“A bill (LD 2003) is now before the Maine Legislature to decriminalize the taking of seaweed (mostly rockweed) from anywhere along Maine’s shores with or without the owner’s permission.” Letter by Alan Moldawer, Lamoine.
January 6, 2024
https://www.ellsworthamerican.com/opinion/letters_to_editor/up-for-grabs/article_7443289e-abea-11ee-85e1-4be187616a59.html
Dear Editor:
A bill (LD 2003) is now before the Maine Legislature to decriminalize the taking of seaweed (mostly rockweed) from anywhere along Maine’s shores with or without the owner’s permission. If passed, the law would sidestep the Maine Supreme Court’s 2019 unanimous ruling that the longstanding “public trust right” of all Mainers to take fish, shellfish or birds from the intertidal zone doesn’t include seaweed exposed at low tide without the permission of the shoreland property owner.
Seaweed, said the Court, is obviously not a fish, shellfish or bird. Not so obvious to the bill’s sponsor, a senator from Aroostook County, who seeks to define seaweed harvesting as “fishing.” Like calling an Aroostook potato a fish.
As a Mainer and shoreland owner for most of my life, I’ve seen the steady degradation of our shores and waters in the name of profit (some of which must be respected). But there is less and less life remaining. First the fish, then most bottom life is gone. Clamming is pretty much done in most places. Even Acadian Seaplants claims on its Maine website that rockweed harvesting is “one of the few remaining open fisheries in Maine.“
Rockweed is, indeed, an increasing industry for a few harvesters and dealers who cut it and send it out of state to be made into fertilizer and other consumer products. It is responsible, however, for the deforestation of maturing rockweed that, if not torn from its holdfast and killed, grows slowly back at the rate of a few inches a year, thereby contributing to the depletion of an essential habitat and food source for what remains living in Maine’s waters. If it were true that harvested rockweed grows all back in a year (as some claim), why not simply farm it instead of taking everyone else’s? Want to know what else is absurd, ask who cuts what or where in Maine. DMR won’t disclose that, let alone patrol it. They say, “Call Marine Patrol.” Not even that remedy will exist any longer if this bill passes. Maine’s seaweed, anywhere along Maine’s shores, will be up grabs.
Alan Moldawer
Lamoine