Searsport Hbr Dredging: Lobster zone D to partly oppose; DMR to hold public hearing; NMFS writes sternly worded letter to ACOE

Searsport Harbor Dredging Updates

1. Lobster zone D to oppose expansion dredging;

2. DMR to hold public hearing 

3. NMFS writes Army Corps a sternly worded letter

(1) The Zone D Lobster  Council, made up of area lobstermen, does  lobstering oversight of DMR 's ever changing rules regs and laws. Its region stretches from Muscongus Bay around  Penobscot Bay  to Castine.

At the September 17th meeting at the Rockland Ferry Terminal, the Zone D Council heard about problems associated with the dredging proposal from Mike Dassatt of Downeast Lobstermen's Association, Becky Bartovics and Ron Huber. The Council agreed to write a letter opposing expansion dredging, for all the reasons we know of, while supporting the planned maintenance dredging with  precautionary conditions. More about Lobster Zone Councils

(2) DMR's rep at the meeting, Sarah Cotnoir, said she had been told by DMR commissioner Pat Keliher that DMR is going to hold a  public hearing on the Searsport dredge proposal.. NOT a meeting. He is responding to letters he's received requesting the hearing.   

At issue has been DMR's steady insistence during the last  two decades of holding only "public meetings" on dredging proposals. Not public hearings.  Even though state law specifically requires the DMR Commissioner to hold a public hearing if requested by five or more persons......This time, public requests for a public hearing, and the enormous size of the latest dredge proposal, which adds  a 900,000 cubic yard  expansion  to the  40,000 cubic yardstandard maintenance dredging that was planned initially.

3. National Marine Fishery Services says it will take another look.. On August 21st, the National Marine Fisheries Service's New England  Habitat Conservation chief  Lou Chiarella,  wrote to the Army Corps of Engineers that NMFS was reopening its review of the Sears Island project, due to additional information coming to their attention  habitat consultation process. Some highlights from the letter:  (Boldfaced  bits done by Bay Blog for ease of reading)

NMFS: "Unfortunately, we continue to have significant concerns regarding the proposed project's impacts on our trust resources. The information provided in your August 9, 2013 letter, as well as personal communications with your staff indicated the amount of impact to shallow water habitat from the proposed improvement dredging would be much greater than our understanding based upon the information contained within the Environmental Assessment (EA), dated December 2012."

 "Furthermore, because this new information was not available during the EFH consultation, and because the new information would affect the basis of our EFH  conservation recommendation, we are reinitiating a distinct EFH consultation for the proposed project, pursuant to 50 CFR 600.920(1), and providing additional conservation recommendations.

"Based on this new information, we have concluded that the proposed dredging would result in a substantial change in the depth of the area with significant effects on shallow water benthic habitats.."   ".....we have determined that the proposed project would permanently impact winter flounder EFH."..

."In summary, because we received additional information regarding this project that changes the basis for some aspects of our original consultation on May 6,2013, we are reinitiating EFH consultation."

End of excerpts.

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A quickly changing situation, bay friends! Stay tuned.

From Waldo Village Soup  A friendly approachLocals who rely on Penobscot Bay forge partnership. By Tanya Mitchell | Oct 12, 2012

SEARSPORT — On a chilly and overcast afternoon Thursday, Oct. 4, residents and businesspeople of the Penobscot Bay region met on the Sears Island causeway to introduce a newly formed alliance aimed at cleaning up the local waterway.

Ron Huber, executive director of Penobscot Baywatch, joined forces with people like Sheila Dassatt of Belfast, who heads the Downeast Lobstermen's Association and fishes on the bay with her husband, Mike, and Searsport Shores Campground co-owners Astrig Tanguay to form the fledgling Friends of Penobscot Bay.

"There are thing happening here that affect the other end of the bay, and vice versa," said Huber during the press conference. 

Photo:  Sheila Dassatt of Belfast, second from left, head of the Downeast Lobstermen's Association, speaks during a press conference at the Sears Island causeway Thursday, Oct. 4.  Photo by Tanya Mitchell

Huber said the idea behind forming FOPB was to unify individuals and businesses who all depend on the bay to thrive so those parties may act collectively toward working with area businesses and industry to improve the health of the bay.

In a prepared statement provided to the media Thursday, Tanguay said her campground depends on the tourism industry, which she said is directly linked to the bay.

"Anecdotally, I know that our guests come to Searsport and the region because of the bay — a chance to kayak, hike, sail, pick mussels and eat lobster," she stated. "The state's research backs this up with numbers: The primary purpose of overnight leisure trips is outdoor recreation."

Tanguay went on to say the top four trip activities among Maine visitors are enjoying ocean views, resting and relaxing, outdoor activities (including fishing, sailing, kayaking and hiking) and shopping.

"When those of us who [live] here rely on the bay for sustenance, we must ask why our wild mussel beds and fin fish are at historically low levels," she said. "If we accept that we are all dependent on clean water, let's deal with the petroleum spills, waste dumps and tainted sediments in and around Pen Bay while they may still be manageable."

Dassatt, whose family has deep lobster-fishing roots in the region, said she and other lobster fishermen are working with the University of Maine in an effort to learn more about the shell disease that she said now appears in about one out of every 10 lobsters caught here. The study, said Dassatt, is aimed at learning whether the meat of those affected lobsters is safe to eat, and also to see if water pollution may be adversely impacting the bait used to capture Maine's best-known shellfish.

"Even for the fishermen who are handling the water, we're seeing things that we haven't seen before this year," she said. "Fishermen with open cuts come up with things that aren't healthy."

Specifically, she said, fishermen are developing blistering rashes and skin infections after being exposed to the bay water.

Huber said he hopes that by forming FOPB, all involved will have more resources to accomplish their bay-related goals, and in the end, all Maine residents will be better off.

"We want clean water so that people keep coming here," said Huber. "Someone has to speak for the bay, not just one town or another town."

Penobscot Bay gets 'Friended'

A new environmental organization has risen to steward Penobscot Bay's water quality, fish and shellfish habitat and scenic resources. It held its first press conference October 4th 2012 on the Sears Island causeway. See TV coverage.

Why a new NGO? Aren't there enough already? Not..exactly.

For too long, Maine's biggest bay has suffered from a scattershot approach to protection of its natural resources from oil spills and other pollution sources and from inappropriate development.

Maine's newest marine conservation group, the Friends of Penobscot Bay, which held a media rollout of the organization on Thursday October 4, 2012 on the Sears Island causeway will bring expertise from around the bay and among the bay's fishery and tourism sectors to bear on these many local concerns.

Communities and citizens in the trenches defending their piece of Penobscot Bay
 from sprawl or pollution rarely have an opportunity to assist the bay's other defenders up and down her coast. Yet the problems raised by developers and waste dischargers around the bay are often very similar, often involving the same officials of the same agencies. The companies are represented by the same environmental consultants, law firms and public relations teams

The Friends of Penobscot Bay has come into being to respond to the need to coordinate such information. With a baywide organization run by fishermen and others whose living is dependent on their Bay having clean water and healthy marine and shoreline habitats, abundant prey and forage species, and high quality natural scenic beauty, the Friends are able to respond to any kind of issue, anywhere around the bay.

The vast majority of the bay's hatchling  fish and shellfish do not survive their first year before falling to predation, starvation or poor water quality. 

Unique among environmental groups the makeup of the Friends of Penobscot Bay's Board of Directors reflects its small business/ natural resource protection orientation: Sheila Dassatt of the Downeast Lobstermen's Association; Thomas Atherton of Bucksport, a commercial wormdigger and biologist; scalloper Michael Keating of Owls Head, workboat operator and diver Robert Izerbyt of Rockport, oyster farmer Jesse Stuart of Penobscot, recreational clammer and coastal camp operator Astrig Tanguay of Searsport, environmentalist Harlan McLaughlin, also of Searsport, and conservationist Ron Huber of Rockland

 
The Friends of Penobscot Bay  will inventory the knowledge and talents of the bay's many natural resource-reliant commercial businesses, from fishermen to wormdiggers to coastal campground operators and apply it  to each bay impacting development proposal, be it a summer home builder seeking to riprap an eroding shoreline or an energy giant.

Combining the local close-in citizens are critical for protection and improvement of our natural environment, bit by irreplaceable bit. However, the Friends of Penobscot Bay seek to boost the likelihood of bay-friendly outcomes in those efforts, by bringing  the combined  talents, knowledge, skills and assets of  the bay's fishermen, eco-defenders, and other bay users and enjoyers to bear on each local issue.

The bay is suffering from a thousand local cuts, inflicted over the last three hundred years. The combined effect is such that even small new development projects and waste sites can combine with dreadful effect on our bay's entire ecology.

An unhappy result of those 'thousand cuts' is that Penobscot Bay's finfish, mussels, scallops, seaworms, urchins and more are at historic low levels. Meanwhile many of the bay's irreplaceable scenic  and sonic viewsheds and other natural assets have been degraded by inappropriate coastal development, and many more are threatened. Lobstermen have reported a new  and stubborn skin disease infecting from even the minor cuts and abrasions that occur on the job.

While overfishing and inappropriate fishing tech are part of the poor fish stocks picture, has a rise in larval mortality of many bay fish and shellfish species added another stress to these animals?  

The vast majority of the bay's hatchling  fish and shellfish do not survive their first year before falling to predators, sometimes, as in the case of the cod, even their own species

BAY POLLUTION Under the guidance of that board,  the Friends of Penobscot Bay will take up the task of reducing water pollution and cleaning up the 100s of legacy toxic and petroleum waste dumps and spills that were created in the 19th and 20th centuries. They will also keep an eye on the bay's many operating outfalls, each of which has strict limitations on the discharges they are allowed to make into Penobscot Bay. 

BAY REPLENISHMENT The Friends of Penobscot Bay will attempt to redevelop and replenish the diversified fisheries and scenic wonders that, once overwhelmingly bountiful, have declined in many reaches of Penobscot Bay over the last 300 years.

Let's hope the Friends of Penobscot Bay accomplish what they are setting out to do!