BRUNSWICK — It’s a calm, bright day, and Phil Gray is tending oysters growing in mesh crates that float in a line east of Bombazine Island in the New Meadows River.

One by one, he flips the cages over, exposing algae and other buildup to the disinfecting effect of the sun and open air.

Gray planted 6,000 American oysters in July. By the end of next summer, he hopes the crop will be ready for harvest.

Until a few years ago, Gray harvested wild mussels, but the disappearance of the resource in Casco Bay — he went from collecting 2,000 pounds a week a few years ago to less than 100 pounds — made him rethink how to make a living on the water.

Gray, who is semiretired, said his partial Social Security benefit is the only thing keeping him in the fishing business.

“I’m not making any money from it,” he said.

Now, he’s one of a handful of new farmers trying aquaculture, the cultivation or farming of shellfish, on the New Meadows, a channel that runs between Brunswick and Harpswell to the west and West Bath to the east.

A couple of well-established farms, including Winterpoint Oysters in West Bath, have etched out a statewide reputation for providing high-quality shellfish from the area. Otherwise, aquaculture has been slow to catch on, despite prime growing conditions.

But as environmental pressures from pollution, invasive species and warming waters mount, local fishermen such as Gray are turning to aquaculture as a means of support.

“There’s a lot of uncertainly in commercial fishing in general,” said Dana Morse, a researcher at the University of Maine’s Sea Grant program.

“It’s natural to think that the people involved in those industries are looking for alternatives,” he said. Grown products can provide an important counterbalance to wild-caught fish and help preserve Maine’s tradition of working waterfronts, he said.

“What I would really look forward to is two healthy industries working side by side,” Morse said.

According to the Department of Marine Resources, at the beginning of 2014 there were only nine active aquaculture operations on the New Meadows, including two large, full-time farms.

But since the beginning of the year, the department has issued 10 new licenses to six farmers, a boom that reflects the industry’s growth in Maine.

According to Sebastian Belle, director of the Maine Aquaculture Association, the amount of product produced by aquaculture in the state has grown an average of 6 to 8 percent annually for the last 15 years, creating a $100 million industry.

Despite stops and starts, the collective growth is impressive, Belle said.

“There’s not a lot of business sectors in the state that have had that kind of growth,” he said.

Despite fears that more aquaculture farms would lead to conflicts with other users, there have been very few problems, Belle said.

About 1,300 acres in Maine waters are being cultivated in big, full-time farms with 10-year, 100-acre leases. But most new farmers opt for the simpler Limited Purpose Aquaculture license, which only costs $50 and allows up to 400 square feet of shellfish cultivation.

Morse has a Limited Purpose Aquaculture license with a couple of partners to start a small operation. Like many first-timers, he is starting out with oysters, mainly because the hearty mollusks fetch a high price and are fairly easy to grow.

Peter Francisco, another newcomer to aquaculture, started an oyster farm near his West Bath home this year.

Traveling for his work as a fundraising consultant was draining, he said, and he saw aquaculture as a way to stay closer to home.

Francisco has set up two Limited Purpose Aquacultures and has also applied for an experimental lease. If the first year goes well, he said he’d like to expand his farm, possibly to a full-scale, standard lease.

So far, a strong farming network hasn’t sprung up in the New Meadows, but Francisco predicts it will develop.

“I think there’s more potential there than what is being realized at this point,” he said. “I’d like to help make that happen if I can.”

While many new aquaculturists are entrepreneurs like Francisco, industry boosters believe beleaguered fishermen and harvesters, with extensive experience and knowledge of water conditions, local geography and equipment, are ideally positioned to move into growing shellfish.

But making that transition can be hard, Belle cautioned; he compared it to the change from a roaming hunter-gatherer to a sedentary farmer. However, those who move over to aquaculture successfully tend to do better in the long run than people from completely different backgrounds, Belle said.

Last year, the Maine Aquaculture Association, in partnership with local and statewide groups, held an intensive aquaculture training session for lobstermen in Harpswell and the Gouldsboro village of Corea to teach farming and marketing techniques, he said. It is also working with harvesters in Brunswick and other midcoast communities to generate interest in more training sessions.

Tim Johnson, another recent New Meadows farmer, didn’t need a training session to see the writing on the wall.

Johnson, a Brunswick clammer since 1982, said the sudden decline in the industry over the past two years encouraged him to move into aquaculture. He established an oyster operation a quarter mile from Gray’s.

“The resource just isn’t what it was,” he said, explaining his move off the clam flats.

If all goes well for his first small operation, he’ll consider shifting to full time, Johnson said. But he expects to wait at least three years before seeing a return on his investment.

The delayed payback, as well as the paperwork and regulation involved in setting up even a small farm, might be a turnoff for clammers accustomed to quick returns from harvesting, he noted.

“I think that’s a big part of it,” Johnson said. “You go a long time without seeing any revenue.”

Harvesters’ hesitancy to move into aquaculture is unfortunate, he said, because they already have skills and experience that would transfer well, especially into the lucrative oyster business.

There is a sense of urgency for people who want to get into growing, Johnson said: Farm placement is highly regulated by the Department of Marine Resources, and it might not be too long before people from communities outside the New Meadows discover its promise as an aquaculture hub.

For now, the burgeoning industry is still in its early, growth stage.

“Right now, it’s pretty wide open,” Johnson said. “It’s a huge opportunity.”

New rules would let towns move shellfish from polluted waters

BRUNSWICK — New state rules for municipal shellfish programs could help open denuded clam flats in intertidal communities struggling to overcome challenges to traditional harvesting.

One of the changes proposed by the Department of Marine Resources would allow towns to apply for permission to move shellfish from areas closed because of poor water quality and replant them in clean harvesting areas.

The amendment may give communities another option to help support wild shellfish harvesting, even though there are significant problems with implementing it, Denis-Marc Nault, a department scientist working on the new regulation, said.

“It sounds crazy, you’re digging the clam twice,” Nault said. “You’re doubling your effort, but it’s a tool if they are backed into a corner.”

Nault was speaking following a sparsely attended public hearing on the rule Tuesday at the Town Office.

The department held hearings last week in Machias and Ellsworth. There is a Sept. 15 deadline for comments on the rule before department staff turn a draft over to the department’s advisory council.

Under the proposal, towns that employ a qualified marine warden will be eligible to apply for a permit to transplant, or “relay” shellfish larger than seed from areas that are restricted to harvesting.

Some harvesting areas are restricted to harvesting because of the presence of pollution from overboard sewage discharge or stormwater runoff.

Although the areas may only be closed seasonally, they still provide a barrier to harvesters.

The new regulations would ease those restrictions, by allowing towns to get approval to move shellfish from restricted areas to open flats.

Towns will still not be allowed to transfer shellfish from areas where harvesting is strictly prohibited.

Harvesters would have to wait at least 60 days before harvesting the transplants, but if timed right, they could still gather fresh shellfish during the summer months, when prices are the highest.

Federal guidelines allow relaying shellfish, but until now Maine hasn’t given towns the option.

At a meeting of Harpswell’s Marine Resources Committee last week, committee members responded positively to the proposed rule.

The town has several possibly healthy clam flats that are closed off during the lucrative summer harvesting season, squeezing clammers into smaller areas with fewer clams.

According to Darcie Couture, a consultant working with the committee, deteriorating water quality in other harvesting areas in Harpswell means the rule change could hold promise for the town and other communities, particularly if the Department of Marine Resources decides to allow towns to reduce the time between moving the shellfish and reharvesting them by testing for contaminants.

“Almost all the towns have some area that’s classified restricted,” Couture said.

“It’s really encouraging that the department is even opening that discussion,” she said. “I wouldn’t have thought that was something they’d be ready for.”

Although it might provide some relief, Nault was quick to outline the problems communities could encounter.

While relaying adults from heartier species, like quahogs, oysters or even scallops can be successful, soft-shell clams pose their own problems, Nault said.

The mortality rate of adult clams skyrockets when they are transferred, which means towns could lose up to half of the animals moved, he said.

That’s in addition of the time and energy harvesters need to spend to hand-harvest, transplant, and harvest the clams again, he added.

Even though it might not work to harvest adult clams, the tool could be used to move spawning clams to provide brood stock for other flats, Nault suggested.

There is also some evidence that transferring clams that haven’t yet reached legal size and then allowing them to grow in a new area can be a successful tactic, he added.

Considering all the complications involved, Nault said it is doubtful many communities will apply for relay permits, but the Department of Marine Resources would consider any applications on a case-by-case basis if the new rules are approved.

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