Boothbay Region Land Trust held a talk about aquaculture this past Sunday, Aug. 20 at the trust’s new acquisition, the Oak Point Farm. Jon Lewis of the Department of Marine Resources was the guest speaker.

Before introducing Lewis to the audience, Tracey Hall, BRLT’s environmental educator, announced that the farm is going to be the Trust’s new headquarters.

“We will be moving out here (in) September or October and have the official grand opening next summer for this preserve,” said Hall. “It’s not officially open yet, but you might have seen the sign saying that you’re welcome to explore and check it out.”

Hall then introduced Lewis as the Director of the Division of Aquaculture at the DMR.

Lewis said he grew up on the Jersey shore, spent four years in the U.S. Air Force, got degrees at the University of Alaska, and was a wildlife biologist for 15 years. “And today is coincidentally my 20th year (work) anniversary.”

“My work at DMR sometimes has taken me to places where I say, ‘I cannot believe I’m getting paid for doing this,’” Lewis said as he brought up a PowerPoint slide with a picture of him swimming with seals. “And other times it feels a little bit more like work,” he continued, changing slides to a picture of him swimming in broken ice.

Lewis then started giving some statistical background on the state of the marine economy. Ninety percent of seafood in the U.S. is imported, with only two percent of it being inspected, and nearly 60 percent is farmed. According to statistics in 2011, almost $11 billion of the nation’s trade deficit is attributed to the seafood industry.

“My intent today is to give you a broad overview of aquaculture and where we are in the State of Maine,” said Lewis. “Remember the days we had codfish, we had shrimp, we had urchins, we had flatfish, we had groundfish, we had salmon in the rivers? We don’t have those anymore. We are dealing with remnants.”

This is why aquaculture farming is beginning to catch on in Maine.

Lewis went over the main shellfish species raised in Maine — oysters, clams, mussels, urchins and scallops. He talked about the science and mechanics of oyster and mussel farming, and salmon farming, as well as everything the DMR does to keep track of ecological changes and trends.

Lewis said the Division of Aquaculture has three different ways to get involved in aquaculture farming. The first is called a limited purpose license — renewable every year — and is 400 square feet of water space. The second is an experimental lease — good for three years, but nonrenewable — and covers four acres. The third is a standard lease — for up to 20 years— and covers 100 acres.

A handful of criteria are considered before granting licenses or leases. Lewis also talked about two touchy areas in which the DMR will not and cannot interfere— aesthetics and tax base.

“Some people consider a bait boat, lobster boat right on the coast of Maine is the most beautiful thing in the world,” said Lewis. “Others think it should be bright red with varnish and some flags on it. I frequently ask people ‘is this what you want?’ Evaluating aesthetics? I do not have a master’s in fine arts … Aesthetics is off the table — we cannot take that on.”

Lewis said many who see an aesthetic issue anticipate property values decreasing with farms near their private lands. However, so long as applicants meet the criteria for a license or lease, the tax base cannot even be considered as a factor.

“There (are people) just philosophically opposed,” said Lewis. “You are taking a public resource and you are privatizing it for an individual’s gain and that’s not right. Aquaculture is a big sociological departure from what we are used to.”

But most people dipping into aquaculture seem to understand the concerns outside of the DMR’s criteria.

“We’ve got aquaculturists who are great neighbors and we’ve got aquaculturists who are total jerks,” said Lewis. “Trying to sort that out and mediate things can be an interesting sociological experiment.”

Lewis said he is meeting with the Joint Economic Development Committee. He said that despite waters belonging to the state, local governments do get input concerning what the community may feel is acceptable.