Resolve, Directing the Governor To Renominate Penobscot Bay for Inclusion in the United States Environmental Protection Agency National Estuary Program
Maine Legislature, Session 129, LD 1336
Committee: Environment and Natural Resources
Sponsors: DODGE, MIRAMANT, BEEBE-CENTER, DOUDERA, EVANGELOS, HUTCHINS, MATLACK, PLUECKER

Legislative Document
No. 1336
H.P. 964
House of Representatives, March 21, 2019
Resolve, Directing the Governor To Renominate Penobscot Bay for 
Inclusion in the United States Environmental Protection Agency 
National Estuary Program
Reference to the Committee on Environment and Natural Resources suggested and ordered 
printed.
ROBERT B. HUNT
Clerk
Presented by Representative DODGE of Belfast.
Cosponsored by Senator MIRAMANT of Knox and
Representatives: BEEBE-CENTER of Rockland, DOUDERA of Camden, EVANGELOS of 
Friendship, HUTCHINS of Penobscot, MATLACK of St. George, PLUECKER of Warren.
Preamble. Whereas, Penobscot Bay and its coastal forests, shores and islands 
attract immense numbers of visitors by land and by sea every year, supporting a thriving 
and robustly diverse tourism industry; and
Whereas, Penobscot Bay supports a profitable, well-managed lobster fishery that 
sustains coastal communities around the bay; and
Whereas, it is possible that Penobscot Bay will host substantial land-based salmon 
aquaculture operations; and
Whereas, Penobscot Bay and the Penobscot River support dozens of plant, fish, 
shellfish, seabird and marine mammal species, including 11 diadromous fishes: shad, 
salmon, alewife, blueback herring, shortnose sturgeon, Atlantic sturgeon, sea lamprey, 
American eel, striped bass, rainbow smelt and tomcod; and
Whereas, Penobscot Bay faces increasing commercial, residential and industrial 
development pressures to replace natural forestland and farmland with buildings, parking 
lots, roads and other artificial surfaces, which will increase licensed discharges and 
stormwater runoff; and
Whereas, more than 30 licensed outfalls pump industrial and sewage treatment 
plant wastewater into Penobscot Bay and more are on the way; and
Whereas, wastes left on, in or near the shore by 19th and 20th century fertilizer and 
chemical factories, mining, coal gas production and poultry processers, as well as waste 
oils and other fluids from automobiles and from oil spills, large and small, pollute 
Penobscot Bay; and
Whereas, it is impossible to protect and restore the environments that support 
Penobscot Bay's fisheries and scenic and forest tourism unless we treat the entire bay as a 
single entity when it comes to decisions on developments that could have effects on the 
bay as a whole; and
Whereas, the United States Environmental Protection Agency has developed a 
National Estuary Program to focus research attention on special places like Penobscot 
Bay and provides funding to pay for local estuary programs; and
Whereas, in 1995, Governor Angus King unsuccessfuly nominated Penobscot Bay 
for inclusion in the National Estuary Program; and
Whereas, the problems and opportunities that drove Governor King to nominate 
Penobscot Bay for the National Estuary Program have only increased; now, therefore be 
it
Sec. 1.  Governor to renominate Penobscot Bay for National Estuary 
Program.  Resolved:  That the Governor shall renominate Penobscot Bay for inclusion 
in the United States Environmental Protection Agency National Estuary Program by:
1.  Identifying Penobscot Bay as an estuary of national significance;
2.  Convening a management conference at which public and private agencies may 
develop both short-term and long-term action plans for Penobscot Bay; and
3.  Committing to implementing those plans and to creating a Penobscot Bay 
partnership with the funds that the United States Environmental Protection Agency will 
make available.
SUMMARY
This resolve directs the Governor to renominate Penobscot Bay for inclusion in the 
United States Environmental Protection Agency National Estuary Program.