A 60-day truce has been declared in the battle between a big seafood wholesaler and a fishing co-operative over a lobster dock expansion at a busy waterfront in the US state of Maine.

Atwood Lobster, a subsidiary of Chicago, Illinois-based seafood wholesaler Mazzetta Company, and the Spruce Head Fishermen’s Co-op, a 40-member lobster harvester co-operative that operates an adjacent property at Spruce Head Island, have been embroiled in a pitched battle for months over Atwood’s planned $3.2 million expansion of its lobster dock, as previously reported by Undercurrent. 

Lawyers for the two sides told the South Thomaston (Maine) Board of Selectmen last week that they have agreed to a two-month cooling-off period to negotiate an end to their turf war, the Portland Press Herald reports.

The most visible sign of the truce was the removal of the lobster transport boat, Jack Black, that Mazzetta had moored at its wharf. For weeks, the “smack boat” served as a strategic blockade, physically preventing the co-op’s largest boats from reaching their bait-and-trap loading stations, the Herald reported.

In exchange for the boat’s removal, the co-op agreed to pause its lawsuit while the two parties attempt to mediate the dispute before retired Superior Court judge William Anderson. However, if mediation fails, the co-op will resume its litigation, president David Cousens told the Herald.

Mazzetta acquired Atwood Lobster in South Thomaston, Maine, in 2011, gaining, among other things, Atwood’s dock on Spruce Head Island.

Spruce Head is the fourth most valuable lobster port in the state, according to 2025 Maine Department of Marine Resources landings data. Last year alone, local fishermen landed 3.3 million pounds of lobster with a dockside value of $19.5 million.

Storms along the Maine coast in the winter of 2023-24 damaged the wooden wharves at Spruce Head.

Mazzetta plans to raise the dock to withstand new sea levels and replace the wooden wharves with concrete “that will be everlasting,” Mazzetta CEO Tom Mazzetta told UCN in a recent interview.

However, the co-op said the dock expansion would make the already narrow lane between the two properties so small that no boat over 50-feet long could reach the co-op’s bait and trap loading station, the Herald reported.

The Maine Board of Environmental Protection approved Mazzetta’s permit without a public hearing in January, prompting an appeal by the co-op. Even if the court rejects the appeal, Mazzetta needs the blessing of town officials to move ahead with the expansion, according to the Herald.

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