After four years, South Bristol lobsterman David Rice can finally store his 600 lobster traps on his commercial pier in Clark’s Cove.
At a Jan. 6 hearing at Maple Hill Farm in Hallowell, the Board of Environmental Protection (BEP) unanimously granted Rice’s appeal of special condition No. 5 – a stipulation in his permit prohibiting lobster trap storage on the pier.
Shortly before the vote, BEP Chair Sue Lessard spoke of her experiences with commercial fishermen during her four years as Vinalhaven’s Town Manager.
“Fishing is the way of living in that area,” Lessard said. “I can tell you if you told a fisherman that he couldn’t store traps on [his] dock… you might be bait.”
The Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) denied an earlier appeal, citing a hypothetical “permanent loss of habitat” as a result of the traps shading marine vegetation, including rockweed, under and around the pier.
Lobster trap storage “does not meet the definition of ‘water dependent use,'” DEP Project Manager Beth Callahan wrote in the order denying Rice’s appeal.
Rice appealed again, this time to BEP, a 10-member panel of citizen volunteers. According to its website, BEP, while part of DEP, “has decision-making authority independent of the [DEP] Commissioner.”
The Jan. 6 hearing began with a presentation by Rice’s permitting agent, Joe LeBlanc, President of LeBlanc Associates Inc., an Orr’s Island company specializing in the federal, state and local permit process for coastal structures, including commercial piers.
“The bottom line is, trap storage on a commercial dock is a major part of a fisherman’s operation,” LeBlanc said. “There’s nothing more water-dependent than a trap that spends 70 percent of its life in the water.”
“What good is a lobster trap if it can’t catch lobsters?” Rice asked.
Chester Rice, David Rice’s older brother, testified on his behalf. A fellow lobsterman with a commercial dock on the Damariscotta River, the elder Rice is also a former member of the House of Representatives and a current member of the South Bristol Board of Selectmen.
Chester Rice described South Bristol as a village of about 900 where most permanent residents are commercial fishermen. “I never have heard a word opposing lobster traps on a dock,” he said.
Chester Rice also questioned the logic of DEP statements regarding shading. During the primary storage period, from December to March, “Half the time, the seaweed’s covered with ice,” he said. “Certainly the sun doesn’t get to it much.”
Patrice McCarron, executive director of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association, denounced the state’s handling of Rice’s case. “The denial of trap storage on this dock has been a mistake from the beginning,” McCarron said. “It doesn’t pass the straight face test.”
“If there were environmental impacts, if there were [storage] alternatives, I wouldn’t be here,” McCarron said. “That’s not the case.”
Dirk Brunner, a neighbor to the pier site who, with his wife, Linda Brunner and another couple, John Rounds and Athar Carolyn Pavis-Rounds, has opposed the permitting of Rice’s pier, was alone in speaking against the appeal.
Brunner rehashed the state’s argument that the shade cast by the traps would harm diatoms (single-celled algae) “and other organisms” and suggested that Rice store his traps about two miles away in the yard of his Split Rock Road home.
After hearing from everyone in favor of and in opposition to the appeal, BEP asked state employees, including representatives of DEP and the Dept. of Marine Resources (DMR), to present their recommendations.
Callahan, the project manager who authored the denial of Rice’s earlier appeal, reversed her decision, citing recent DMR findings. (See “DMR: storage condition ‘a mistake’ in the Jan. 6 edition of The Lincoln County News). “The DEP now recommends that the board… grant Mr. Rice’s appeal,” Callahan said.
David Etnier, formerly a DMR Deputy Commissioner, refuted concerns about shading. “Rockweed is a very adaptable plant. It is very adaptable to different light conditions,” Etnier said. In addition to the pier and traps, large oak trees also shade the cove, he said.
BEP member M. Wing Goodale moved to “grant the applicant’s appeal and remove special condition No. 5” and several BEP members made statements in Rice’s favor before the unanimous vote.
“I’m glad that it’s settled and condition No. 5 is removed from the permit,” Rice said in a Jan. 11 phone interview. “I hope this is the end of it.”
“The traps are on the dock,” Rice said.
