Two NGOs petition for BEP review of Nordic Aquafarms, interested party status, public hearing.

Below read  petitions by two  organizations sent Maine Department of Environmental Protection in late November. The Maine Lobstering Union and Upsteam Watch asked to be recognized as interested parties regarding the Nordic Aquafarms application to build a salmon tankfarm in Belfast and discharge effluent into Belfast Bay.  They also requested that Maine Board of Environmental Protection take over review of the project and that a public hearing be held.

MLU Petition to Intervene 11/26/18

MLU Request for public hearing on Nordic application 11/26/128

Upstream Watch petition for Maine Board of Environmental Protection to assume Jurisdiction over NAF application 11/26/18

Upstream Watch Request for Public Hearing 11/26/18

Upstream Watch Petition for Interested Party Status 11/26/18

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Maine DEP acting chief recommends against citizen board review of Nordic Aquafarms plan.

Salmon tankfarm opponents are rightfully livid over Maine DEP's acting chief Melanie Loyzim's actions on the controversial salmon tank farm plans by Nordic Aquaculture proposed to discharge into Belfast Bay
Loyzim denied out of hand petitions from Maine Lobstering Union and Upstream Watch requesting (1) a public hearing and (2) intervenor status. She also declared there was little public interest or controversy, recommending against MLU's request that BEP assume jurisdiction of the review of the project its proposed outfall's proposed contents and its baywater intake.
Read MLU's and Upstream Watch petitions here
Loyzim used indefensible assertio.ns that there was no possible significance to the effluvia of up to 20 million fish per year in the proposed CAFO tanks - largest ever in the United States - discharging out a single pipeline into the bay 24/7. What could go wrong?

Raising and slaughtering up to 20 million fish per year at Nordic and Whole Oceans - one at each end of Penobscot Bay's estuary - is nothing special, Loyzim asserted in her letter to conservation attorney Kim Tucker. Just like any little existing fishfarm, Loyzim smirked, enjoying her brief moment of ecological vandalism at the helm of the disfunctional-under-Lepage agency.
One remembers the good old days of Late McKernan Early Angus King , early baldacci,  when the Board of Environmental Protection performed its duty and routinely heard  citizen appeals - I actually won a special condition added to MBNA's Ducktrap Mtn guest cottage rush job tht was sprawling into an important deer wintering area   No more cottages, BEP announced. How MBNA's VP Shane Flynn howled! 

Land-based salmon farming in Maine - how oversight went from DMR to DACF

On November 11, 2017, Maine PUBLIC LAW 2017 CHAPTER 94 came into effect.
Titled  An Act To Transfer Responsibility for Licensing of Landbased Aquaculture from the Department of Marine Resources to the Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry"  It describes the authority for the transfer to the land agriculture agency and how it will decide how safe these are.

Says Department of Agriculture Conservation and Forestry will deny land based salmon aquaculture licenses, if  either DMR or IFW informs DACF  "that the aquaculture activity presents an unreasonable risk to indigenous marine or freshwater life or its environment."  Sounds like a strongish standard (no "unreasonable risk"), but only as strong as the information that the agencies have to determine its reasonableness or unreasonableness. Given tthis is new hitherto unused technology, it won't be easy.

Text of Public Law 2017 Ch 94 Law: 
(Sentences separated for ease of reading)

"Transfers authority for the licensing of land-based aquaculture from the Department of Marine Resources and Inland Fisheries & Wildlife to the Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry. 

"The Commissioner of DACF shall refuse to issue a license if the Commissioner receives information from the Commissioner of either DMR or DIFW that the aquaculture activity presents an unreasonable risk to indigenous marine or freshwater life or its environment. 

"The risk factors that DMR and DIFW shall consider include but are not limited to: risk of accidental or intentional introduction of marine or freshwater organisms, or organism products, into the waters of the State, risk of the introduction or spread of disease within the State and interference with the enforcement of possession, size or season limits for wild marine or freshwater organisms. 
"
The Commissioner of DACF shall monitor licensed facilities annually and if there are risks noted such as listed above the Commissioner shall notify DIFW and DMR"

(End )