Perhaps we should consider altering our support for the planned fish farm? As a new resident of Belfast I’m not up to speed on the contentious history of this proposal, and may never be up to speed on it. I am, however, a 73-year-old citizen of our home planet and I’m thinking that the future holds the compelling story we need to focus on. We are in a time of global warming and we are in a time of desperate global migration seemingly caused by food insecurity and increased lawlessness and violence.

The state of Maine is rapidly becoming a world leader in implementing sustainable agriculture and regenerative pasturing as the path forward for our food production. Our state hosts thousands of farmers who are asking the right questions and seeking sustainable solutions. To return to the “old” Maine of pulp mills and textile mills that trashed our environment is turning our backs on what is really happening in our state and is a slap in the face to our Maine farmers and fishermen who are setting an example for the rest of the world.

The proposed fish factory will completely annihilate 60 acres of our town, all trees, all animals, all soil microbes, all of it gone; millions of tons of carbon sequestration gone, a beautiful place gone.

We will burn millions of gallons of diesel removing all life from this piece of land; we will burn millions of gallons of diesel powereing massive pumps and filtration systems for the entire life of this factory. We will dump whatever can’t be filtered into our beautiful Penobscot Bay.

We will source the massive amounts of protein this meat factory requires from places that can’t really afford to lose protein. At the first sign of illness in this herd of livestock we will bring big pharmaceutical solutions and/or genetic modification.

To borrow the capitalists term, the ROI on this project is all in the favor of an offshore multi national corporation.

For Maine, for Belfast, we get jobs for which we have no workers and tax cuts we don’t really need, and we take a major step backwards in our civic pride. We can’t protect our home place and our own farmers and fishermen from a capitalist bully?

This is not a condemnation of aquaculture. Maine has considerable aquaculture infrastructure already and we should be looking to grow that part of our economy, but as our regenerative farmers are teaching us, we must always consider the cycle of fertility that feeds us.

“Robbing Peter to pay Paul” may look good to Peter and bad for Paul but for all of us food eaters it puts us in an unsustainable spot; our livelihood is always dependent on someone’s loss.

There are responsible dry land salmon farming ideas out there; let’s pass on this old style “rape the land” project and invite a “New Maine” style producer to step up with a project we can all be proud of.

Mark Salwasser lives in Belfast