A Guardian Where Land Meets Sea.

CLF IN MAINE IS...

Protecting Coastal Areas

CLF successfully challenged a plan to expand an aircraft parking tot at the Owl's Head Airport, because it would have jeopardized ground water and the nearby Weskeag River. The plan included no provisions for environmental protection. Working with focal residents and an oyster aquaculturist, we forced the airport to include engineering measures for controlling water pollution, and to increase its capacity for dealing with hazardous materials.

On Snows Point, in St. George, we challenged plans for a residential subdivision that threatened critical habitat for migrating wading birds and shorebirds. We persuaded the town planning board to reduce the number of lots, increasing the natural buffer between development and birds.

In Lincolnville, a proposed subdivision threatened to block the scenic view of Penobscot Bay across Munroe's Field. The planning board had approved the proposal despite a local ordinance saying that subdivisions shouldn't cause undue adverse impacts on scenic views. When one of our members who enjoys the view complained about its imminent Loss, CLF filed suit. The court said our member had the right to challenge the planning board's decision. This ruling expands the right of all citizens to protect scenic resources in court.

We've been working with residents of Warren and Wiscasset who are concerned about proposed expansions and "improvements" to coastal Route One -- changes that would adversely affect the quality of rife in both communities. They include a proposed road widening in Warren, and a bypass in Wiscasset. CLF opposes these changes. We think that other approaches should be explored before adding highway capacity to scenic areas. These cases are part of a larger CLF effort -- to prevent transportation projects in the Route One corridor of midcoast Maine from promoting accelerated and unplanned development.

Restoring Estuaries

CLF is the New England Regional Partner of Restore America's Estuaries (RAE), a national group we helped launch. Last year, with our partners, we enacted the Estuary Restoration Act of 2000 -- the only serious piece of environmental legislation passed by Congress in 2000. It provides funds to support rehabilitation of damaged estuaries and salt marshes. Both are critical habitats for many varieties of marine and coastal rife. CLF volunteers also inventoried marshes along the entire Maine coastline. We found that there are more than 983 road crossings of these marshes, and that up to one-third of the crossings have restricted tidal flows.

Our first restoration project with be the 125-acre Drakes Island Marsh, in southern Maine's 1,600-acre Welts National Estuarine Research Reserve. It suffers from a tidal flow restriction that is limited to one 36-inch-diameter culvert. Tidal range in the marsh is one foot, compared to seven feet immediately downstream of a road barrier that is the source of its problem. CLF's principal partners in this restoration are the Wefts National Estuarine Research Reserve and the town of Wells.

Other marsh or estuary areas we're investigating for restoration projects are in Vinalhaven, Searsport, Bath, and York. For those interested in such work, we've recently produced a workbook -- Return The Tides. It may be obtained by writing to the CLF Advocacy Center; 120 Tillson Ave., Suite 202; Rockland, ME 04841-3416.

Helping To Regulate Aquaculture 

CLF recently signed an agreement with Trout Unlimited, the Atlantic Salmon Foundation, and all the major Maine aquaculture operations. It proposes major improvements in finfish containment policy -- getting aquaculturists to reduce the numbers of fish escaping from pens. We're also responding to the growing concern associated with the proliferation of finfish aquaculture sites -- not shellfish sites -- in areas of coastal Maine that are aesthetically and environmentally sensitive. Many landowners object to having what are essentially salmon feedlots just offshore of their properties.

There are three general issues regarding Maine finfish aquaculture that concern us:

1. Aquaculture's contribution to the overenrichment of coastal areas: coastal eutrophication and algae blooms.

2. Aquaculture's interference with existing recreation and fishing activities.

3. The growing conflict between industrial uses of Maine's coastal waters (aquaculture) and environmentally sensitive areas.

--Peter Shelley Maine Advocacy Center Director

For more, see: www.clf.org/aboutclf/index1.htm and click on Maine.