MAINE PUBLIC • March 10, 2021
A Norwegian investor this month filed applications to establish and operate two 60-acre salmon farms in Frenchman Bay — a proposal that is already drawing fire from local seafood harvesters and landowners. Mikael Roenes says his American Aquafarms company would operate from a former sardine cannery in Gouldsboro, across the bay from Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park. The goal would be to grow as much as 66 million pounds of salmon annually in so-called “closed pens” in the middle of the bay. Sarah Redmond, who runs Springtide Seaweed, the nation’s first organically certified kelp farm, says Maine’s rising number of small-scale aquaculture farms holds promise for substantial economic growth that doesn’t overextend ocean ecosystems. Industrial-scale farms, she says, threaten that future.