Courtesy / Mere Point Oyster Co.
Mere Point Oyster Co.'s Dan Devereaux and Doug Niven plan a 40-acre lease in Maquoit Bay.
March 21, 2019
Petition seeks moratorium on large aquaculture leases
Courtesy / Save Maquoit Bay
Members of Save Maquoit Bay and lobstermen from around the state speak at the State House Tuesday. They have submitted a petition to the Department of Marine Resources asking for an immediate moratorium on aquaculture leases greater than 10 acres.
Save Maquoit Bay, a group formed to address issues with aquaculture, and lobstermen from around the state have submitted a petition to the Department of Marine Resources requesting an immediate moratorium on aquaculture leases greater than 10 acres in size.
The petition has 189 signatures, 39 more than required to open rulemaking around aquaculture leases, according to a news release.
The petition comes in the wake of an application by Mere Point Oyster Co. for a 40-acre lease in the bay, which is in the north end of Casco Bay, in between Freeport and Brunswick. The application, for a 10-year lease, is to cultivate Eastern oysters, bay scallops and sea scallops.
Mere Point Oyster Co. is owned by Dan Devereaux and Doug Niven.
Supporters of the petition spoke about it at a Tuesday news conference at the State House.
“First, we support aquaculture when it is good for all parties,” said Paul Dioli, of Save Maquoit Bay, at the news conference. “With more and more aquaculture leases flooding in, the challenge is to build an aquaculture industry that coexists and does not compete with lobstering.”
Also speaking was John Powers, who said, "I ask the [Department of Marine Resources] to listen carefully to the generations of men and women who have made the lobster industry what it is today and protect our livelihood from what has become nothing more than a land grab in upper Casco Bay."
Hope for approval by summer
Mere Point owner Devereaux told Mainebiz hearings on the application closed Feb. 1 and the Department of Marine Resources is in the decision-making process.
Devereaux said he and Niven hope to get approval by summer, when the oyster cultivation season gears up. The two have the capital they need to buy equipment, which they’ve reserved with a supplier, and begin deployment, he said.
The application process has taken about a year-and-a-half so far, he said.
“We believe that every rule we could possibly follow has been followed, plus some,” he said. “We think, unfortunately, that this group is pitting lobstermen against aqua-culturalists. That’s unfortunate because we’re all out on the water trying to make things better for our communities and our seafood industry.”
The two have combined experience of almost 80 years on Maquoit Bay, he said.
“When we started talking about this a few years ago, we paid particularly close attention to where the lobster fishery was fishing,” he said. “It’s unfortunate that this association has stirred up a petition that could possibly impact the entire aquaculture development along the coast of Maine.”
With climate change potentially impacting wild fisheries like lobster and mussels, Devereaux said, aquaculture has untapped potential as an industry. Farmed shellfish, as filter feeders, also have potential to improve water health and diversity, he added.
“They’re filtering the sea and helping the ecology of the bay,” he said. “So why not keep that as a benefit along the coast of Maine, in terms of fostering its development and allowing our working waterfronts to stay working?”
Mere Point has 16 much smaller leases of 400 square feet in Middle Bay, Mere Point Bay and Maquoit Bay, he said. The company produced 60,000 oysters in 2018. It’s expected it will produce 250,000 to 350,000 this year. If the 40-acre site is approved for 2020, production is expected to be 750,000 to 1 million oysters, Devereaux said.
Outreach unsuccessful
Devereaux and Niven said that before they submitted their application, they tried to contact two local lobstermen to get input on their concerns. The outreach was unsuccessful, they said.
“They never got back to us,” said Niven. “We reached out two or three times.”
He said they also contacted Dioli to see if they could set up a meeting with him. That outreach was also unsuccessful, he said.
Niven said he’s lived on the bay all his life. “We would never do anything to harm the bay,” he said.
The proposed site is in a shallow area that is mud bottom and unsuitable to lobster trapping, they said. Lobster fishing, as well as recreational fishing and boating, is typically conducted in the bay’s deeper channels, they said.
But according to the release, the proposed site will result in lobstermen being unable “to fish an area that has been fished for generations.”
Said Julie Eaton of the Maine Lobstering Union, “We are concerned that aquaculture leases, especially large leases that are attractive to out-of-state investors will basically eat up the bottom of the ocean floor. We are seeing more and more large leases in the water.”
Devereaux and Niven started the company in 2015, with farm sites on Maquoit and Mere Point bays. They started with 10,000 oysters the first year and have been selling product to local inns, restaurants and markets.
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