F R O M   T H E   C R O W E ’ S   N E S T

Anything Goes



Shedders haven’t come on strong yet, but the promise and the price are good compared to a few years ago. Boats are being built again, new trucks are parked at the wharfs, summer people and tourists are back. Memories of the financial scams and resultant economic collapse of 2008, followed by plunging lobster prices, are beginning to fade into the background, if not disappearing.

Planning for a largely hidden, pending financial meltdown was virtually impossible for the lobster industry. The visible and well-publicized changes affecting the climate and oceans will bring unknowns. Knowing the oceans are warmer and more acidic, and the weather more unpredictable and severe, is not enough to anticipate what the unknowns will be.

Marine biologists and lobster scientists, with considerable knowledge based on long-established norms, have to speculate on what may or may not unfold in this evolving environment. Since we know what brought us to what may be a brink, a rational mind would conclude it is time to not make things worse.

Here in Maine, we have a Department of Environmental Protection. We have a Department of Marine Resources sworn to protect Maine’s marine resources. The signs on the interstate alternately read “The Way Life Should Be” and “Open For Business.” So we’re good, right?

Fishermen critical of the DMR’s handling of the Searsport dredge project cite a lack of transparency and a shell game on the regulations. In the land of The Way Life Should Be, we can relax because the Commissioner of the Maine Department of Environmental Protection is a former industrial lobbyist whose portfolio, dollars-to-donuts, included oil companies. The same Canadian oil companies that want to dump toxic mud on our Open For Business lobster habitat? The $600 billion per year oil industry is trying to get the most out of the Maine taxpayer subsidy paying for this big dig.

“Big” as in 929,000 cubic yards dumped in the currents off Islesboro. Enough mud to pave a lane of highway for 395 miles one foot deep. Two lanes of highway from Searsport, Maine, to Saint John, N.B., one foot deep, and with 121 miles left over for Irving’s headquarters there. Maybe the lobbyists’ governor should add another sign that reads “Anything Goes.”