Maine Legislature 2018 - 1st wave of new marine fishery/marine environment bill proposals

Maine Marine Resources Committee. Bills coming before it  in 2018.

Three carry over bills from 2017  & 12 new "Legislative Requests" for 2018  that should turn into LD bills coming before Maine's Marine Resources Committee very soon.. 
Stay tuned for more Resolves. 

1. Carry Over Bills 
* LD 703 An Act To Address Marine Debris Resulting from Commercial Activities 
* LD 922. An Act Directing the Commissioner of Marine Resources To Investigate the Conditions of Sheepscot Pond Related to a Management Plan for Anadromous Fish Species
* LD 1519 An Act To Define the Intertidal Zone for the Management and Enforcement of Shellfish Conservation Ordinances 
DMR

2. Legislative Requests

ADMINISTRATIVE
LR: 2593 An Act To Correct Errors and Inconsistencies in Maine's Marine Resources Laws, Representative Kumiega of Deer Isle

SHRIMP
LR 2639 An Act To Authorize the Commissioner of Marine Resources To Limit the Number of Shrimp Licenses That May Be Used in Certain Seasons. Commissioner

VESSEL LAWS & VESSEL OPERATORS
LR: 2482 An Act To Amend the Laws Governing the Use of Personal Flotation Devices in Boats
LR: 2602 An Act To Increase the Safety of Nonmotorized Watercraft in the Ocean by Requiring Lights When Visibility Is Impaired
LR: 2466 Resolve, To Establish a Task Force To Investigate the High Rate of Addiction among Persons Who Fish Commercially
LR 2554 An Act To Amend the Law Regarding the Temporary Medical Allowance for Lobster and Crab Fishing License Holders

ANADROMOUS FISH
LR: 2518 An Act To Impose a 3-year Moratorium on Allowing Anadromous Fish Species in Sheepscot Pond in Palermo and To Study the Consequences of Allowing Anadromous Fish Species To Enter Sheepscot Pond, Representative Zeigler of Montville

OCEAN ACIDIFICATION
LR: 2626 Resolve, To Join the International Alliance To Combat Ocean Acidification

METALLIC MINING POLLUTION
LR: 2779 An Act To Include the Natural Resources Protection Act in the Maine Metallic
Mineral Mining Act

LR: 2779 An Act To Include the Natural Resources Protection Act in the Maine Metallic Mineral Mining Act.Ralph Chapman

LR: 2781 An Act To Include the Site Location of Development Laws in the Maine Metallic Mineral Mining Act. Ralph Chapman
LR: 2785 An Act To Limit Eligibility for a Metallic Mineral Mining Permit Chapman

Rockweed bill: Does it threaten Penobscot Bay fish restoration?

Stockton Harbor, Searsport, Maine

Synopsis: On March 24th  the Maine Legislature's Marine Resources Committee will  be asked  to approve LD 1830  which would set up an industry-over-friendly rockweed management plan. 

The plan  bars conservationists from conservation decisions about this important living habitat and by doing so threatens Penobscot Bay's now  recovering residential finfish populations. Critics will call for a fresh approach at the Monday legislative hearing.

Penobscot Bay was once home to thriving finfisheries, from flounder in nearly every muddy harbor to redfish in the depths, from alewives and eels making their way to and from fresh water, to resident cod and other groundfish moving with the seasons from shallows to shoals to deep waters and round again. Thanks to better state fishery management, stronger pollution controls and the undamming of much of Penobscot River, recovery prospects look bright,

But a bill coming before the Maine Legislature on Monday has serious flaws that threatens to literally pull the rug out from under Bay restoration efforts.

LD 1830 "An Act To Promote Rockweed Habitat Conservation through the Consideration of No-harvest Areas" would change how Maine's agencies look at rockweed, the ubiquitous dark green algae visible  at low tide along much of our shores.  

The bill is a follow up to legislation passed in the last session that directed the  Department of Marine Resources to convene a team of experts to  come up with a management plan for the long-lived algae   

At issue is the quality of the plan and recommendations that DMR submitted to the legislature March 18th. The unevenness of the report shows that DMR has a difficult job being both a conservation agency and a resource extraction agency.  DMR bent over backwards to develop a plan favoring  the seaweed extraction industry, and despite pressure to the contrary, giving harvesters a two to one majority over conservationists on the Rockweed planning team. As a result, though there is much good in the plan, its overemphasis of commercial harvest over conservation is a recipe for disaster.      

If LD 1830 is passed as written, the Department of Marine Resources will be working from a flawed playbook, and will gain authority to have the final say on the number, size and type of areas for rockweed conservation without needing either independent scientific evaluation of the protection sites or legislative approval

If instead, four simple words are added to the bill, this fatal flaw that otherwise cripples the management plan will be repaired and Maine will be proud owner of a Rockweed Management Plan second to none.

For regrettably, the Department of Marine Resources has already shown it is not to be entrusted with such a weighty task. Given the opportunity, DMR  declined to run its draft plan by either the public (owners of the rockweed the agency is so keen to ship off to Canada) nor invite the very conservation  and progressive rockweed harvest communities that could have  better shaped the plan.

No public hearing was held on the very important  very industry- skewed rockweed management plan that the agency falsely represented to the legislature as some sort of consensus document. Terrible policymaking, yet as almost every fisher will tell you, utterly in character.  

Commissioner Keliher should be ashamed of himself for acquiescing in this bill. Not only does it puts the profits of a handful of Canadian seaweed companies above the fisheries future of Maine, it foolishly fences out conservation experts from aiding state decisionmaking on the best locations  for setting out  no-cut zones, on setting the minimum distance form the holdfast.

We want our rockweed to grow seafood and seaducks here, not  create value added  products from it there.

Instead, again, industry knows best, and those who could rescue the agency from the debacle that it seems determined to stumble into are  being sidelined 

And if a young man from Monhegan can start up a lobster processing plant that is giving his Canadian competitors to run for the money, then surely  the proud fraternity of Maine seaweed  experts can shift their allegiance to processing the seaweed business here as well. 

The Canadians themselves don't even allow mechanized seaweed harvesters in their waters.  Why don't we follow their lead and make rockweed harvesting a sustainable hand harvest fishery here, too? 

While the  extractive seaweed industry hopes for  quick approval of the plan, Monday with no hard look at its flaws, rockweed partisans plan to dash those hopes.  

The Marine Resources Committee's success passing laws to conserve elvers has shown it can craft  legislation that combines strong conservation measures with fair access to the resource.

 Both fishermen and Mother Nature  are benefiting because the Committee took the time to immerse itself in the facts and opinions offered by all interested Mainers before making its decisions on glass eels.  

The committee should do the same with LD 1830.

The Marine Resources Committee will either fix it, deep six it, or  direct DMR to convene a fresh review panel - one that fairly represents all the rockweed interests, including the public, coastal parks and other public shores and academic research, when crafting a replacement to this flawed bill.

Having the industry devise its own plan was a mistake.The foxes want to eat the henhouse, not guard it.  

But rockweed is a critical piece of the puzzle in restoring finfisheries to Penobscot Bay.  Let's not sell it short.

Maine bill to let towns limit marine worm digging passes Marine committee with amendment.

LD 1452 An Act To Allow Municipalities with Shellfish Conservation Ordinances To Request Permission To Prohibit Marine Worm Harvesting

BDN photo.

"This bill allows a municipality with a shellfish conservation ordinance to apply to the Department of Marine Resources to request a prohibition on marine worm harvesting. It also makes it a civil violation to harvest marine worms from areas closed to the harvest and possession of marine worms."

WHAT PEOPLE WROTE 

Written testimony, in alphabetical order, pdf files

Arsenault, James	Dresden	(286 KB)
Coffin, Chad	Maine Clammers Assn.	(57 KB)
Couture, Darcie	Lead Scientist/Resource Access International, LLC	(87 KB)
Creamer, Pamela	Woolwich Shelfish Conservation Committee	(35 KB)
Devereaux, Daniel	Brunswick Marine Resource Officer and Harbor Master	(82 KB)
Gerzofsky, Stan	Maine State Legislature	(176 KB)
Gideon, Sara	Maine State Legislature (75 KB) Add caption
Harrington, Daniel	Woolwich	(143 KB)
Harrington, Philip	Woolwich	(697 KB)
Johnson, Fred	Steuben	(255 KB)
Keliher, Patrick	DMR	(95 KB)
Kent, Peter	Maine State Legislature	(124 KB)
Latti, Mark	Brunswick Marine Resources Committee	(1934 KB)
Latti, Mark	Resident	(98 KB)
Renwick, John	Birch Harbor

Is it your mudflat, my mudflat or our mudflat?

LD 852 An Act To Clarify the Public Ownership of Marine Organisms within the Intertidal Zone

Be it enacted by the People of the State of Maine as follows:

Sec. 1. 1 MRSA §3-A is enacted to read:

§ 3-A. Ownership of marine organisms in the intertidal zone

In addition to the living resources of the seas owned and controlled by the State under section 2, subsection 2-A, the State declares that it owns and controls the harvesting of seaweed, shellfish and other marine organisms on or under lands within the intertidal zone.

summary

This bill declares that the State owns and controls the harvesting of seaweed, shellfish and other marine organisms on or under lands within the intertidal zone.

Maine bill would disappear "vernal pools" from state law.

With the Maine legislature shifting into gear , it is time to track those bills, good and bad, that will this year go under the hammer of the committee chairs of the Marine Resources Committee, Natural Resources Committee, and Environment Committee.

Let's start with one that representative Ted Koffman introduced. (He was one of the people who pushed the incinerator legislation last round.)



The bill is LD 1952. "An Act To Streamline the Administration of Significant Vernal Pool
Habitat Protection."

Streamline indeed, for it proposes we delete the very mention of "Significant vernal pool habitat" from our state law defining "significant wildlife habitat".

Eliminating it from the list of habitat types that Maine DEP and Maine DIF&W must protect, leaves it vulnerable to the "development community" of landsharks prowling Maine's natural areas, seeking land to pounce upon and snap up, to later excrete as condos, big boxes and dumps upon our environment, leaves only the following two on that list:

(2) High and moderate value waterfowl and wading bird habitat, including
nesting and feeding areas; and
(3) Shorebird nesting, feeding and staging areas.

Those two are important for our feathered friends living in our wide open environments: shores and open shallows. The (1) that Koffman's bill would remove is likewise important, only for the forest in-dwelling animals, a completely different set of birds, amphibians, mammals, reptiles, invertebrates.

Why eliminate the pools?...does that mean that our vernal pools, those incredible pocket waterbodies that appear, disappear and reappear in the woods,the cycle of wet and dry providing a unique two-tone environment for forest amphibians to hatch, spend their childhoods, then "drybernate" (like hibernate in winter cold, only done in the heat season, when the pools temporarily dries up), does it means these habitats are so common, already so protected, that they needn't be protected at all? Or so extinct they need be considered no more?

Not hardly. Nor likely.

According to the state's bill summary, LD 1952
"...narrows the requirement for notification concerning significant
wildlife habitats from those listed in the Maine Revised Statutes, Title
38, section 480-B, subsection 10, paragraph B to those listed in section
480-B, subsection 10, paragraph B, subparagraphs (2) and (3), thereby
removing vernal pools from the operation of that notification statute."

Here's that statute. The bill proposes to snip Section1 from the law.
from http://janus.state.me.us/legis/statutes/38/title38sec480-B.html

B. Except for solely forest management activities, for which "significant
wildlife habitat" is as defined and mapped in accordance with section
480-I by the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, the following
areas that are defined by the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife
and are in conformance with criteria adopted by the Department of
Environmental Protection or are within any other protected natural
resource:

(1) Significant vernal pool habitat;
(2) High and moderate value waterfowl and wading bird habitat, including
nesting and feeding areas; and
(3) Shorebird nesting, feeding and staging areas.

Doesn't sound like a smart thing at all. Stay tuned.