Maine DMR gave legislators CARES Act for Fishermen update Feb 4th 2021. AUDIO mp3

On February 4 , 2021,  Maine Legislatures' Marine Resources Committee got a 40 minute briefing on the status of CARE ACT  payments specifically to help their  beleaguered   commercial fishermen as well as  and fishing charter boat   The MP3 recording is 40 minutes long. See screenshots of the presentation  slides, below.

Dierdre Gilbert, DMR Marine Policy Director did the presentation. Part of the 40 minutes are questions from legislators and her answers. Commisssion Keliher  was there and received  a few questions when called on, now and then.

Penobscot River & Bay mercury litigation & court ordered studies - 2002-2016

Litigation & Study History 2002 - 2015   

LITIGATION

2002  7/29/02 MPA & NRDC v Holtrachem & Mallinckrodt. Memorandum of Decision and Order 

2003 11/25/03 MPA & NRDC v Holtrachem & Mallinckrod "Implementing Order for Penobscot River Study pursuant to Memorandum of Decision and Order dated July 29, 2002".

2006-2007 Phase I of the Study: 2006-2007 

2008 4/18/08 MPA v. HoltraChem.  Order on Remediation Plan

2009 5/20/09 Mallinckrodt v. Littell. Order on Motion to Dismiss.

MERCURY STUDIES

2009 Phase 1 Study Update Report July  Pt 1.    Part 2 

2013 Mercury Study Final Report  April 2013

2014 9/30/14  MPA & NRDC v Holtrachem & Mallinckrodt  Plaintiffs post-trial reply brief.

2015  9/2/15 MPA v HoltraChem. Court  Order on the Remediation Plan 

2015 10/16/15  MPA & NRDC v. Holtrachem &  Mallinckrodt.  Order for Evaluation of Potential Active Remedies

The Court Ordered Study 

2006-2007 Phase I of the Study: 2006-2007

2009  Phase 1 Update Report Pt 1. July

2009  Phase 1 Update Report Pt 2 July 

2013 Study Final Report  April 2013

LePage admin opposes state ocean acidification council bill.

 Maine DMR & DEP both submitted testimony to the Legislature's Marine Resources Committee at its March 11 2015 public hearing,  opposing LD 493 An Act To Create the Ocean Acidification Council

DMR's Commissioner read a statement prepared by his Marine Policy Director Dierdre Gilbert suggesting that academic institutions and NGOs  are the proper home of such a council, not state government.

DEP's Patty Aho complained in her letter that passage of the  bill would  require  "significant Departmental resources and time which will take away from other important environmental programs."  

Gilbert  wrote that  "...the Department appreciates and supports the work that was done by the Ocean Acidification Commission. Certainly there are many good recommendations resulting from their efforts that should be pursued."

However, she added:  "[T]he structure proposed  - a new Council  - is not the most appropriate vehicle to carry these recommendations forward.  There are several entities, including the University, and multiple NGO's, that have made this topic a focus of their work."

Maine Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Patty Aho said her agency  "utilized approximately 200 hours of staff time to support the legislative Ocean Acidification Commission from August through December 2014."

"Without additional funding or resources," she said, "enactment of LD 493 will put a significant burden on the Department for managing existing programs while participating in this Council."

Representatives  at the public hearing of  that "coalition of groups with an interest in this topic"  and others with a jaundiced view of  the Lepage Admin's skill at "managing existing programs "  frowned severely when they  heard that.

Dredge Talk at 2015 Maine Fishermens Forum: Searsport megadredge plan not discussed!

DMR's Kohl Kanwit 

As predicted, the 3 agencies chiefly involved in reviewing the controversial Searsport Harbor mega-dredge plan steered clear of the topic in their all-about-the-process talk at Maine Fishermen's Forum. Though one of the proposed dredge spoil dumpsites was literally within view of meeting participants!

Hosted by DMR public health director Kohn Kanwit, the speakers from Army Corps and DEP asserted ignorance of the Searsport "channel widening project and wandered over the well trodden ground of dredging basics.DMR's Denis Nault, too, focused his presentation to non-local dredgery. Here are MP3s of each speaker and of the Q&A session.

1. Introduction by Kanwit and Army Corps Mike Walsh 18min
2. Maine DEP John Cullen 5min 25sec
3. Maine DMR Denis Nault 12 min 25sec
4. Question and Answer 1  10min 15sec  
5. Question and Answer 2  6min 30sec 
6. Question and Answer 3  8min 47sec //
7. Question and Answer 4 to end   7min 55sec  
8. Walsh says  Searsport dredge not on meeting off topic 14sec

Mike Walsh, Army Corps of Engineers

The audience was there to hear these "officials" describe this biggest ever dredge project  in Maine.  
Instead, Army Corps' Mike Walsh professed ignorance of the Searsport project and did an 18 minute "all about dredging" powerpoint snoozer.  

Then DEP's John Cullen  stepped up to the plate. Mercifully brief, Cullen also informed the audience that he knew nothing about the Searsport megadredge and, like Walsh rambled on with generalities about dredge permit reviewing basics. 

Cullen was followed by DMR's Denis Nault, who frittered away 12

DMR's Denis Nault

minutes describing - for the upteenth time to most of the audience - even more generalities about the dredging process. 

 Other officials lurked in the audience, occasionally popping up to add their two cents.

Jay Clement, Army Corps of Engineers

These included Army Corps of Engineers   project reviewer Jay Clement, who put in a few words once he saw  how the "know nothing" stance of the other 3 officials was angering the audience.

DMR attorney Meredith Mendelson popped up toward the end and unhelpfully brushed aside citizen concerns raised about the cumulative impacts of industrialization on the upper bay and lower river that the dredge project would induce. 

Meredith Mendelson, DMR

Mendelson seems to believe that because the project had gotten its earliest approvals  years ago,and indudstrial interests favored it, it was a done deal. Too late to divert the mammoth project an inch from its projected course. Admirably informed in fishery management, it appears that she needs a refresher course on Maine Site Law. 

Several members of the audience spoke out. 

Richard Nelson

Lobsterman Richard Nelson  of Friendship challenged the idea of holding a dredging info meeting that ignored the local dredging project. 

Ron Huber of Friends of Penobsot Bay agreed and further criticized the DMR and MDEP for ignoring the cumulative impacts law.Vivian Newman of South Thomaston, and several others also spoke up.

Maine Legislature considers elver fishery and shrimp dealers

Shrimp & Elver Salad

On March 1st the Maine Legislature's Marine Resources Committee, Led by Committee chair Lois Snow-Mello,  with DMR Commissioner Pat Keliher, held  a worksession on  LD 1765  An Act To Sustain the Elver Fishery, (Elvers are baby eels, entering freshwater for the first time).

The Committee also discussed what to do about shrimp dealers who misreport the catch Fines? Suspensions?

* Listen to the 15 minute committee discussion of the elver fishery bill

*Listen to the  6 minute discussion on whether sanctions  should be imposed on shrimp dealers who don't report honestly

Penobscot Bay scallopers defiant toward DMR's proposed closure rule

The title pretty well sums up what I saw at the April 6th meeting at the Roundtop Center in Damariscotta. When not a single hand went up among the fishermen when polled by the SeaGrant guy as to support for following DMR's command to map out chunks of their grounds for proposed closure, you knew this wasn't going to go easy for the DMR commissioner and his scallop staffer Togue Brawn. Take a listen.

Very much anger and frustration about the state's almost complete hands-off approach to dealing with pollution and habitat loss issues that can ruin everything from feed for scallop larvae to whatever organ breakdown is causing the grey meats. As if there's a magic kitchen in the bay, and as long as they control the fishermen's harvests the right way, things'll be fine.

DMR keeps this attitude even with Penobcot Bay's discolored scallops, with few or NO scallops, with crashes of all sorts of bay species, and never has a defense better than empty pockets. No money in the budget for ecology. Tough times, you know. Sorry.

But meanwhile the DMR, Sea Grant and Cooperative Extension crews burn endless amounts of cash hosting talking head conferences on meaningless planning initiatives, with catered meals and hotel quarters as needed for the lucky hired "experts" to come bloviate on the taxpayers' nickel..

The scallopers of Penobscot Bay, Muscongus Bay and points nearby raised the "no compromise" flag last night in Damariscotta, rejecting DMR's decision to leap before it looks. DMR has threatened "no quarter" if the fishermen don't bend.

Who's going to blink?

Eelgrass researchers, regulators of NW Atlantic meeting.

The workshop Status, Trends, and Conservation of Eelgrass in Atlantic Canada and the Northeastern United States,was a two day event, February 24-25, at the Regency Hotel in Portland, Maine. Valet parking simplified the Portland parking challenge
Listen here to recordings of the day speakers

* Hilary Neckles of the Augusta, Maine office of Patuxent Wildlife Research Center started the workshop, going over the agenda and setting the issues facing eelgrass out in brief.

* Dr. Fred Short of the University of New Hampshire, held forth on "Eelgrass: the Big Picture", Lots of interesting facts emerged as Fred took us on a visit to eelgrass around our globe - it is there in the northern temperate zone - and declining around the world, too.

* Seth Barker, Maine DMR's GIS and habitat mapping expert, described Maine's eelgrass situation

Clink on the link for recordings of all of the day's speakers

From the discussions:

*Eelgrass is a flowering plant that aeons ago migrated from fresh to saltwater. In the Gulf of Maine it grows down to eleven meters deep.

*It can grow well in anoxic sediments, bringing oxygen down into its roots and discharging it into the mud, creating an oxygen-rich biological zone around the roots, called a "rhizosphere". Mats of roots can form, creating large rhizospheres.

* We have overused our coastal zone. Back in the good old days, nearshore eelgrass hosted flounder, lobster and cod in plenty. Sadly, very few cod nowadays are found in eelgrass. I.e. in shallow waters

Eelgrass wasting disease, the scourge of this plant in the early twentieth century, is now known to be attacks by the colonial slime amoeba Labyrinthula zosterae

The more nutrients in the shallow water, the more epiphytes or fouling organisms clutter the eelgrass' fronds, blocking sunlight from photosynthetic cells But at the same time the epiphytes provide food and shelter for myriads of other tiny organisms.

*Snowshoes are good for walking on eelgrass flats and mudflats without crushing the rhizospheres and without sinking deeply into them..

The Eelgrass Workshop Steering Committee - which has done a splendid job- consists of, Al Hanson of Environment Canada's Canadian Wildilfe Service, Phil Colarusso of U.S. EPA, and Robert Buchsbaum of Mass Audubon. Good work, people!

Community lobster meeting May 20th Rockland City Hall

Maine DMR will host a community lobster meeting at 6pm May 20th at Rockland City Hall Council Chambers.

Find out what the hot topics are for our bay's important lobster industry. This will be an open discussion about all facets of lobstering: whale rules, artificial and natural bait, lobster health, fuel costs, number of traps in the water etc. Tell DMR how it is. Open to all. More info