“We are deeply sorry for the consequences…"

This is an apology from a Norwegian aquaculture supplier as they declare bankruptcy, reported in early September 2023.  Five of eight companies based in Norway that make up the FiiZK group have declared bankruptcy. As Nordic Aquafarms in Belfast has multiple outstanding legal challenges, and a recent loss in Maine’s highest court, deciding that Nordic does not have rights to the land they planned to run effluent pipes through, investors in the aquaculture sector should think twice.  

Unfortunately, Belfast city leaders decided to ignore their constituent’s concerns and relied on secret meetings and information provided by the industry they are supposed to regulate.  Nearly all the land-based aquaculture sector’s woes, were raised in public testimony, at multiple public forums, yet Belfast leaders thought they knew better. Issues raised included energy costs, a $63 million dollar power corridor, massive carbon impacts, pollution from diesel generators, over-harvesting of small pelagic fish, diseases, unprecedented scale, no track-record, mass die-offs, nitrogen pollution and excessive use of clean drinking water to name a few. 

I’d love to see an accounting of how much of my tax dollars were spent on misleading the Belfast citizens, lawyers, staff time, sold assets, moving facilities, new buildings, attempts to take land by eminent domain, all in a claim of eventual tax savings and revenue from water sales. 

Every day it looks more certain that the Nordic debacle will cost every Belfast resident an arm and a leg, for a project that will never be built. For recent comparisons, Atlantic Sapphire, the land-based facility just ahead of Nordic Aquafarms in the pipeline of U.S. projects, has had mass-die-offs, an industrial fire, and has plummeting stock prices.  

In 2018, the Iowa-based VeroBlue went bankrupt, leaving 80 companies unpaid to the tune of $100 million. I’d hate to see Maine’s companies and municipalities left unpaid from similar financial and managerial mismanagement.

As examples, Nordic’s site selection couldn’t have been worse. The land is a loved mature forest that forms a defacto greenbelt at the city’s southern boundary hosting the Little River Trail. It contains 17 wetlands that sequester carbon, but this also means, instability for heavy tanks, but also, requires massive earth work, releasing the stored carbon. And, they have no title or rights to the land the effluent pipes would cross and a 12 acre parcel within their site has protective covenants that magically disappeared, the subject of upcoming legal challenges. 

Meanwhile, around town I see signs up "Sanders for Mayor” in Belfast and I get a stomach ache, as he, along with the entire council has championed Nordic as public relations agents, not as regulators, and today my tax bill arrived. I will pay under protest. 

Jim Merkel lives in Belfast Maine and is a recovering engineer