Carl Wilcox of New Gloucester says he is “tired of the incessant need of coastal residents to be genuflected to” (op-ed, Aug. 18). Well, we here on the coast are tired of people from away saying we are “whining” and need to suck it up and allow Nordic Aquafarms to daily dump 7.7 million gallons of effluent into our beautiful bay, and destroy 56 acres of mature forest, vital wetlands, and wildlife habitat, including that of the threatened bobolink bird. And allow the disruption and disbursement of settled industrial mercury in our bay.

But North America has already lost 500 million birds; what’s a few more? And who cares about at least 630 million gallons per year taken from our aquifer, amid a climate crisis? And so what if Nordic tried to hide that it didn’t own some of the land it needs for its project.

Never mind if the city of Belfast eminent domain action is shamelessly sold to the public as a park, replete with an industrial pumphouse and parking across Route 1 in a 50-mile-an-hour zone with limited visibility. And so what if the city never bothered to call the Maine Department of Transportation to ask about the wisdom, or even feasibility, of the park’s potentially lethal parking scheme.

In his protein-conversion data, Mr. Wilcox failed to mention that the fish used in industrial fish farms come largely or mostly from overfished global south waters, where overfishing is devastating food-insecure fishing communities. Also omitted is that most aquaculture soy is from Brazil, where the Amazon is being torched to the ground to make room for more soy.

I look forward to Mr. Wilcox’s kind offer to have Nordic’s 7.7 million gallons of effluent dumped into his backyard each and every day.

 

Lawrence Reichard

Belfast

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