High court: Shore owners own their seaweed

Working Waterfront -In a long-awaited high court ruling on a lawsuit brought by Calais-born brothers Carl and Ken Ross, who own shoreline property in Washington County, the high court ruled that they and other owners of Maine’s jagged 3,400-mile coastline are protected from unauthorized commercial seaweed harvesting within the intertidal zone of their shorefront property, the rocky and muddy area between a shoreline’s high-tide and low-tide footprint.

Marine conservationists tout intertidal zones that are thick with rockweed as an important source of nutrients, shelter, and spawning grounds for juvenile lobster, mussels, snails, and whelks as well as juvenile pollock and rock gunnel. The high court’s ruling said rockweed is “important to Maine’s coastline ecology because it moderates temperatures and provides a habitat for marine organisms.”