To: Committee on Marine Resources
From: Matt Cannon, State Energy and Conservation Director, Sierra Club Maine
Date: March 16th, 2023
Re: Testimony in Support of LD 586: An Act To Protect Maine Fisheries from the Effects of Industrial Recirculating Aquaculture Systems
Senator Reny, Representative Hepler, and members of the Committee on Marine Resources, I am testifying on behalf of Sierra Club Maine, representing over 22,000 supporters and members statewide. Founded in 1892, Sierra Club is one of our nation’s oldest and largest environmental organizations. We work diligently to amplify the power of our 3.8 million members nation-wide as we work towards combating climate change and promoting a just and sustainable economy. To that end, we urge you to vote ‘ought to pass’ (with some changes) on LD 586; An Act to Protect Maine Fisheries from the Effects of Industrial Recirculating Aquaculture Systems (RAS).
Sierra Club’s mission is to explore, enjoy and protect the planet. Our members throughout the state are deeply committed to protecting our environment in Maine and supporting local communities. With an increasing number of proposals for land-based finfish operations in our members’ communities, it is clear both the public and industry need more regulatory certainty around degradation of our waterways. As a grassroots organization focused on the needs of local communities, our Chapter has an organized team of over 15 volunteers who are working exclusively on aquaculture policy who support LD 586 and want to see it become stronger. While we recognize that these facilities can be job creators and economic drivers, we must ensure that the best available technology is used and that we are not degrading our waterways.
Aquaculture in general, is a tremendous opportunity for the State of Maine. There are amazingly hard-working Mainers in this diverse industry that hold critical economic value across the state. Land-based finfish operations and proposals (e.g. Kingfish in Jonesport or Nordic in Belfast) are newer to the State and have less defined regulations. As currently proposed, these finfish projects are partial ‘Recirculating Aquaculture Systems,’ or ‘RAS’; true closed recirculating systems recycle water/nutrients and do not discharge partially treated waste on this scale.
Specifically, finfish operations have been proposed that will discharge millions of gallons of partially treated waste into our waterways (this also includes net pens). When technology exists and is commercially available to ensure zero effluent, the state should adopt these best practicable technologies into their rules to require them be used or analyzed, but they have not.
While these projects provide economic opportunity, the Gulf of Maine is under tremendous pressure from climate change, invasive species, and development along the coast. We should be using the precautionary principle with the future of our waters, and LD 586 would help ensure we can balance the various pressures on our oceans without creating extra burden on resources and the environment.
Our existing regulations have not caught up with the development process, threatening to degrade our environment and harm our coastal communities and wildlife if left unchecked. Lack of clarity from regulators causes market uncertainty. A public rulemaking process as called for in LD 586 would help create that certainty.
Furthermore, we are concerned the state may not have the capacity or technical ability to adequately monitor the cumulative impacts of these projects on critical habitats. Although the state is undertaking vegetation mapping (e.g. eelgrass) through DEP, modeling for cumulative impacts is challenging for an understaffed/under-resourced Department. Monitoring implementation and permits on these interagency issues takes coordination across agencies. From our research, we are concerned that there is not capacity for coordination or enough public engagement at this time, and hope that LD 586 or future budgets can help alleviate this.
Industry should be doing all they can to not degrade our natural resources, and while they might claim to be, the public and other experts should be more involved in the process as we are the stewards of our public resources.
The Legislature transitioned aquaculture licenses to DMR from DACF under LD 1763 (129th). Whatever the Legislature decides moving forward, we would like to support DMR as much as possible to ensure adequate scrutiny to these projects, as we know their department, like others, are still understaffed for the amount of work we ask them to do. It is our hope that rulemaking would address these issues, and suggest a portion of rulemaking include an advisory board specifically focused on best available technologies and food sources. As the DEP has a citizen’s Board of Environmental Protection, there is nothing similar with DMR, and at the very least, this new industry and DMR could benefit from an advisory/technical committee.
Passing this bill would lead to an important rulemaking process at DMR and would ensure the opportunity to determine how we best protect our natural resources and support this important economic driver, creating more market certainty.
However, we believe the bill language needs more guardrails and specifics to be a fruitful process. In particular, we have assembled an appendix of specifics to include in this bill, and we are happy to discuss more before and/or at the work session. We urge you to vote ‘ought to pass’ on LD 586, with the submitted changes.
Thank you for your time and consideration, and as mentioned I am available for questions or to attend the work session. I encourage the committee to take advantage of the knowledge and expertise of the numerous community leaders and experts who are here today and hope they will be invited to contribute to the work session if appropriate.
Sincerely,
Matt Cannon
State Energy and Conservation Director
Sierra Club Maine
Appendix of Changes:
Specific items we would like to see, either changed in this L.D. 586 and/or in rulemaking:
- Change first definition to "All Commercial and Industrial Recirculating aquaculture operations"
- Include Fish Hatcheries exemption: "Fish Hatcheries owned and operated by the State or any other entity; for any non-commercial purposes, any restoration-only purposes, or any experimental purposes producing less than 50 pounds of livestock, shall be exempt";
- In order to ensure stricter regulations regarding water quality, clarifying within L.D. 586 that RAS not degrade quality, even within a water class;
- Add standards and limits on air quality, to incentivize renewable energy and ensure that the most efficient technology that is commercially viable is used;
- Define “adverse impacts” so that impacts to the environment can be accurately evaluated;
- Add section to bill on utilizing zero effluent - "All commercial recirculating aquaculture operations must implement a practice resulting in zero effluent discharge from the operation to either surface or ground waters of the State regardless of any pre-existing discharge permits that may be held by prior users at the location or previous discharge permits held by the operator.";
- Add section to bill on ensuring long-term monitoring, cumulative impacts, and the need for more coordination between DMR/DEP;
- Based on industry testimony, maybe modify the ‘wild marine organisms’ phrase from the feed source section. But, add in lab verification of discharge from facility on regular basis paid for by company;
- Require a performance bond and/or insurance to cover the cost of correcting any failures and of decommissioning any covered facility;
- Add section on Data transparency: At a minimum ALL of the licensed entities to report out not just "summaries" but must make public the "raw data";
- Fees: Add section to explore applicants paying into program, particularly for monitoring:
- For example: 1. The applicant shall pay an application fee equal to 0.1 percent of the total project budget to offset the department’s costs of permitting and monitoring the facility. The department will track its costs of processing the permit. Any portion of the fee not required for permitting shall be used to cover the cost of monitoring performance standards for a 5-year period, with the remainder returned to the company.
Other Changes to Existing Law:
- To ensure adequate data is collected for analyzing RAS proposals: Change ‘may’ to ‘shall’ in the Aquaculture Monitoring Program and Data Collection in Title 12, §6077 (https://legislature.maine.gov/statutes/12/title12sec6077.html):
- 2. Data requirements. The commissioner may shall collect information in site-specific categories, including, but not limited to, those listed in this subsection, to allow effective enforcement of all laws pertaining to finfish aquaculture at individual facilities: ..."
- 3. Data collection: The commissioner may shall require persons holding licenses related to finfish aquaculture under this Title to report information in the categories listed in subsection 2.
- In order to ensure environmental standards are prioritized, remove economic exemptions from MRS Title 38, §414-A, Conditions of Licenses in regards to all Land-Based Aquaculture (https://www.mainelegislature.org/legis/statutes/38/title38sec414-A.html):
- 1. Generally. The department may issue a license for the discharge of any pollutants only if it finds that:
- …C. The discharge either by itself or in combination with other discharges will not lower the existing quality of any body of water.[remainder deleted]…
- 1. Generally. The department may issue a license for the discharge of any pollutants only if it finds that: