Damariscotta-Newcastle - Speaker

 
The Rotary Club of Damariscotta-Newcastle
SPEAKER DISCUSSES AQUACULTURE IN THE DAMARISCOTTA RIVER
 
 
 
Pictured:  Past President Linda Brunner and President Nancy Stoltz welcome aquaculturist and seaweed "farmer" Seth Barker.
 
Linda Brunner, Past President of the Damariscotta-Newcastle Rotary, life-long resident of Clark’s Cove, introduced speaker Seth Barker with a history of the Cove since colonial times, with an emphasis on food gathered from the salt waters behind her home.
 
The Damariscotta River was the highway up to the Great Salt Bay and beyond, with the town landing serving nearby residents of what is now Walpole/South Bristol. Later a pond was built from a brook flowing into the Cove to create an ice pond.
 
Schooners came in to Clark's Cove to take ice harvested from the pond down the Atlantic Coast, into the Caribbean and beyond to Latin America. In the 20th century, famed aquaculturist pioneer Ed Myers began to grow lobsters in the Cove, and later raised blue mussels. More recently, oysters have been grown commercially.
 
The newest commercial Cove crop is seaweed, being grown by Seth Barker and his partners under the name of Maine Fresh Sea Farms. While still at the Department of Marine Resources, Mr. Barker began to observe the harvesting of wild seaweed.  Seaweed has been a staple in the Asian diet for over 2000 years and they began to raise seaweed commercially after World War II. Both the Universities of Maine and New Hampshire are researching the growing and use of seaweed as a food. Seaweed has a high nutritional value and is gradually finding its way into restaurants and local stores.
 
 
Now retired from DMR, Mr. Barker and his partners joined the seaweed fledgling industry pioneering Seaweed farming in Maine about two years ago.  It is projected that it will take a generation before seaweed is common in human diets in the United States.
 
Fittingly, the son of Ed Myers, Winslow Myers (artist and peace activist), Service Committee Chairperson, is a member of the Damariscotta-Newcastle club and was present to learn about the continuation of his father’s aqua-cultural ventures.