Most public hearings can cure insomnia, but the proceedings surrounding a proposed oyster farm near Trenton are keeping people up at night.
The hearings for a lease on a proposed 50-acre Goose Cove oyster farm have lasted three nights, with proceedings going into the early morning two of those nights. And the Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR) is planning a fourth night of testimony, as public interest in the project grows.
“I’ve never seen one go on for this long,” said Sally Mills, an attorney representing the Friends of Goose Cove Bay, a group with concerns about the project. “It may have set a record.”
The aquaculture project proposed by Warren Pettegrow under the company name Acadia Sea Farms would use up to 50 acres of the bay. The project would start small, but eventually could utilize up to 5000 cages to grow American and European Flat oysters on the bay floor. The cages would be attached to a fleet of floats that would be visible on the surface of the bay. Acadia Sea Farms is asking the DMR for a ten-year lease to pursue the project.
Pettegrow, a Trenton lobster pound owner, is the only owner listed on the DMR application. He did not respond to multiple interview requests for this story.
DMR aquaculture hearings officer Diantha Robinson described the hearings as something similar to a court proceeding. Witnesses are sworn in and provide testimony that can be cross-examined. According to participants, Acadia Sea Farms presented its case for the bulk of the three nights of the hearings, fielding challenges along the way. Robinson said the length of the proceedings is unusual, but that the process is going along smoothly.
“In my opinion, this is exactly what this process is for,” Robinson said.
Two conservation groups, Friends of Blue Hill Bay and the newly-formed Friends of Goose Cove Bay, oppose the project, saying it will negatively impact the health of the bay. Friends of Blue Hill Bay have opposed some aquaculture projects in the past and have lobbied for tougher requirements in the Maine state legislature for judging potential aquaculture requirements.
Don Eley, Friends of Blue Hill Bay president, says his group isn’t opposed to aquaculture, but objects to the state’s process for greenlighting aquaculture projects. Eley believes the DMR uses weak and out-of-date-standards for judging projects. This leaves both the environment and aquaculture entrepreneurs vulnerable, he said.
The criteria for judging the environmental impact of such projects are “all subjective litmus tests,” Eley said. “The entire coast of Maine is open and it’s kind of a free-for-all.”
The state criteria for aquaculture applications were updated in 2003 and in 2006, according to Robinson.
Attorney Mills says her group is worried about both the environmental impact and the possibility that the 50 acres of the bay could become a floating industrial zone. This could be a shock to waterfront homeowners, she said.
“It’s an extension of people’s backyards,” Mills said.
During the course of the hearings, an abutting landowner and the manager of the Trenton airport both worried that the project could interfere with the safety of airplane flights, according to published reports. They argued that the project was in the flight path of the airport and birds attracted to the cages might collide with planes.
But Acadia Sea Farms attorney Doug Chapman said in an interview that those raising flight safety concerns are misreading federal aviation regulations meant to judge fish aquaculture sites, not oyster projects. Chapman believes the birds won’t hang around the cages for long because it won’t be worth their time.
“They reality is cormorants and ducks can’t get at them,” he said.
Chapman, listed as a clerk for Acadia Sea Farms, said Pettegrow has done due diligence to pick the site for his oyster project and that aquaculture experts have signed off on the project.
“This is not a fly-by-night operation,” Chapman said.
Maine Aquaculture Association executive director Sebastian Belle said Pettegrow has consulted with the association several times. Belle emphasized that there are successful aquaculture projects in Maine twice the size as the one proposed by Pettegrow.
While Belle did not attend the first three nights of proceedings, he voiced his displeasure of the project’s critics. In an interview, he said Mills is “looking for everything she can to scare people” and that the Friends of Blue Hill Bay seem to want to stop all aquaculture in Maine. He believes the argument against the project is really a class conflict being fermented by “the people have the luxury not to make their living on the water”.
“There’s somebody who is very carefully orchestrating an opposition campaign and is being paid very well for it,” he said.
Attempts to contact two landowners who are formally contesting the proposal, Conrad Hoffman and Sheree Castonguay, were unsuccessful.
A fourth public hearing probably will take place in late October or sometime in November. There’s no guarantee it will be the last one. Once public hearings are complete, the DMR typically hands down a decision on a lease in about four months, Robinson said.
Craig Idlebrook is a freelance writer living in Somerville, Mass.