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The remaining $5.3 million is expected in June of 2022, Adkins said. That’s a total of $10.6 million for the county to spend, but there are restrictions. A 155-page document from the Treasury Department outlines restrictions and guides use of the funds. One restriction is that the money can’t be used to fund retirement accounts.
Aquafarm seeks scallop lease
BAR HARBOR A Bar Harbor-based mussel grower is looking to expand its scallop farming in Frenchman Bay.
Acadia Aquafarms applied for a 68-acre lease halfway between Parker Point and Hancock Point to cultivate sea scallops with suspended gear. The company, owned by the de Koning family, currently grows mussels with five active leases and has two longlines on six 400-square foot leases for scallops, which are at the same location as the proposed lease site.
In its application to the Department of Marine Resources, Acadia Aquafarms said that its observed little commercial fishing in the area over the last couple years and the small amount of traps in the area could be set between the proposed lines, which would be at least 25 feet under water, with no problems.
For decades, lobstermen have filled their bait bags with Atlantic herring, the small fish that plays a tremendous role in the food chain and is the preferred bait of Maine’s biggest fishery.
“We’ve trained and raised our lobsters on it,” said James Hanscom, a Bar Harbor-based lobstermen who also sells bait. “It’s definitely the bait of choice.”
But as quotas for Atlantic herring have tightened over the years, lobstermen and bait dealers have been forced to look elsewhere for other baits to lure in lobsters.
Over the course of the last few years, the quotas on herring have been cut by 88 percent and the quota will drop again next year as the herring stock has been deemed overfished.
Years of tight herring quotas have lobstermen using new baits
BAR HARBOR For decades, lobstermen have filled their bait bags with Atlantic herring, the small fish that plays a tremendous role in the food chain and is the preferred bait of Maine’s biggest fishery.
“We’ve trained and raised our lobsters on it,” said James Hanscom, a Bar Harbor-based lobstermen who also sells bait. “It’s definitely the bait of choice.”
But as quotas for Atlantic herring have tightened over the years, lobstermen and bait dealers have been forced to look elsewhere for other baits to lure in lobsters.