In today’s Intrafish there is another article of a salmon company in dire straits. A regular monitoring of headlines should offer Belfast residents a sigh, that we escaped 18 football fields of empty rusty tanks scaring the banks of the Little River. 

Maine & Co. does a disservice to the state’s brand by courting unreputable startups, promising them permitting and tax-breaks. Any reputable company would avoid the tarnish of eminent domain, exceptions to laws including the Clean Water Act, back-room politics, taking tax breaks meant for smaller local businesses, or attacking those defending their communities. Good companies hire environmental staff to ensure compliance, not deceive the public.

The people of Belfast, Maine, should celebrate this halted invasion of polluting, energy intensive and ecologically destructive salmon factories, five of them, along one of the world’s most productive marine environments – the Gulf of Maine. 

Of the five planned, almost all have gone down because of several factors.
1. The inherently unstable technologies have led to mass die offs and bankruptcies elsewhere. 
2. Companies used hard-ball tactics in small Maine communities and word got back to investors. 
3. With small margins and high energy intensity, any price fluctuations or mishap posts a loss to investors. 
4 Land-based fish factories often violate the Clean Water Act, and require favors to get permits. 
5. Restoring fish passage, removing dams and restoring marine ecology is more cost-effective and supplies abundant tastier seafood in perpetuity if regulated properly. 
6. Consumers and chefs found that fish swimming in circles in excrement that are artificially colored taste bad.

Belfast officials met behind closed doors strategizing ways to support Nordic Aquafarms to lay pipes on land they didn't own, and they got caught. They were offered detailed information by constituents, yet relied on information supplied by the applicant and lawyers that Nordic paid for. 

My friends Jeffrey Mabee and Judith Grace have filed for reimbursement for their expenses to clear their title as rightful owners of the intertidal mudflats that Nordic claimed to own. The Justice Michael Duddy recently ruled in favor of Nordic Aquafarms, Inc., but I’m sure an appeal will come. Meanwhile, Nordic Aquafarms has abandoned its California plans, let go all its employees except one, fled the country and attempted to wall off its assets. 

Many of my neighbors took several years of their lives to get involved. As a former industrial engineer, a sailor and fisherman since childhood, I too sensed the risk and tried to inform councilors with White Papers on the carbon intensity and ecological risks of industrial fish factories. I also documented the benefits of a working waterfront restored through dam removal and habitat protection. 

My hope is that we can all come together now to ensure fish passage on the four rivers that enter Belfast Bay — all blocked to alewives that are a large part of the base of the food chain. No wonder there are so few fish.

Jim Merkel lives in Belfast