Maine’s highest court on Tuesday denied a second appeal of a state decision to grant a roughly 20-acre aquaculture lease in the waters off Bar Harbor to a Trenton-based mussel grower.
The decision comes almost seven years after Acadia Aqua Farms, which does business as Hollander and De Koning, first applied to lease about 40 acres in Eastern Bay to grow blue mussels. It also leases waters in Deer Isle, Blue Hill Bay and Frenchman Bay.
The Bar Harbor proposal was met with organized opposition from residents and waterfront landowners. Numerous other aquaculture proposals have driven controversy along the coast, and in some cases been derailed, as Maine’s aquaculture industry grows along with tension over uses of the water.
In this case, in addition to procedural objections, opponents raised concerns about noise from harvesting equipment and how it could affect animal research at MDI Biological Laboratory on the shore. They also argued harvesting equipment contained toxins that would be discharged into the bay.
Organized as the Friends of Eastern Bay, the group twice appealed the Maine Department of Marine Resources’ eventual 2024 decision to grant a reduced lease at less than half the original size with additional conditions around noise and visibility.
The group has also opposed American Aquafarms’ former plans to raise millions of pounds of salmon in Frenchman Bay, citing alarm about increasing numbers of aquaculture lease proposals that members felt were too large without a comprehensive state plan to manage their effects.
“We are working together to sustain livelihoods for our local fishermen, to support recreational activities and keep navigational channels clear of obstructions, and preserve the essence of Maine’s character,” the friends group website reads.
Acadia Aqua Farms applied in 2019 for a 20-year lease of about 48 acres in the bay, about a thousand feet from shore southwest of Googins Ledge in Bar Harbor, according to background in Tuesday’s decision.
The proposal included raising blue mussels with a floating pipe system at the surface with hanging nets in the water column collecting mussel seed. Machinery with a brushing mechanism would be lowered over the nets to remove the seed, pumping it into a 74-foot vessel for transport using a hydraulic system.
The harvester would be used for up to three weeks between May and October, and otherwise stored on a 20-by-20-foot floating raft on a permanent mooring in season.
At a two-day hearing in March 2022, opponents given intervenor status — the friends group and Alynn and Frances Seymour, representing waterfront landowners — submitted more than 80 exhibits and called lab employees to testify about potential noise impacts on its research. Some of the lab’s work involves animals and instruments that are sensitive to sound, according to the decision.
In October 2024, the department granted a reduced lease with conditions including harvester upgrades and addition of a muffler, storage of power washing equipment inside the ship’s hull and painting of all structures in the site black, gray, green or blue. Lobstering was also to be allowed within the lease boundaries.
The friends group appealed in Kennebec County Superior Court, where the decision was upheld last June. Another appeal brought the issue to the Maine Supreme Court.
The group made three main arguments. The supreme court disagreed with each one Tuesday.
First, the friends said the department’s commissioner went beyond his lease-granting authority because of the storage raft, which they argued was not used for aquaculture. They also said the project needed approval from the Maine Department of Environmental Protection and the Bureau of Parks and Lands.
The court found the department did have authority under state law and that the raft is a key part of the planned aquaculture operation that meets state and department requirements.
“The contention that the raft is not part of Acadia’s aquacultural operation because it merely ‘warehouse[s] unused equipment’ is contrary not only to the record but also to common sense,” a footnote in the decision said. “It is tantamount to suggesting that a barn housing farm equipment that is not in use is not part of a farming operation.”
Aquaculture projects are also exempted from requirements that would involve the DEP and the Bureau of Parks and Lands, the court found.
Second, the friends argued the department was wrong that the project wouldn’t cause unreasonable impacts or noise.
But state law and department rules don’t set decibel or vibration levels, the decision said, instead requiring applicants to take “all reasonable measures” to manage them, which it found Acadia did.
“The Commissioner considered the testimony and evidence about potential noise impacts,” the decision said, describing the arguments as mostly speculative. “…He simply found it unconvincing.”
The lab is 1,590 feet from the lease boundary and commercial vessels pass it, and staff use motorized vessels at the lab’s own dock, the decision said. It uses motorized equipment to maintain grounds and did not soundproof or take sound readings to find out effects on its own animals during a renovation, according to the court.
Third, opponents argued the proposal should have been considered as a “discharge application” needing DEP permitting because harvesting equipment could contain PFAS chemicals that would enter the bay through power washing.
But there’s no evidence proving that, and the DEP was notified of the application but didn’t request more information, the court said.
The group also cited changes in federal regulations around PFAS as a reason to reopen the case, to which the court pointed again to a lack of evidence of the chemicals in the equipment.
Stacey Caulk of Portland-based Drummond Woodsum, who represented the friends group, did not return a request for comment Tuesday. The Maine Attorney General’s Office, which represented the Department of Marine Resources, said it had no comment. Patrick Lyons of Ellsworth-based Viridian Law, who represented Acadia Aqua Farms, was unavailable.
