Photo courtesy from Protect Maine’s Fishing Heritage Foundation

Sorrento rejects aquaculture moratorium

UNITED STATES
Friday, September 30, 2022, 07:00 (GMT + 9)

At the annual Town Meeting on Sept. 24, Sorrento voters rejected a proposed moratorium ordinance on all industrial-scale aquaculture development in the waters of Sorrento.

Despite widespread opposition to industrial-scale aquaculture in Frenchman Bay, voters were swayed by a local oyster farmer who highlighted some problems with the proposed moratorium.

Mark Gallagher, senior government relations and campaign consultant at Drummond Woodsum Attorneys at Law, represented the Protect Maine’s Fishing Heritage Foundation at the meeting. The organization helps towns pass moratoriums on aquaculture development, and several towns along the coast have done so.

“There was very little options for municipalities to raise their voices when it came to siting and permitting of large industrial size aquaculture facilities off of their coastline,” Gallagher said. “We [Protect Maine’s Fishing Heritage Foundation] approached the town and other municipalities about creating a moratorium so the towns could then put a process in place that gave them a much stronger voice.”

The goal of the moratorium, according to Protect Maine’s Fishing Heritage Foundation, is to allow towns time to decide how aquaculture operations should be handled and to prepare regulations and ordinances that they deem to be necessary before they are built. For this purpose, the moratorium grants a 180-day period in which no aquaculture operations over 5 acres can be sited, installed, constructed, operated or expanded.

Photo courtesy from Maine Aquaculture Association

Graham Platner of Frenchman Bay Oyster Co. spoke up at the meeting about some wording in the proposed moratorium.

“According to the language in this moratorium, we’re [Frenchman Bay Oyster Co.] industrial-scale, in fact every single aquaculture operation currently in Sorrento is,” said Platner. “Everything over 5 acres this moratorium counts as industrial. That’s not an accident.”

“It’s [the moratorium] built to use the fear of actual industrial-scale farms, like American Aquafarms, which I know a lot of us are opposed to,” Platner said. “I don’t want us to drive out other people who want to be small farmers on Frenchman Bay.”

Photo courtesy from American Aquafarms

Platner said a 180-day moratorium is not necessary to come up with local policies regarding aquaculture operations, since it generally takes many months and even years for farmers to obtain an aquaculture lease in the first place. The state Department of Marine Resources oversees the lease process.

“I just got my aquaculture lease in November of last year; it took me three years,” Platner said. “So, if you need a moratorium to make a decision about what the future looks like, you’ve already got it.”

Gallagher responded by reiterating that the goal of the moratorium was to ensure that towns have some say in how aquaculture is handled along their coastlines – not to prohibit the practice altogether.

“The idea of this ordinance design is … to give the town a voice in the process,” Gallagher said. “Not necessarily a prohibition, but a voice in the process.”

After much discussion, town voters opted not to approve the moratorium on aquaculture. 

Source: The EllsWorth American
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