100 lobstermen sign petition to quash proposed salmon farm in Frenchman Bay
Courtesy / Friends of Schoodic Peninsula
Jerry Potter, 75, of South Gouldsboro, helped circulate a petition opposing a proposed salmon farm in Frenchman Bay.
A grassroots group opposed to a proposed salmon farm in Frenchman Bay presented Gouldsboro selectmen last week with petitions signed by 100 local fishermen who also are opposed to the project.
Norway-based American Aquafarms proposes to lease two sites between Bar Harbor and Schoodic Peninsula to install 15 “closed pens” plus an operations barge at each site, with the goal of eventually producing 30,000 metric tons, or 66 million pounds, of salmon annually.
“This is going to take away more of our lobster fishing ground,” Jerry Potter of South Gouldsboro said in a news release.
Potter, 75, has fished in Frenchman Bay for his entire working life.
“We’re worried about disease,” he said. “And I’m very concerned it would pollute the bay and destroy the bay’s entire ecosystem.”
The company’s CEO, Keith Decker, has said the operation would produce healthy fish without affecting the seabed.
Petition signatures were collected by Friends of Schoodic Peninsula and represented fishermen in each of the peninsula’s five harbors: Winter Harbor, South Gouldsboro, Bunker’s Harbor, Prospect Harbor and Corea.
They joined 26 Bar Harbor lobstermen who presented a similar petition to their town council last year.
“Lobstering is a critical part of our local economy, and our fishermen will be affected more than anyone by this floating fish factory,” said Jackie Weaver of Friends of Schoodic Peninsula, which is part of a coalition of groups called Frenchman Bay United coalition that opposes the American Aquafarms proposal.
Signers of the petition included State Rep. William “Billy Bob” Faulkingham, R-Winter Harbor.
The petition cited concerns regarding impacts to fishing livelihoods, including the potential for loss of prime fishing ground for lobster, scallops, and shrimp; increased fishing pressure on adjacent fishing grounds; loss of gear from service vessels and related support activity; navigational conflicts; water pollution from discharge systems, waste, feed and fuel spills; and disturbance to the ocean bottom around the pens.
The petition also cited concern about the proposal’s potential to lower a comeback of historical fisheries in the bay, including a recent shrimp fishery that centered on the proposed lease sites.
Last November, the town of Gouldsboro approved a 180-day moratorium, retroactive to Sept. 16, that froze for six months the review and issuance of municipal permits for any finfish aquaculture-related development that comprises 10 acres or more in local coastal waters.
Wastewater discharge applications for the proposal’s two pen sites are pending before the Maine Department of Environmental Protection.
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