A federal appeals court has sided with commercial fishermen who say proposed restrictions aimed at saving a vanishing species of whale could put them out of business.

Keith Decker, who joined American Aquafarms as its CEO in October 2021, announced his resignation in early May and is now seeking to sell his share in the facility the company planned to use for its processing operations.

“Fishermen do not support aquaculture products that remove productive fishing grounds from harvest opportunity,” the Alliance of Communities for Sustainable Fisheries said in its comments to NOAA. “We have lost, and are continuing to use, areas to MPA’s [Marine Protected Areas], wind energy projects, telecommunication cables, shipping lanes, etc.

Waldoboro residents will vote on a warrant article this June that could determine the future of the Medomak River. A moratorium ordinance regarding aquaculture project leases issued by the state is expected on the warrant while the town develops a permanent ordinance restricting the state-issued leases, which could stop them entirely.

The news is intensifying around industrial scale aquaculture along the Maine coast and across the world. Farmed salmon in the ocean is at the forefront in Canada. Our neighbors to the north are just the latest hitting the pause button on industrial-scale aquaculture as communities tackle the future of their coasts. In Maine, that conversation has not happened and in our opinion it should.

American Aquafarms’ proposed penned salmon farm in Frenchman Bay may be dead in the water as originally proposed after the state terminated lease applications for two 60-acre sites, but the Norwegian-backed company still owes money in Maine and owns property in Prospect Harbor.

The provincial government of the Canadian province of Nova Scotia has temporarily paused the development of new salmon aquaculture sites.

This is how industrialization will eventually claim Maine’s coastal waters - with cunning, expensive lobbyists doing their thing and state agencies as willing partners.

Do Mainers wish to industrialize our coastal communities and waters? Are there other visions that will sustain and strengthen our iconic local fishing economies, cultures and marine ecosystems?

We have to remember, when an inch of any fishing grounds goes to aquaculture, it is taken from wild harvest.