ELLSWORTH — A Hancock County Superior Court judge has dealt what might be the final blow in the fight by a local conservation group to put a Blue Hill Bay mussel farm out of business.
Last Thursday, Justice Robert Murray dismissed an appeal by Friends of Blue Hill Bay of a decision by Department of Marine Resources Commissioner Patrick Keliher last June to renew an aquaculture lease to Maine Cultured Mussels Inc.
The renewed lease allows the company to continue growing blue mussels on ropes suspended beneath the surface of the water in a group of circular net pens on a 15-acre site east of Hardwood Island in Blue Hill Bay. The renewal extended the lease term for a period of seven years, until March of 2020.
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