, as well as what they characterize as the industrialization of the ocean.

Another View on Aquaculture Conflicts

Yes, please, let’s have an honest conversation about aquaculture (as the op-ed by Benjamin Ford of the law firm Archipelago argued in the April/May issue of The Working Waterfront).

Protect Maine’s Fishing Heritage agrees—it’s time to have an honest conversation about aquaculture, so everyone benefits. It’s essential to everyone who makes a living on the water, everyone who recreates on the water, and everyone who is part of the wild harvest and small aquaculture community.

An honest conversation about aquaculture has been something Protect Maine’s Fishing Heritage Foundation has been advocating since its inception. There are, however, roadblocks with those who want only their agenda and are unwilling to listen or change.

If we are going to get real, neither the Maine Aquaculture Association nor the lawyer who represents large aquaculture projects want to have a conversation about what is best for all Maine stakeholders, reducing aquaculture conflicts and supporting local town decision making.

Federal Court Strikes Down Unlawful Permit Allowing Industrial Fish Farming in Ocean Waters

Seattle, Washington— Today, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington vacated, or set aside as unlawful, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' approval of Nationwide Permit 56 (NWP 56), a 2021 decision authorizing industrial finfish aquaculture structures in federal ocean waters for the first time across the country. In October 2024, after several years of litigation the Court ruled that the Corps had violated several core environmental laws in approving NWP 56, including the National Environmental Policy Act, the Rivers and Harbors Act, and the Administrative Procedure Act. Following further remedy briefing, today's decision ordered that based on those violations of law the permit is vacated.

"This is a crucial victory in the battle for the future of our oceans," said George Kimbrell, legal director for Center for Food Safety and counsel for the plaintiffs. "We are gratified that the Court has ordered that NWP 56 is null and void. Industrial aquaculture has an abysmal track record globally of damaging the environment and local communities. It has no place in U.S. ocean waters."