September 17 Nordic Aquafarms letter to The (Belfast, Maine) Republican Journal

 

To the Editor:

In his September 10 letter to the editor, Belfast City Councilman Mike Hurley states his journalistic credentials and then says “I know journalism when I see it.” Well, I have been a journalist for 43 years, and I was a columnist for The Republican Journal for four-plus years. My first Republican Journal column was entitled “Flying in a Fact-free Zone” - and that is exactly where Mike Hurley is flying.

Hurley says The Republican Journal favors the Nordic Aquafarms opposition, but he presents absolutely no evidence. That's not journalism – it's whining.

Hurley says Nordic “would pay more taxes than the top 100 Belfast taxpayers.” But Nordic has – in Norway, Maine and California – availed itself of every tax break and sweetheart deal it can find. Indeed, Hurley's city council paid hall rental for Nordic's propaganda shows, and agreed to pay half of Nordic's dechlorination costs for five years, something it never offered Marshall Wharf Brewing Co., a longstanding local business that actually employed local people - unlike Nordic, which has hired very few locals.

Nordic even incorporated its U.S. operations in Delaware, an infamous haven for tax chiselers.

Hurley seems to suggest The Republican Journal has given short shrift to questions such as the adequacy of our aquifer, harm to Belfast Bay, and traffic. But all of these issues have in fact been covered in The Republican Journal, and all of them reflect poorly on Nordic Aquafarms.

Hurley accuses The Republican Journal of doing no investigative journalism, but when I went to Norway and Denmark and investigated Nordic's operations in those countries, Hurley denounced my findings, which were damaging to Nordic, and he later cheered when my column was terminated.

If The Republican Journal is guilty of disservice to the Nordic debate, Hurley and the Belfast City Council are at least as guilty. Before Nordic went public in February 2018, Nordic and the city were four months in a self-congratulatory echo chamber where they both drank heavily of each other's kool-aid. And in the 31 months since Nordic went public, Hurley and the city council have refused to give any consideration to the legitimate and quite considerable doubts and concerns raised about Nordic's proposed project.

Hurley and the council have for 31 months kowtowed to Nordic Aquafarms while completely ignoring many of their own constituents. They rushed through Nordic's zoning change without any consideration of 70-plus public comments against such haste – with no comments supporting it. In a land dispute between Nordic and longtime Belfast residents Jeffrey Mabee and Judith Grace, Hurley threw Mabee and Grace overboard and even ridiculed them.

When it comes to failing Belfast, Hurley should pocket his stones and take a look at his own glass house.

Lawrence Reichard

Belfast