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Robin Alden is the co-founder and former editor of Commercial Fisheries News. She is a former Maine commissioner of marine resources and is retired from Maine Center for Coastal Fisheries. She is a former member of both the state and national advisory committees for Sea Grant.
The people of Maine’s working waterfronts appear to have narrowly missed a catastrophic blow from Washington, the termination of the Maine Sea Grant Program. But the storm is not over.
Late last Friday, the program was notified that its funding had been terminated, the only one of 34 coastal state Sea Grant programs that was targeted. Five days later, Sen. Susan Collins’ office released a memo stating that the Department of Commerce “is committed to engage in bilateral negotiations” about the funds. The apparent reversal came after more than 3,400 people signed a letter of support and after a major effort by Sen. Collins supported by interventions from Sen. Angus King and Rep. Chellie Pingree.
That support speaks loudly for the program as it enters into a renegotiation for their previously awarded funds. The memo states that the agency will “ensure that the American people, including hardworking Mainers like lobstermen and fishermen, receive the benefit of the bargain …”
Those hardworking Mainers — lobstermen, fishermen, and aquaculture farmers — are precisely who benefits from Maine Sea Grant’s work.
Ironically, when the termination was announced, Sen. Collins was attending the fish dinner at the Maine Fishermen’s Forum, an event that would not exist without Sea Grant. More than 2,500 lobstermen, scallopers, elver and alewife fishermen, scallop and oyster aquaculturists, and clam diggers attended this year’s three-day forum, speaking, listening, learning, and buying equipment from 120 exhibitors.
It was the 50th forum, and it is a good example of how Sea Grant operates. Maine Sea Grant started the forum in 1976 to help the Maine fishing industry take advantage of the economic opportunities of the 200-mile limit. The hard-won law would finally end the overfishing by hundreds of 200- to 500-foot foreign boats right off Maine shores and make way for new fishing technology and processing opportunities. The forum took off and now is a vital venue for technology transfer, gear sales, new research, and the exchange of information and opinion that results in sustainable fisheries. A 50-year example of Sea Grant’s contribution.
Sea Grant is an unusual federal program because its priorities are set locally. This is why hardworking Mainers turned out to support Sea Grant, why one fisherman stated, “Every fishing town in Maine will be affected by this shutdown.”
Funds come from the Department of Commerce through the state university, with required matching state support of 50 cents for $1. But that is not all the local buy-in. Testament to the benefit of the bargain lies in the leverage: Maine Sea Grant’s partnerships — 700 documented in 2023 alone. Partnerships with fishermen, farmers, businesses, towns, community groups, researchers, and state, regional, federal, and tribal governments.
Sea Grant funding comes in two parts: extension and research. The 10 Maine Sea Grant extension people are out in the community, on boats and aquaculture sites. Trusted and knowledgeable, they are part of the strength of Maine’s working waterfront economy, contributing to making Maine’s diverse, geographically spread, small-business seafood industry a national model of innovation and success. They take research questions from the field back to Maine universities. They bring research results to fishermen, farmers, and businesses. They are neutral conveners and facilitators.
Maine Sea Grant awards about four research grants every two years, after a tough review both by scientists and a group of industry people who rate the proposals on their relevance to real problems. As one former legislator said, “It always struck me as a particularly fisherman-friendly organization that did good, practical work.”
Look at the benefits. Sea Grant research has contributed to the development of the Portland Fish Exchange, Maine’s internationally-acclaimed lobster laws, understanding of early life stages of the lobster now used in lobster management, clam flat enhancement, alewife restoration, and the development of oyster, mussel, and scallop aquaculture opportunities, to name just a few.
With a federal investment of just $1.5 million per year, Maine Sea Grant generated $23.5 million to the Maine economy in 2023, an astounding $15 return for every $1 in federal funding.
Gratitude is the word for Sen. Collins’ work and for the thousands who spoke up for Maine Sea Grant. Now, vigilance is the word as the funding is renegotiated.
Maine Sea Grant’s local priorities and locally designed programs, both responsive and effective, must not be lost in this renegotiation. They fit the national law, last reauthorized by Congress during the first Trump Administration, that sets out the elements we recognize in the Maine program: integrated research, education, training, and extension services for understanding and wise use of ocean resources, economic competitiveness, public stewardship, and response to coastal hazards.
This is good government spending within the law. And it’s not top-down. It is a modest investment that is a catalyst for innovation and business development in an industry that produces millions of pounds of high-quality protein for the country and contributes $700 million in commercial seafood landed value alone from Maine’s 3,500-mile coastline. This matters.
