“The water would be “sterilized.” Finfish eggs, shellfish spat, and lobster larvae are smaller than the proposed one-inch outer-mesh filtration. All would be sterilized or killed. Considering it takes a lobster seven years to reach harvestable size, what would this mean for our fisheries on a multi-generational level?“

The opposition to Kingfish in the Moosabec community is strong and growing. A public-opinion letter that highlights the concerns of many with a stake in Chandler Bay is adding signatures every day with more than 150 signing on at this moment. I signed the letter because I love my home and my job. I love getting up at the crack of dawn and seeing what the sea has brought me and my loved ones.

What could happen to those jobs and the revenue from commercial fisheries if Kingfish gets permission to come to our community? First, there has been no cost-benefit analysis to address the question and the related concerns. One major concern is the potential impact on our commercially valuable marine. Kingfish is proposing to use 28 million gallons of intake water. It’s a significant amount of water and what will be sucked in with is. At a public meeting in January, Kingfish admitted that the facility would kill all marine animals that were brought in with the water. The water would be “sterilized.” Finfish eggs, shellfish spat, and lobster larvae are smaller than the proposed one-inch outer mesh filtration. All would be sterilized or killed. Considering that it takes a lobster seven years to reach harvestable size, what would this mean for our fisheries on a multi-generational level?

Second, we don’t really know how the discharge from Kingfish will impact the water. We know that the proposal is substantially greater than what the entire city of Portland discharges on a daily basis. Portland discharges 975 pounds of nitrogen, Kingfish is proposing 1580 pounds of nitrogen daily. Another concern is how Kingfish would affect the receiving water’s pH levels. Kingfish is proposing to discharge at a pH of 6-9. The background pH is 8.

Even small changes in pH can have drastic impacts on commercially valuable marine life. Kingfish has openly admitted that the proposed discharge would acidify the water. Acidification can degrade minerals that lobsters and shellfish need to build shells. Maine’s commercial fisheries are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of acidification: “In 2015, the first nationwide study showing the vulnerability of the $1 billion U.S. shellfish industry to ocean acidification revealed a number of hotspots: the Pacific Northwest, Long Island Sound, Narragansett Bay, Chesapeake Bay, the Gulf of Mexico, and areas off Maine and Massachusetts (NOAA).”

Kingfish managed to get its discharge permit provisionally with the Department of Economic and Community Development (DECD). It was interesting that DECD wrote a letter of support that indicated it was okay to degrade the water because of the economic challenges facing Washington County. I would argue that the short-term approach and lack of protection of our oceans in the long term will cost us much more than this foreign company will ever give to the state of Maine. Kingfish is not here to “help” Washington County – Kingfish is here to make money.

And what about the indirect economic impacts of commercial fisheries? For example, the Maine tourism industry relies on a robust working waterfront. The lobster industry and the tourism industry are inextricably linked. According to Tom Peaco, the executive director of the Penobscot Regional Chamber of Commerce, “The Maine tourism office understands this connections well…Not an issue goes by without an article referencing Maine’s commercial fisheries – the people, the harbors, the boats, and the traditions. The Coast of Maine sells, and a recognized part of that allure is the lobster fishery.”

At the end of the day, Kingfish only started operation in the Netherlands in 2018, and the Maine proposal is four times bigger. Kingfish has not operated at the scale it is proposing for Maine according to their own spokesperson. Considering this uncertainty and the lack of a costs-benefits analysis, do you want our home and the water that sustains us to be a science experiment for massive industrial aquaculture?

Colon Alley
March 2, 2022
Machias Valley News Observer