AUGUSTA, Maine — March 20, 2013 — The Maine Department of Marine Resources is hoping to get approval from the Legislature to develop a statewide management plan for rockweed, kelp, Irish moss and other commercially harvested seaweed species. The proposal, however, also would eliminate the rockweed management plan for Cobscook Bay.
When it comes to regulating how seaweed is commercially harvested on Maine’s coast, legislators were urged Wednesday not to throw out the baby with the bathwater.
The baby in this case is a rockweed management plan for Cobscook Bay that was adopted in 2009.
The Maine Department of Marine Resources is hoping to get approval from the Legislature to develop a statewide management plan for rockweed, kelp, Irish moss and other commercially harvested seaweed species. The proposal, however, also would eliminate the rockweed management plan for Cobscook Bay.
The Legislature’s Marine Resources Committee held a public hearing Wednesday on the bill, LD 585, that would give DMR such approval. For nearly four hours, people supportive of DMR’s efforts and others more skeptical of the bill’s provisions testified about Maine’s seaweed industry and their perspectives on regulating seaweed harvesting.
Many facts were disputed during the hearing — such as whether lobster use rockweed as habitat and whether rockweed plants can live for centuries — but many who expressed reservations about the bill cited a section in it that would repeal the existing rockweed management plan for Cobscook Bay.
DMR Commissioner Patrick Keliher told the committee that language in the bill calls for repeal of the Cobscook Bay plan, but not until 90 days after the second regular session of the 126th Legislature ends in 2014. He said the department would present its statewide seaweed management plan to the committee no later than Jan. 31, 2014, and would implement that plan before the Cobscook Bay plan was repealed.
Read the full story at The Bangor Daily News