“It belongs to everyone…

The following remarks were delivered by Bonnie L. Tobey at a press conference at Moody Beach in Wells, Maine, April 22, 2021. Tobey is the Operations Manager for a company that harvests micronutrients on the coast of Maine. The press conference was held to announce the filing of a lawsuit, intended to re-establish the fact that Maine people own the state’s inter-tidal lands.

Good Afternoon,

I’m here today with my brother & sister. Our family settled on the coast of Maine in the late 1700’s. In 1859 our ancestors purchased the North half of Little Yarmouth Island and our family has lived there ever since. Our folks still live there, year-round and “us kids” are there whenever possible.

Like so many Mainers, my brother and I make our living from the ocean. We both work full time for SOURCE, a seaweed harvesting and processing facility in Brunswick. We make organic products that provide the micronutrients found in seaweed to people, horses and dogs.

SOURCE has been sustainably harvesting seaweed since 1975 and we rely on the intertidal zone to do this. We harvest primarily Ascophyllum nodosum, known as rockweed, which grows between high and low water. By carefully mapping, rotating and measuring, we’ve been able to harvest within a small geographic area in Quahog Bay and return to these same ledges for over 45 years. 

But things have changed. The working waterfront is becoming an endangered species. Places that we have harvested for decades are now off limits and people are claiming to own everything they see from their windows. We’ve been yelled at, verbally threatened and some harvesters have been assaulted. This is not what Maine is about! We have a right to be here. 

My hope for this case is to restore the shoreline back to the people of Maine. It belongs to everyone, not just a select few.

Thank you.