F R O M   T H E   C R O W E ’ S   N E S T

A Handful Of Beads



An announcement was made in February of a proposal to build what was described as the world's largest land-based salmon production facility in Belfast. A week later another company announced a similar plan 18 miles up the Penobscot River in Bucksport. The Norwegian company, Nordic Aquafarms, said the project could become a $500,000 investment in Belfast. They will need both fresh and salt water.

Moving finfish aquaculture to land-based is an improvement over the ocean pen model. It will eliminate the need for pesticides, reduce the use of pharmaceuticals and offer the possibility of better waste containment. All of which has been a biological disaster for the environment and the product around the world.

For the last 25 years NOAA has funded the development of ocean pen finfish aquaculture. In 2014 NOAA designated the Penobscot River watershed, 1/3 of the state, a Habitat Focus Area. In November of 2017 the 128th Maine legislature with LD1502 transferred jurisdiction of land-based aquaculture from the DMR to the state's Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry.

Salmon in the wild live in salt water, spawn in fresh water and move to the ocean until maturity. They need a lot of clean water. According to Nordic, one of their 2-million-gallon fish tanks will need 15,000 to 20,000 gallons of fresh water per hour. That's up to 480,000 gallons a day. The town of Belfast has offered to spend $240,000 on land, research and water quality improvements.

Lawyers for the Swiss company Nestle Global, which owns the Poland Springs bottling company, in 2016 convinced the Maine Supreme Court, legislature and local politicians to allow a contract enabling Nestle Global to draw 630,000 gallons of water a day out of the Fryeburg, Maine, aquifer for the next 45 years—basically until the well runs dry. Fryeburg taxpayers, who had fought the action for 3 1/2 years, lost.

The current popularity of salmon is a food fad. Human life is not a fad. It cannot continue without clean water. If salmon producers don't have their most important resource, they don't have a business plan, they have their hand out. The state and local governments have been given the responsibility of protecting and preserving this essential public resource. It should not be squandered for temporarily propping up a tax base, campaign points, a trade deficit, promised jobs or a handful of beads.