SURRY — Public hearings on a proposed aquaculture lease in Morgan Bay finished with a six-hour meeting on June 18, but questions linger over how the Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR) judges aquaculture applications.
DMR added the June 18 meeting because the two previous hearings on the proposed four-acre oyster farm lasted deep into the night.
The proceedings have taken some twists and turns. One landowner, Jack Pirozzolo, filed a Freedom of Information Act request and a motion in Superior Court asking the court to remove DMR aquaculture administrator Diantha Robinson from the review because of a perceived conflict of interest. The court has yet to respond.
And in the course of the proceedings, it was revealed that lease applicant Joseph Porada has three other applications pending which, if approved, would swell the proposed operation to 12 acres.
Some local residents have spoken in favor of the project, while others have worried about the impact it might have on the local tourism industry. DMR spokesman Jeff Nichols said the public now has had an adequate chance to speak.
“At the close of the hearing that evening, the department offered to hold an additional hearing at the same time on June 19, if there were others who wished to testify. No one indicated that they wanted to testify,” Nichols wrote in an email.
But Nick Sichterman, a local landowner who rents a small camp overlooking Morgan Bay, isn’t satisfied with the process. He dislikes that local government has no control over an aquaculture project’s location. Under Maine law, aquaculture leases are not governed by local zoning. He and other critics are dismayed that DMR’s lease criteria don’t take into account a lease’s potential impact on existing land-based economies.
“The public is kept out of this process,” Sichterman said. “No town in the state of Maine can say no to an aquaculture lease, which is madness.”
Critics point to the fact that no aquaculture lease has ever been denied. Sichterman said the state lacks needed tools, such as ocean zoning or local control, to create a comprehensive approach to aquaculture.
“It’s all centered around a very narrowly-worded criteria for approving an aquaculture application, and those criteria were written by the aquaculture industry,” he claimed.
Nichols disputes critics’ claims that DMR has a conflict of interest, pointing to state statute that specifically restricts the department from promoting aquaculture. Also, in the emails released to the public through the FOIA request, it appears that Robinson tried to maintain impartiality by repeatedly demanding that Porada take her off an email list discussing the application.
A transcript of the proceedings will be typed up and released, and stakeholders will be given a chance to submit summaries before the department makes a final decision on the proposed lease. No timetable has been set for a final decision. Nichols reported that the department will change its procedures “to ensure the public sufficient opportunity to comment at our hearings during reasonable hours” at future proceedings.
If the lease is approved, it’s unlikely to go uncontested in court, stakeholders predict.