Local Group invites Salmon Farm Developer to Engage in “Real Community Conversation”
PROSPECT HARBOR, Maine – A local citizens’ group today delivered a letter to American Aquafarms inviting the company to participate in an open meeting to hear area residents ’concerns about the company’s proposal to build a massive industrial salmon farm in Frenchman Bay next to Acadia National Park.
In their letter, Friends of Schoodic Peninsula called out the company for pledging months ago to meet with area residents but instead releasing a video recently of CEO Keith Decker and project manager Tom Brennan being interviewed by the company’s lawyer and calling it a “community
conversation.”
The group told Decker in its letter that “these slickly produced, carefully scripted videos, filmed with your lawyer in Portland, are hardly what anyone around here would call a conversation, and they certainly haven’t involved our community. They are no substitute for a genuine, honest, free-flowing dialogue with local residents, something your company has yet to engage in more than a year after announcing your project.”
Friends of Schoodic Peninsula co-founders Jacqueline Weaver, Colleen Wallace and Cathy Johnson said the meeting can happen any time within the next 90 days – either in person with appropriate COVID safety protocols in place or online and moderated by an independent party. In the past, American Aquafarms has held state-mandated Zoom sessions where they refused to show who from the public was attending and their lawyers decided who could ask questions.
The group told Decker in their letter that the company’s “response to this invitation will tell us if you are serious about engaging in a real community conversation.”
In addition to two 60-acre sites pen sites in Frenchman Bay, the proposed development would include a processing plant, hatchery, and sludge disposal operation on 11-acres in the village of Prospect Harbor, the site of a former sardine cannery and more recently a lobster processing
facility.
Friends of Schoodic Peninsula is part of the Frenchman Bay United coalition (www.frenchmanbayunited.org) that is leading the opposition to the proposed salmon farm.
