Category: In the news

Tollef Olson always had a thing for the sea. As a young man, he hunted for treasure on centuries-old shipwrecks, worked as a commercial fisherman in Florida and an urchin diver in Maine.
He has started and sold a variety of businesses, including Aqua Farms LLC (producer of Bangs Island Mussels) and Ocean Approved.
In 2016, he co-founded Ocean’s Balance, which a year ago started producing a Kelp Puree made from wild seaweed harvested by Olson. Buyers include grocery stores, institutions and restaurants.

In this weekend’s episode, Dr. Lisa Belisle talks with Jill Hinckley, owner of Hinckley Introductions, and Dr. Robert Snyder, president of the Island Institute.
 

As Tollef Olsen throws a white buoy labeled “SEAFARM” into Portland, Maine’s Casco Bay on a cold, clear November day, he reminisces about talking to the Maine Sea Coast Vegetables founder Shep Erhart back in the early 1980s.
During this conversation, the two discussed the environmental benefits of farming seaweed.

Scientists, municipal and state officials, consultants and concerned citizens gathered in Portland Tuesday to consider ways to protect against rising sea-levels and intense storms.
Sponsored by the Rockland-based Island Institute, the daylong forum highlighted work up and down the coast documenting the dangers sea-level rise and other climate-change-driven events pose for vulnerable ecosystems and infrastructure. The 60-plus attendees discussed strategies and standards that would foster coastal resilience, and how to finance solutions.

At last week’s United Nations Climate Change Conference in Germany, an issue of vital importance to Maine fishermen and shellfish growers took the international spotlight.
This issue is the increasing acidity of the sea, which is making it harder for some shellfish to grow their shells.
The governors of Washington state and Oregon joined the fisheries minister of Fiji, the meeting’s official host nation, to announce the expansion of a year-old international alliance to combat the problem. It now includes four states, two Canadian provinces and nine national governments.

Gov. Paul LePage was on Capitol Hill on Thursday to testify against a House bill designed to support working waterfronts.
HR 1176 is sponsored by Democratic U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree of Maine’s 1st District, but LePage takes issue with the role the federal government would play.
Pingree’s bill, co-sponsored by Republican Rob Wittman of Virginia, offers two basic amendments to the 1972 Coastal Zone Management Act.

A Maine congresswoman is calling on the federal government to establish a grant program to preserve waterfront access for those who make a living on it.
U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree testified at a House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water, Power and Oceans hearing Thursday, 2 November, in support of her bill, dubbed the Keep America’s Waterfronts Working Act. The Democrat said that commercial fishermen and others whose jobs are based on waterfronts are losing access to them because housing and other development opportunities.