PENOBSCOT BAYWIDE TOXICS SNAPSHOT: BAY LPA AQ SITES AS SOURCES

Penobscot Baywide Toxics Snapshot?  Using Bay LPA sites as Sample Sources 

 To be renewed, LPA licenses must continue to meet
the provisions of DMR Rule 2.90 and 12 M.R.S.A. §6072-C.

DMR Rule 2.90: https://www.maine.gov/dmr/laws-regulations/regulations/index.html 12 M.R.S.A.
§6072-C:https://legislature.maine.gov/statutes/12/title12sec6072-C.html

 

A DOUBLE  ISSUE.  Maine's  Limited Purpose Aquaculture 'Licenses' are expandingrapidly  into inshore  waters.  At times adjacent to  land and sediment sites with documented present or historic  waste concerns.  

  Left image show   LPA licensed sites as of October 2023. Right=outfalls( blue/white & red/white, wastewater plants, orange & black)  landfills & other remediation sites (color circles w/centerdots.

 (Not shown: oil and gas spills,  as they would cover the map.  Also not shown: standard aquaculture leases)

AT ISSUE  DMR does not require toxics testing of the animals  and algae typically  grown in LPA cages or trays: oysters, mussels,  nori,  sugar kelp, other algae.  Yet they are well known, well understood  heavy metals bioaccumulators.    DMR's  biosecurity  is focused on biological threats -  bacterial and viral-  and does it well.  Chemical threats?  Not so much.   

Yet as the attached pair of  images show, Penobscot Bay has  well documented  pollution hotspots associated with the  mid19th  to late 20th century era.  Industry  grew here, supplied by first sail, then steam then petroleum power .  Departing companies  left their  industrial wastes behind,    Demolished old factories were dumped  into spent quarries or directly onto the shore to enlarge upland rea;l estate. covered with fill dirt. and and abandoned  Remediation may have  been state of the art at the time, (1940s-1980s) but time is one thing the remediation has not withstood.      

PROPOSAL  As DMR is being timid about metals testing,  your BayCare project would purchase samples directly from  each of the LPA aquaculture operations in the bay - they sell from home -  and test them for the 4  heavy metals of Penobscot Bay waters concern: methylmercury, cadmium, lead & arsenic.  Funding may be available for PFAS testing too though at present  the state is still sorting out testing regimes for that set of chemicals

RESULTS.  A scientifically credible snapshot of  the heavy metals loading of the  seaweed and shellfish species being raised and  sold in  Penobscot Bay - location by location.  This allows hotspots to be detected and LPAs to be  diverted from such locations.  .  

Suggestion: Contract with  Maine Environmental Laboratory  for bay wide*  coordinated contaminants testing of  sediments and aquacultured biota.   MEL  is among the  certified testing labs of Main. Employee owned .   I've used them a number of times, mostly to follow up on earlier waste spill reports  from several  chronic leaker locations from earlier decades GAC Chemical and the former papermill turned landbased aquaculture applicant.  Here are  two  I will get into why doing it baywide is important 

Here  are two MEL reports I commissioned 

A  2016 MEL report on  GAC chemical waste sites 

https://penbay.org/gac/mel/mel_rpt_gac_seds_091616.pdf

A  2019  MEL report on mercury in Bucksport sediment immediately below proposed Whole Oceans site 

https://penbay.org/baytowns/bucksport/mel_rpt_092419_mercury_tests.pdf

* Note: "Bay-wide" means at least one set of sediment and/or biota   tests in waters/intertidal  of every bay town)