Tag Archives: Maine Aquaculture Co-op
Large Scale Fin-Fish and Aquatic Farms Could Hamper Maine Aquaculture Industry
As proposed, the Nordic Aquafarms project would raise more than 72 million pounds of salmon annually on its 56–acre campus in Belfast, Maine. The site would utilize about 5,200 gallons of water per minute, a combination of both saltwater taken from the nearby Gulf of Maine and freshwater obtained from groundwater wells, city-owned aquifers and reservoirs. The permit application indicates the facility would discharge more than 7 million gallons of filtered wastewater into the Belfast Bay each day. It’s that last figure that concerns many local residents. Marsden Brewer is a commercial fisherman and scallop farmer who also serves as president of the Maine Aquaculture Co-op. Brewer was one of more than a dozen fishermen and fish farmers who spoke out against the Nordic project at a statewide hearing this spring. “After years of misuse, we’re finally starting to see a lot of good things happening in this bay,” Brewer says. >click to read< 09:56
Maine: Scallop farm first of its kind in local waters
Just about one year after father-and-son fishermen Marsden and Bob Brewer returned from Japan, where they learned new scallop-farming techniques firsthand, Bob Brewer was granted a 3.23 acre experimental aquaculture lease southwest of Andrews Island. It is the first scallop farm of its kind in Penobscot Bay. The Brewers can grow up to 200,000 Atlantic sea scallops using lantern nets, where mesh nets, each 10 floors deep, hang from a 600-foot longline. “It’s a big circular tube with floors,” Bob Brewer said. “They’re used in Japan. That’s where we learned how to do it.” click here to read the story 10:42
