To the editor:
In your admirable mission to protect the working waterfront, and the salmon farm industry as a part of the working waterfront, I do not believe that you have done justice so far to the problems with fish farms.
The salmon industry claims that salmon farms bring jobs, but they do not bring many jobs where they are needed. Each new fish pen brings on average, six jobs on site, and a few more to run boats and trucks to haul the fish and feed and gear to and from the pens. But on this part of the coast, these jobs are not very popular. The fish farm on Swan’s Island must import workers from the mainland to work on the farm. At pens in Blue Hill Bay, some of the workers are imported from Canada. As a selectman on Mount Desert said, “you can make $12 an hour as a dish washer in Bar Harbor during the summer. People would rather do that than work on a fish farm.”
The farms do provide jobs for about 40 fish processors in a factory in Machias, but that factory has been shut down because of the number of fish that froze to death last winter. The factory in Lubec was shut down because of Infectious Salmon Anemia. EPBEA believes that these misfortunes are not just bad luck, but due to systematic bad management in the salmon industry. Specifically, the fish are overcrowded, (according to industry practice world wide) leading to stress and disease, and vulnerability to environmental variations. EPBEA believes that the industry is not just going through bad times, but that the gold rush, boom-bust mentality of the industry is the cause of workers being whipsawed by employment and layoffs, due to world wide overproduction, price crashes, overcrowding, disease and dieoffs.
Because of these problems in how the industry operates downeast and elsewhere, we at EPBEA do not believe that salmon farms should be in the Penobscot Bay. For the amount of disruption they cause, they do not bring much employment. Steve Page, of Atlantic Salmon of Maine, which smokes salmon in Belfast, testified that they process fish imported from Chile because it is cheaper. So Maine does not even need fish farms to keep the high-end processors in business.
Lobstermen at the fish farm lease application hearings in Perry last year testified that they lost on average $2,000 a year in gear to the boats servicing the fish farms. Herring weir fishermen testified that since the fish farms came, the herring had disappeared from the part of the bay occupied by the pens. Clam diggers testified that they believe the fish farms are the cause of the ugly green slime (the seaweed enteromorpha) on many of the beaches in Cobscook Bay. They say the green slime is smothering the clams.
Fishermen are worried about the disease and chemicals that seem to come with the pens. Will the drugs used to kill sea lice on the salmon also harm lobsters, since they are both crustaceans? A study in the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences in 2002 (S.L Waddy et al.) found that female lobsters exposed to emamectin benzoate (used on sea lice) molted prematurely, and that those females with eggs aborted them.
Will disease in salmon pens spread to the wild fish? Mackerel and herring catch ISA, but do they die from it, or just carry it?
Fishermen, along with environmentalists are worried that the fish farms will cause increased algae blooms, such as red tide, harming the shellfish industry. The research on the link between fish farms and algae blooms is confused, but anecdotal evidence from all over the world says that when fish farms come, algae blooms increase.
Property owners complain of noise from generators and automated fish feeders, debris on the beaches, and ugly pens. Innkeepers complain that their businesses are not given any consideration in the siting of fish pens. The Marine Trades Association complains that the fish farms threaten the beauty of the coast on which their businesses depend. In Deer Isle, an informal poll found that 70 percent of the people were against the siting of fish pens in Deer Isle waters. Gene Eaton, owner of the Lobster Pool on Little Deer Isle, and 50-year holder of lobster and wholesale lobster licenses, wrote, “If there is another area where this type of [salmon farm] fisheries is welcome, so be it. But it is not welcome here.”
Aside from the reasons stated above, we believe that the Bay should remain free from fish farms because 1) the Penobscot Bay is one of the greatest lobstering areas in the world. We know that emamectin benzoate, used against sea lice, is harmful to lobsters, so if emamectin is used in the Penobscot Bay, it is at least some threat to our lobsters. 2) the Penobscot River has one of the last viable salmon runs on the US east coast. In every area of the world where fish farms are sited, the wild salmon population has collapsed. Do we need to put pens in Penobscot Bay to find out if fish pens will harm lobsters or salmon in the Bay, before we say the Bay should be off limits?
Salmon farms do make a contribution to the working waterfront, but selectmen in Tremont, host to the service boats of the fish pens in Blue Hill Bay, are not very pleased with their impact on the town landing. The boats have harmed the ramp. Fishermen in the area, like those in Cobscook Bay, complain about cut off traps between the pens and the harbor.
Salmon pens, although they make some contribution to the working waterfront, have some serious problems, and we need to think carefully before we welcome them to the Penobscot Bay.
EPBEA believes that there is a limited place for shellfish aquaculture in Penobscot Bay. In Canada, some bays are now shore-to-shore shellfish leases, causing muddy water, and serious limits on navigation. We do not believe that such a use is appropriate for Penobscot Bay. Lobstermen cannot give up much bottom to private leases without impact on their livelihoods. They can’t move elsewhere without trespassing on another lobsterman’s territory. In addition, many boatyards in Penobscot Bay benefit from the great reputation of the Bay as a cruising mecca. Too many shellfish pens would undermine that reputation, by limiting navigation among the islands. Nevertheless, shellfish farming, if it does not take over the bay, can provide one way among others for people to make a living in the area. It is a matter of scale.
Jane McCloskey, Administrator
East Penobscot Bay Environmental Alliance