A Letter From Eastport
Bill Lamb' photo essay on some already established fish pens.

To better understand Jorn Vad's proposals for the Scott and Pickering Islands net pen aquaculture leases sites, Carol Bratley and I spent August 30th driving to and around Machias and Eastport, Maine to see some operating sites. Our visit was most informative. However, since this was our first look at aquaculture operations, we are not equipped to interpret everything we saw. 

First, we picked up an excellent map of the area in Eastport at the Quoddy Maritime Museum/Information Center, located in the downtown on Water Street.  There we were told of several good locations for viewing fish pens.  The following are pictures and notes from our observations of several fish pens.

VIEW FROM THE CORNER OF COUNTY ROAD AND HIGH STREET, EASTPORT:

 

 

 

 

 



Twelve square pen system with walkways similar to Vad fourteen pen proposals. There is a small wood shed on a float near the middle and a service boat tied to the floats out of view to the right. Feed silos and equipment are on the adjacent land. An old industrial building is further to the right. Two workers appeared to be feeding the fish using portable equipment. Fish were jumping in all the pens. Small, three foot high navigation lights appear to be located at each corner of the pen platform. No noise or smell was observed from the head of the road where this photo was taken. There is a lightly settled residential part of Eastport with houses located behind and up the hill from where this photo was taken.

CIRCULAR PENS AND PROCESSING PLANT, EASTPORT:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


View from Shackford Head State Park looking east over Eastport to Campobello Island. The Heritage Salmon processing plant is to the left in the middleground. A port facility is to the right. A strong dead meat odor appeared downwind of the plant along a narrow area. Was this from the plant? Note proximity of pens and plant. Workers access the pens from the plant site. We observed a tug pushing a square pen structure with floats at the end of a work shift. Was this done for maintenance purposes? We did not observe any fish in these pens.

INTERTIDAL ZONE OPPOSITE PENS SHOWN ABOVE:

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

 


View from Shackford Head State Park. Green vegetation in intertidal zone is typical of the Cobscook Bay areas we saw. This, we understand, is caused by large quantities of nitrogen in the water, in spite of the huge tides in the bays.

VIEW OF 20 PENS, COBSCOOK BAY:

View from Shackford Head State Park looking southwest. Note sparsely populated farm and wooded areas across the Cobscook Bay Channel. Two other pen sites are visible near the opposite North Lubec shore. Note three foot diameter buoys anchoring the pens. These pens seemed to contain fish.

DETAIL VIEW OF FEED BARGE WITH CIRCULAR PENS, COBSCOOK BAY:


View of pen site looking west with North Lubec shoreline in the distance. As we walked around the Shackford Head trail, we heard a loud and intrusive industrial humming noise before we could see its source. The feed barge, above, is the source. Blowers push batches of feed to each of the pens through the 3" diameter plastic piping floating on the water. There is a repetitive whooshing sound as the air pushes the feed pellets until they land, like hail, on the water in each pen. The blowers are powered by a loud engine.  No workers were observed. Jumping fish were abundant. 
The bordering land uses consist of an airport, the Technical College "Boat School", and the State Park, all non-residential. This feeding system appears to be the centralized system referred to in the Vad proposals as the first option.
PROCESSING PLANT, BUCKS HARBOR, MACHIAS BAY:


This plant, owned by Atlantic Salmon of Maine flies four flags outside its entrance: US, State of Maine, Canada, and Norway. The parking lot accommodates about 40 cars. A fish landing pier is located on site.

A fish processing smell was observed adjacent to the service area shown above.  The smell did not seem to carry very far. Up the road there are offices and what appears to be a maintenance facility for the company.

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS:
The Passamaquoddy Bay, Cobscook Bay, Machias Bay, Eastport areas are very beautiful. Eastport is proud of its aquaculture and sees it as an economic benefit with jobs appropriate for low skilled labor. Downtown storefronts reveal many vacancies. We were told, however, that some of the salmon processing is done across the channel in New Brunswick, Canada, where the salmon could recently be bought for US$2.25 per pound. We were also told that infectious salmon anemia is a problem that has the industry concerned and that the disease is transmitted from pen to pen by pollock drawn to the pens by the excess food.  Harvesting has been
accelerated to avoid the anemia problem. Note that the pens are usually set near sparsely populated shore frontage, often forested or agricultural land with few residences. The processing plants, however, are typically located near settled villages. The pen sites we saw are located approximately one mile apart along the shoreline. We do not know whether any of the pens are using the lift up system for control of morts and waste. Mr. Vad's proposed alternative work schedule describes shift work with workers living on a feeding/work barge for several days at a time.  None of the pens sites we saw appears to have anyone living on it.
VIEW FROM LDI TO SCOTT ISLAND:


Back home with schooner tacking out of the channel between Scott Island and LDI. Channel will be partially obstructed if Vad's Scott Island pens are built. Eaton Island, behind Scott, and Deer Isle are in the distance.


Bill Lamb
5 September 2001