This Article originally appeared in The Lincoln County News. Written by Johnathan Riley
Audience members listen to discussion during a special Damariscotta Select Board meeting on Tuesday, Nov. 21 at the Coastal Rivers Conservation Trust in Damariscotta. The meeting was focused on addressing growing concerns about aquaculture on the Damariscotta River and in surrounding town’s waterways and the role of municipalities in the leasing process. (Johnathan Riley photo)
In a special Damariscotta select board meeting held Tuesday, Nov. 21, representatives from surrounding towns, oyster farmers, clam diggers, Maine Department of Marine Resources, and the public voiced concerns and support for aquaculture in local waterways.
According to event host and organizer Tom Anderson, a Damariscotta Select Board member, the forum at Coastal Rivers Conservation Trust in Damariscotta was put together because of the growing dialogue in Lincoln County surrounding aquaculture moratoriums and a need to find a balance in the usage of the local waterways between industry, recreation, and beauty.
“The goal is to understand what a good balance is between a viable oyster farming industry, the safety of our waterways, and just general beauty,” Anderson said. “I think all of those things come into play when we’re trying to work together.”
Earlier this year, Waldoboro and South Bristol voters passed aquaculture lease moratoria, so that ordinances can be developed and studies can be done on affects of aquaculture on the waterways of each town.
However, according to a letter from the Maine Department of Marine Resources, these moratoria, inside Lincoln County and beyond, are not recognized by the state, citing that coastal waters below the intertidal zone are considered public lands within the state’s jurisdiction and not the municipalities.
Amanda Ellis, director of the department of marine resources aquaculture division, said the purpose of her presence at the meeting was to explain the state’s aquaculture leasing process, as well as to learn from the concerns from the people at the meeting.
Ellis said there were parts of the leasing process that may be difficult for municipalities, and the public, to approach and engage with.
“We’re really in a listening mode right now, and one thing we’re hearing from stakeholders is maybe that there are some aspects of the process that aren’t very approachable,” Ellis said. “So we’re taking in that feedback and learning from it.”
Ellis also took the opportunity to dispel some common misunderstandings about the departments function and the implementations of the law, reminding members of the audience the department of marine resources is an extension of the executive branch of government, with power to implement those laws, regulations, and leasing criterion, but posses none to change them.
“Often people talk to us like we’re pro-aquaculture or pro-clammer and put us in this position of trying to take sides, to look like we do, and we’re really not, we are a neutral body,” Ellis said.
State Sen. Cameron Reny, D-Bristol said the Legislative literature review currently in progress by the DMR on the existing body of research, studying the effects soft-shell clams and oysters have on one another, is happening because state legislators are listening to the concerns of residents of Maine’s coastal towns.
Damariscotta Select Board member Tom Anderson gives opening remarks at a special meeting of the board at Coastal Rivers Conservation Trust on Tuesday, Nov. 21. Anderson organized the meeting as a forum to discuss concerns about aquaculture leases in local waterways. (Johnathan Riley photo)
Reny also said that in order to change the laws, regulations, and the aquaculture leasing criterion, residents need to work with their legislators, not the department of marine resources.
“(The DMR) can’t use criteria that doesn’t exist or make one, but we can make one, tell us what you want,” Reny said.
According to the DMR website, in order for an aquaculture lease to be approved, it may not reasonably interfere with the ingress and egress of riparian owners, navigation, fishing, or other uses of the area; other aquaculture uses; the ability of the site and surrounding areas to support ecologically significant flora and fauna; or the public use or enjoyment within 1,000 feet of beaches, parks, or docks owned by local, state, or federal governments or certain government-owned conserved land.
Additionally, for standard leases, which are leases up to 100 acres for 20 years, the applicant must demonstrate that there is an available source of organisms to be cultured for the lease site. The lease must not result in unreasonable impact from noise or light at the boundaries of the site, and it must comply with DMR rules to minimize the visual impact.
David Kallin, an attorney with Drummond Woodsum representing Preserve Maine’s Fishing Heritage Foundation, a nonprofit working on banning industrial scale aquaculture leases from Maine waters, said at the meeting that the letter the DMR put out asserting its jurisdiction was inaccurate, and that the view of the foundation is that there’s room for local regulation.
“Maine is a home rule state, one of the things that’s always been great about Maine is it has the ability to have different local communities make different decisions,” Kallin said.
South Bristol Select Board member Adam Rice advocated for an unbiased overview of the leasing process and commended the aquaculture committee in South Bristol for its efforts in finding common ground.
Waldoboro Town Manager Julie Kiezer said the town of Waldoboro doesn’t want aquaculture leases to populate the Medomak River; something she said could affect the clam population of the river.
“Damariscotta may be the oyster capital of Maine, but we’re the clam capital,” Kiezer said. “We have families that rely on our mudflats.”
Kiezer said that Waldoboro was in a good place to impose a moratorium because the town has so few aquaculture leases on the Medomak River, and that a study on the health of the river could be completed now.
While Waldoboro does not currently have someone lined up to do the study, Keizer said the town is in the process of seeking state funding and finding a faculty member from the University of Maine who would be interested in taking it on.
Glenn Melvin, vice chair of the Waldoboro Shellfish Committee and 40-year clamdigger, said he wasn’t willing to risk hurting the soft-shell clam population the way Damariscotta did when the oyster farmers reintroduced oysters.
“We don’t have any interest in following you or being you, we being Waldoboro,” Melvin said. “You may consider it a success story. We may consider it a disaster.”
Mark Gallagher, of Protect Maine’s Fishing Heritage Foundation, speaks at a special Damariscotta Select Board meeting at Coastal Rivers Conservation Trust on Tuesday, Nov. 2. The meeting was put together by select board member Tom Anderson for the purpose of discussing aquaculture leases in the Damariscotta River. (Johnathan Riley photo)
Bill Mook, of Mook Sea Farms, who has been farming the Damariscotta River since 1985, spoke to the claims that oysters are killing the soft-shell clams and said the literature review concerning the effects of oysters and soft-shell clams on one another isn’t going to yield results unless the research considers all the environmental factors that come into play, such as increasing acidity and water temperature.
“You’re not going to get an answer about whether oysters are killing all of the soft-shell clams unless you understand how these species are being affected by all these environmental changes,” Mook said.
Mook provided anecdotal evidence about the lack of effect oysters have soft-shell clams, and said when clam larvae are in the water, they set all over the oysters, forming byssal threads the way mussels do, and if oysters were bad for soft-shell clams, its larvae wouldn’t be doing that.
“If oysters were this black hole that everybody seems to think they are, that wouldn’t happen,” Mook said.
Anderson asked Mook about the effects of the concentration of the oyster farms, citing a statistic from the department of marine resources that said 163 acres of the Damariscotta River has oyster cages on its surface.
Mook said that number was misleading when talking about concentration of oysters and the cited acreage was for the total space of all aquaculture leases on the river and not surface area covered by oyster cages. Were the approximately 7,000 oyster cages on the river condensed, Mook said it would only cover about three and a half acres.
“One hundred and sixty acres of coastal waters are being leased, but the actual gear is occupying a very small fraction,” Mook said.
Anderson closed the meeting thanking all those who attended and said he felt the meeting was constructive and helpful, and that dialogue is always a positive activity to engage in.
“We’re sharing information and we’re getting answers and I think we came up with a couple of suggestions the DMR might take into consideration as well as our legislators,” Anderson said. “I thought everyone was professional tonight and I appreciate it.”
Lincoln County Television filmed the forum, which is available for viewing at lctv.org.