LBA bill of 2019

A  bill that I had introduced in 2019   by Belfast State Rep Janice Dodge.  Require cumulative impact study when more than  one  Land Based Aquaculture  operation  gets proposed in a  single waterbody. (a bay or reach of a river)

1.	LD 620, HP 448,129th Legislature	An Act Regarding Licensing of Land-based Aquaculture Facilities
	Bill & Fiscal InformationPrinted LD PDFLD Quick ViewWord Document

CLICK HERE for testimony for and aagainst  LD620

GE salmon and RAS aquaculture: Biotech guy says it'll improve RAS tankfish salmon farming.

    On April 27, 2021, Under Current News' Matt Craze  held a webinar with a group of RAS aquaculture experts from around the world,  on the status of efforts to "mainstream"  land based fish farms.  Titled "Dissecting the land-based aquaculture trend", It seems the New Frontier is  genetically engineering  fish to fit the technology and new feeds,  instead of improving  technology to fit the fishes' needs!   

Matt Craze's question to  GE Fish expert John Buchanon of the Center for Aquaculture Technologies:   "What's your angle on the broad challenges to Land Based Aquaculture  becoming mainstream?  

JB:  "Could argue it's  already become mainstream. Lots of discretions and investment and activity in the sector.  Big  commitments initially were around engineering - and it's still a major focus

"Feed obviously has to be a focus.  The way the diets  are formulated  is quite different. It needs to be optimized for RAS food.  

"Last step of the puzzle is the genetics of the fish. RAS is a very capital intensive investment. Elements are very well understood.  Once you get to scale, then investment in improving the fish  makes sense.

"We are approaching that point, especially for salmon, but many other species, for improvement in growth as you are moving fish through the tanks;  while you're waiting for the biomass to grow. There's inefficiency there that can be recaptured with faster growing fish. Very simply.

"Obviously better SCR or  the waste products from the fish  that allow biofilter to support a larger biomass would be fundamentally transformative  to the the industry and to profitability

"In my past I was director of R&D for Aqua Bounty. We are looking at biotech solutions to solve these problems. They can be addressed though breeding and new technologies in genome editing.  RAS is also contained.  

"There's  a lot of benefits to really taking the next step in the industry and getting the genetics to complement both the  feeds and the engineering. A good opportunity for the future."

End excerpt.

Land based salmon aquaculture trend webinar April 27, 2021

 On April  27, 2021 Undercurrents News held a webinar  Dissecting the land-based aquaculture trend.

Start with introductions. Then host Matt Craze  summarizes the state of LBA,   A discussion of the sustainble trophic LBAs .What biotech is up to.   Then listen to the the struggle between East and West:  the Asian model:  investing in  small farms that grow inexpensive species, affordable to rich and poor alike vs the West's AQ strategy of   growing and peddling its elitist 11 dollars a pound salmon fillets. Salmon will feed the world!"  Don't be ridiculous!

0.short quote

1 Introduction of speakers 5min 34sec

2 Matt Craze  the state of LBA globally 4min 25sec

3 Sustainable Trophic LBA 3min 

4 Biotech 2min 6sec

5 Low Cost Asian LBA less expensive species 4min 33sec_

PONDERABLE:  how far will Kingfish AQ's  waste output effluents  be transported by the Eastern Maine Coastal Current?

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from:

Undercurrents
Tuesday, Apr 27, 2021

Dissecting the land-based aquaculture trend

John Buchanan, Jeff Cheng, Roberto Tishler, Ohad Maiman, Stian Rognlid, Matt Craze

According to Matt Craze of Undercurrent News  Land-based aquaculture is  a currently huge interest to investors.    Atlantic Sapphire has built a major salmon farm at an inland location near Miami and several other well-financed are set to follow in the company's footsteps. 

Conventional coastal salmon farming companies have mastered the art of using recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS) to grow large smolt that can spend less time in the sea. 

But RAS could be a panacea for a host of new species that can be grown around the world. We explore this new innovation, from crayfish in China and Taiwan to yellowtail seriola farms in the Netherlan

BEP releases Nordic Aquafarms draft Final Order with red ink changes

On November 3, 2020, Maine Board of Environmental Protection released its amended final draft of its  MEPDES Pollution Permit and its Waste Discharge License. Here is the 5 page draft approval decision followed by 15 Special Conditions that the company must meet.

DRAFT Final  BEP  Order of Approval  5pgs 

DRAFT Order's  Special Conditions A thru O.

* A.  Effluent Limitations & Monitoring Requirements 2pgs  . 

* B. Narrative Effluent Limitations  C: Authorized Discharges, D: Notification Required  1pg

* E. Monitoring / Reporting. F: Dye Study 1pg 

* G: Ambient Water Quality Monitoring; H Operation & Maintenance Plan 4pgs  

*  I: Disease Control & J: Spills 3pgs

* K: Protection of Atlantic Salmon 3pgs

* L: Fish Feed; M: Reduced Waived Testing;  N: Commencement of Operations 1pg

* O: Reopening Of Permit For Modification; P: Severability 2pg 

END SPECIAL CONDITIONS

News: Second Battle of Penobscot Bay. Melee of estuary and aquaculture interests over fate of estuary

For Immediate Release

PENOBSCOT ESTUARY This dynamic zone, where the dissolved tincture of 8,000 forested square miles of interior Maine  encounters the  Penobscot Bay pressing its salty tides inland, is become a war zone. (cont'd below image)

For more than a year, multinational  and local aquaculture interests, pitted against  community activists  and bay fishery and conservation groups, have  brawled their way through municipal and state hearings and  public events.

Now foes of two land based aquaculture plans, flush from bringing  the  permit review of one to a standstill, are pressing the legislature to make state regulators "think like an estuary" with a series of reform and science bills, the first of which  LD 620 An Act Regarding Licensing of Land-based Aquaculture Facilities -  faces its first committee vote Tuesday in Room  214 of the Cross Building.

LD 620 adds this clause twice  to the existing law when it is deciding whether to deny the application or revoke an existing  one. 

"alone in the use of a body of water or in combination with the aquaculture activity of any other land-based aquaculture operations using the same body of water " 

" Estuaries like ours are small enough and their flushing rate slow enough," said bay activist Ron Huber   "that  while one of these landfarms could be an  lawfully defensible burden,  multiple fish farm effluent discharges, especially of  hormones and other biochemicals released by salmon  could  have a demonstrable unacceptable effect."    He said that  the survival of smolts, elvers  and alewives  transiting the estuary in their migrations could be put at risk. (Continued below image)

The bill gives the Department of Agriculture Conservation and Forestry the authority to  require its consulting agencies, DEP, DMR and DIFW  to prepare a cumulative impacts assessment  when multiple salmon tankfarms  are proposed for a single estuary/ 

Without this,  reformers warn,  Maine is in danger of triggering a goldrush  scramble  for permits  and land leases along the lower river and upper bay.    "I've looked at dozens of Maine agency comments on big  coastal developments and small." said Huber  "Concerns about  the cumulative impact of new projects  when combined with existing ones, rarely enter the calculations. "

One 

LD 620 empowers the Dept of Agriculture to  produce a  big picture of what decisionmakers can expect  for the greater estuary if they approve going ahead with an additional salmon tankfarm. This is vital to smart bay management. 

Agency review of Nordic Aqua Farm's ambitious plan for building one of the world's largest land-based salmon aquaculture facilities  has been suspended, after a sharp-eyed activist tipped attorneys  for NGO Upstream Watch and Maine Lobstering Union, to a glaring fault in the project design,.

Attention has turned to Augusta,  where Tuesday the legislature's  Agriculture, Forestry and Conservation Committee will examine its evidence and conscience, then approve, amend or kill  LD 620 the aquaculture reform  bill.    

Filling the Gap  Critics say the state is so new to land based salmon farming that its selected overseer, the Department of Agriculture Conservation and Forestry, has yet to put together rules and regulations to interpret the one page law, 7 MRSA §1501."Land-based Aquaculture license".  

"Taking on a multinational industry with a flimsy one page statute and non existent rules is an open invitation  to repeat the disastrous start of Maine's fishpen salmon aquaculture in the early 1990s." Huber warned legislators at their earlier public hearing on the bill. "That is when  investors triggered  a gold rush for permits, that were grandfathered in under the then-new  salmon fish pen laws.  Don't worry, they said."

What happened? Too many salmon farms, licensed too close to each other in too many environmentally sketchy areas . The fouled seafloors, disease and parasites  that these immense unmoving schools of salmon  stimulated were as bad for the natural ecosystem outside the pens as for those inside.

It took years  and much bad blood between  conservation and fish pen farmers to bring salmon net penning down to more realistic levels.

"We do  NOT want to go down that same path with a flurry of land based salmon farms pumping effluent into the Penobscot Estuaruy . But we will if we don't  use LD 620 to let the agency take these first steps  slowly."

END

Legislature hears testimony on LD 620 Land Based salmon farm reform bill

On February 28, 2019, the Maine Legislature's Agriculture Conservation & Forestry Committee heard the following testimony on LD 620 "An Act Regarding Licensing of Land-based Aquaculture Facilities". Audio quality is ..so so.

Representative Jan Dodge introduces LD 620. 2/28/19

1 LD 620 Introduction by Sponsor Rep Jan Dodge 

2 Opponent-legislator Rep Richard Campbell, Bucksport  7min

3. Supporters 20 min
Ron Huber
Linda Buckmaster
John Kruger
Connie Hatch
Bethany Allgrove
Lawrence Reichert

4 Opponents of the bill. 21min

Marianne Naess, Nordic. 3min30sec  
Dierdre Gilbert DMR 7min30sec
Sebastian Belle Maine Aquaculture Assn
Thomas Kittredge Belfast Economic Devel Dir & QA 4min19sec

Whole Oceans as of January 2019

Since  its March 20, 2018 public presentation,   Whole Oceans LLC has rather sailed through a six month journey from application to state permit approval on November  22, 2018. 

Whole Oceans Presentation 3/20/18

Whole Oceans Application 6/1/18

Whole Oceans state permit 11/22/18

This was followed by a  12/17/18 appeal of Whole Oceans permit by bay citizen  Holly Faubel . The  administrative appeal was dismissed January 17, 2019  by Maine Board of Environmental Protection   based on the state's questionable  challenging of her legal standing  - not on the risk identified by Faubel of boosted methylmercury production, and  its circulation into the western bay - her neighborhood -  - thanks to boosted  & concentrated salmon manure production at that critical Bucksport location. See  Faubel's  References & data pages  There, a remnant elemental mercury pool is pushed to and fro by tide and current - and reacts with nutrients such as the  RAS salmon excrete by methylizing with it into much more neurotoxic methylmercury .

There things stand for the moment. Now it is time for state legislative initiatives