Fighting Back with Bricks and Mortars

Fighting Back with Bricks and Mortars

On its official Facebook page, the City of Belfast has posted a response to my October 25, 2018 Republican Journal column entitled “Two Hours with Bent Urup.” The column was based on two hours I spent with Urup in in his office in Fredericia, Denmark office September 26, 2018. Urup is perhaps the world's foremost expert in land-based aquaculture, and the column took a critical look at plans by Nordic Aquafarms, a Norwegian company, to build in Belfast a $500 million industrial, land-based salmon farm - one of the biggest industrial salmon farms in the world.

First and foremost, this City of Belfast action raises an obvious question: why is the city using city resources – its official Facebook page – and perhaps City staff time to defend Nordic Aquafarms, a for-profit corporation that will at some point be seeking City Council approval for its vast project? Shouldn't the city be maintaining a neutral position in this matter, especially given the solid and substantial evidence of widespread community opposition to Nordic's plans?

If only the city would dedicate this much time and energy to taking a serious, critical look at Nordic Aquafarms and its Belfast plans, something the city has never done, choosing instead to waste $14,000 of taxpayer money on an on-the-cheap puff-piece report by the global consulting firm Deloitte, which had a previous working relationship with Nordic and had previously written positively about Nordic on at least two occasions. Not to mention the likelihood, supported by evidence, that Nordic suggested Deloitte to Belfast City Manager Joe Slocum.

In emails to Nordic CEO Erik Heim, Belfast City Manager Joe Slocum paints a picture of city officials using large amounts of staff time and bending over backward for Nordic in the face of large and growing public opposition to Nordic's project, which raises another question: Who does the City of Belfast represent, Nordic or Belfast?

The City of Belfast response to my October 25 Bent Urup column reads like it was written by Nordic, not by the city.

In its response the city calls Urup “a self-proclaimed world expert in RAS (recirculating aquaculture systems) technology,” but the city doesn't actually contest or dispute this expertise. The fact that one is self-proclaimed doesn't necessarily mean it's not true.

The city says Urup has “left a trail of disappointed investors behind him.” But the city doesn't dispute Urup's track record of designing scores of fish farms around the world over a period of decades. If Urup were such a disappointment to investors, how was he able to stay in business long enough to design so many facilities? Why would Nordic buy two Urup-designed fish farms in Denmark, one as recently as October 2017? Why would Nordic use Urup's RAS 2020 design for its under-construction fish farm in Fredrikstad, Norway? In fact, every one of Nordic's existing operations is built, or is being built, on an Urup design. That seems odd for a man who has left a trail of disappointed investors.

The city's response says Nordic was “the first, and since the, the majority active owner in the Danish operation,” but according to Urup, in the initial stages of the development of Nordic's Sashimi Royal operation in Denmark, Nordic was anything but active. According to Urup, Nordic simply put up money and came to board meetings – it played no role in the design or initial development of the project.

In my October 25 column I quote Urup as saying there has been a problem with fish disease at Nordic's Maximus smolt production facility in Denmark. The city's response to this is a non-denial denial, a ploy City Manager Joe Slocum and Nordic have used repeatedly in response to my Nordic columns. The city states that “there has been no disease at the facility as long as Nordic Aquafarms has been involved.” But Nordic has owned Maximus for little more than a year and Maximus has been in operation for more than 20 years.

Next up is another non-denial denial. In response to my October 11 “24 Hours in Denmark” column, the city states that Nordic employs teenagers in Denmark “according to the law regulating under-age work...” But I never said Nordic employed under-age workers. In my October 11 column I quote a 14-year-old former Nordic employee saying that while working with Nordic he handled, without protective eyewear, the DuPont chemical Virkon S. Under Danish law it is illegal for any worker to handle this chemical without protective eyewear, and it is illegal for 14-year-olds to handle it at all. Nowhere does the city deny any of this – a classic non-denial denial.

The city says I “interrogated” the former Nordic employee. In fact, I had a very amiable and amicable talk with him over his kitchen table, after being invited into his home. I recorded the conversation, which was peppered with laughter – hardly an interrogation.

The city states that Veolia, a French company that bought the patent for Bent Urup's RAS 2020 fish-farm design, “has confirmed that they are not suing or planning to sue Nordic Aquafarms for copyright infringement.” Another non-denial denial. Neither I nor Urup said Veolia was suing or planned to sue Nordic.

Urup told me Veolia this last summer won a patent-infringement lawsuit against a Danish company called Inter Aqua. Urup said Inter Aqua went bankrupt the next month and that he believed Nordic was preparing to engage in similar patent infringement in Belfast. A Veolia employee confirmed to me that there was a Veolia patent-infringement case.

The city probably got one thing right. In my October 25 column I quoted Urup as saying Inter Aqua's bankruptcy threw 90,000 employees out of work. That figure is probably incorrect. I tried to confirm the figure with Veolia, but the company was very tight-lipped, perhaps because of a non-disclosure agreement linked to the patent-infringement lawsuit. In any event, I caught the likely mistake before it was pointed out by the city, and I had it removed from my column before the column was posted online.

To see more previously published Bricks and Mortars columns, please go to:

https://waldo.villagesoup.com/p/bricks-and-mortars/1233098

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