Letter to the Editor: Oppose industrial aquaculture

Letter to the Editor originally published in the Bangor Daily News

I lobster out of Lamoine and Frenchman Bay is one of my greatest fishing areas. I don’t understand how we have gotten to the point in Maine where we would want large scale industrial aquaculture in rich fishing grounds. But here we are entertaining 30 pens containing salmon to be raised in the ocean.

This is about the scale of aquaculture and the type of aquaculture that is being proposed. I am dead set against this project and any large-scale aquaculture projects in Maine. I have been talking with Protect Maine’s Fishing Heritage Foundation and understand they support small aquaculturists, lobstermen and all those with a vested interest in the coast. They are also working hard to protect the ocean from industrial-scale aquaculture.

Why does the state seem to be so eager to sell our oceans? That’s what the state would be doing by granting all these aquaculture leases giving exclusive rights to some at the expense of others.

James McMillan

Lamoine