On November 19, the Maine Board of Environmental Protection said it's fine with them if Nordic Aquafarms' proposed industrial fish farm spews 7.7 million gallons of effluent a day into Belfast Bay; if Nordic threatens local fisheries and tourism by disrupting and disbursing settled industrial mercury in Belfast Bay; if Nordic destroys dozens of acres of mature forest, wetlands and wildlife habitat; and if Nordic annually devours 630 million gallons of water from Belfast's limited aquifer and watershed.

The BEP doesn't care if Nordic has the least idea how to safely run its mammoth project – in fact, BEP consciously and intentionally ignored serious and substantial concerns about Nordic's woeful record of incompetence both here in Maine and on its home turf in Norway. Nor does BEP care if Nordic has anywhere near enough money to finish its project after it lays waste to the Belfast Woods. BEP won't even require Nordic to post a bond so Belfast can clean up Nordic's environmental devastation if Nordic runs out of money and simply walks away.

This decision was entirely expected, even before BEP wasted God knows how much taxpayer money on its elaborate dog and pony show. The BEP process and its outcome had all the suspense of a Putin election. 

The BEP permit purports to contain various muscular conditions, but BEP knows such window dressing will be meaningless against the political pull of a $500 million project. The conditions aren't designed to rein in the considerable excesses of this misguided project - they're a PR stunt designed to placate public opinion. 

As an official intervenor in the BEP “process,” one of my favorite moments was when BEP member Bob Duchesne laughingly assured a public-hearing audience that Nordic's water payments would be a boon to the Belfast Water District - completely ignoring the myriad costs of Nordic's massive water use. I guess it's just a little funnier when it's not your own well that's being put at risk for the sake of distant stockholders, corporate executives and upscale consumers.

BEP sold out Maine's environment for hyped-up, magically expanding jobs numbers and a sucker's promise of tax bonanzas from a company that has gorged itself at every government feeding trough it can find on two continents. Over and over Nordic and the BEP keep reminding me of a great Humphrey Bogart quote from the film Casablanca: “I don't mind a parasite. I object to a cut-rate one.”

Lawrence Reichard lives in Belfast