Three hours north of Boston, the Damariscotta River winds for about 15 miles connecting a fresh water lake to the Maine Coast. Ocean water wins out: the river’s salty. Ideal, it turns out, for oysters. About 80 percent of Maine’s oysters are grown here.
He’s sitting on a boat next to one of his leases, a place where flat metal cages form a kind of flotilla in the river. Inside, thousands of tiny oysters are maturing.
Inside this hatchery, oyster growers use an antacid to make the river water less acidic. Photo credit: Stephanie Leydon
The water here is considered pristine, but about ten years ago Mook noticed the impact of an invisible change. Microscopic larvae, which grow inside the hatchery in huge tanks of river water, were failing to form a shell. His business was in jeopardy.
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