Originally published in The Quietside Journal by Lincoln Millstein

CUTLER, Maine, Dec. 18, 2021 - Mikael Roenes, the Norwegian who wants to build two massive fish farms in Frenchman Bay, must be licking his chops.

The state of Maine showed once again this week its ineptitude at enforcing oversight of the burgeoning aquaculture industry. The Department of Marine Resources announced it was backing out of a wild salmon restoration project intended as a disciplinary action for violations by Cooke Seafood, which has the only in-water fish farm permit in Maine.

PMFHF is asking for your financial support in the upcoming year as we continue our important work to ensure that the coast of Maine which we all love is not sold to industrial-scale aquaculture.

Frenchman Bay United, an umbrella organization representing five stakeholder groups – Protect Maine’s Fishing Heritage Foundation, Friends of Eastern Bay, Friends of Frenchman Bay, Friends of Schoodic Peninsula and Save the Bay – is partnering with the MDI Biological Laboratory to bring Morton’s story and lessons learned to Maine.

The Department of Environmental Protection (Department) will conduct a Public Meeting on October 28, 2021 from 5:00 PM - 8:00 PM via Zoom

Protect Maine’s Fishing Heritage Executive Director Crystal Canney said, “So the obvious question is – what killed the fish? You won’t find answers in the statement issued today, and we are still waiting to hear from the Department of Marine Resources (DMR), the primary regulating agency on net pen salmon. DMR was very quick to say that it was a dissolved oxygen issue, but the DEP has already ruled that out in its statement today.”

“Maine has set the table to bring industrial scale and environmentally polluting large scale industrial aquaculture to the state and it’s wrong,” Canney said. “If DMR cannot manage Black Island, how in God’s name are they going to be able to manage a foreign corporation coming in here with big money, with the potential to expand to 1000 acres.”

“What caused the die-off, had it impacted the environment underneath the net pens?" Executive Director Crystal Canney asked. “These are all questions the [Department of Marine Resources] owes an answer to, to not only the fishermen but the lobstermen in the area.”

“This is incredulous,” says Crystal Canney, executive director of Protect Maine’s Fishing Heritage Foundation (PMFHF). “The whale deaths are not in Maine at the hands of Maine lobstermen…instead of saving right whales, what this decision has done is endanger not only the livelihoods of many of our lobstermen and women but also their lives,” she adds.

A massive die-off of farm raised salmon, in pens off Black Island in late August, has prompted a series of questions to state regulators, from groups concerned about the impact of industrial-scale aquaculture on coastal Maine waters. Black Island is a few miles south of Bass Harbor on Mount Desert Island.

FOAA documents from DEP related to the Cooke Aquaculture salmon die-off.