The Harpswell Marine Resources Committee is asking the town’s Select Board to impose a yearlong ban on new aquaculture leases.

The committee wants to use the year to study the effects of oyster farms and other aquaculture on wild shellfish.

During a workshop with the Select Board on April 11, shellfish harvesters, fishermen, fisheries advocates, oyster farmers and scientists packed the meeting room at the Town Office. The Marine Resources Committee had voted unanimously to request the moratorium on Feb. 28.

“Harpswell has an abundance of wild shell stock, but we have seen a decline in recent years,” the committee said in a letter to the Select Board.

The letter theorized that farms may consume clam spawn floating in the water column, as well as food that clams need. The letter also said that farms attract birds, which leads to more bird waste in the water that can cause algae blooms and kill clams.

Harpswell has three “standard” aquaculture leases, the category for the largest and longest-term operations, along with eight “experimental” leases and 91 “limited purpose” licenses, according to Harbor Master Paul Plummer.

David Wilson, chair of the Marine Resources Committee, is both a clam digger and an aquaculturist who grows clams.

“I strongly feel aquaculture has its place,” Wilson said. “We can create a harmonic balance between our wild resources and aquaculture.”

But Wilson said he believes the proliferation of “top culture” — farming on the surface, rather than on the bottom — “is going to be the demise of our wild resources.”

Select Board Chair Kevin Johnson said the state claims sole authority to issue aquaculture leases, referencing a 2022 letter from the Maine Department of Marine Resources to municipal officials.

“It has come to the attention of the Maine Department of (Marine) Resources … that some coastal towns may be considering imposing moratoria on aquaculture siting or ordinances to regulate aquaculture siting within town boundaries,” the department said in the letter. “However, the Commissioner of Marine Resources holds exclusive jurisdiction to lease lands in, on and under the coastal waters, including the public lands beneath those waters and portions of the intertidal zone, for scientific research or for aquaculture of marine organisms.”

The letter goes on to explain how municipalities can influence the outcome of applications for aquaculture leases.

But the shellfish harvesters at the workshop said the state approves leases without adequate consideration for their impact on wild fisheries.

Local harvesters were supported at the meeting by representatives of Protect Maine’s Fishing Heritage Foundation, a Portland-based nonprofit that opposes “industrial-scale aquaculture” but supports small farms.

Camden Reiss, a Brunswick shellfish harvester and worm digger who works as a consultant to Protect Maine, said all coastal towns should “build their own ordinances for what their communities want.”

Reiss said towns can assert control over the process through a doctrine known as “home rule.”

“Under ‘home rule,’ municipalities may govern themselves in any way that is not denied them by state or federal law,” according to the Maine Municipal Association. “This authority sets Maine apart from many other states where the authority of municipal government is exactly the reverse.”

Oyster farmers at the meeting included Darcie Couture, a marine biologist and former employee of the Maine Department of Marine Resources who grows oysters near the Orr’s Island bridge. Couture offered to help the harvesters with research, while pushing back on some of their claims.

Couture said she worked with a local lobsterman to find a location for her lease. “I made sure I wasn’t in anybody’s way,” she said, and the only opposition to her lease came from “landowners that didn’t want to look at my farm.”

Even with little opposition, it took 2.5 years to obtain her lease. “I don’t think farms are being handed out left and right, quickly,” she said.

Couture said local research will give harvesters leverage with the Maine Department of Marine Resources to keep farms away from sensitive areas and fishing grounds. “You guys are going to have to generate that data,” she said.

Another scientist and oyster farmer, Dana Morse, with the Maine Sea Grant, also offered to help with research. “If there’s science that we can help you either develop, or find out for you, then that’s what we do,” Morse said.

The Select Board and Marine Resources Committee agreed to meet for a second workshop at the Town Office at 4 p.m. on Thursday, April 25.