The article on a new land-based industrial fish farm proposed for Millinocket said the plant would use “100% renewable hydropower” (“Salmon farm could be headed for landlocked Millinocket,” Feb. 16). But the plant will almost certainly have large, non-renewable and carbon-intensive diesel generators for backup power so fish won’t die in the event of a power outage, and those generators may be used during times of peak power usage in order to reduce the company’s overall power bill. This is true in Belfast, for a project designed by those now spearheading the Millinocket project.

The article also says the Millinocket plant’s filtration system “removes and sanitizes waste.” But that is misleading. Here in Belfast, by one estimate, Nordic Aquafarms’ filtration system would still discharge 1,600 pounds of nitrogen alone per day, which would likely cause algae blooms, depriving wild marine life of oxygen. Such effluent discharge also attracts sea lice, which then attach to passing wild fish. That this discharge is as clean or cleaner than the plants’ intake water is simply wrong.

The article also states that fish cannot escape from land-based industrial fish farms, and this too is wrong. There have been documented fish escapes from land-based industrial fish farms in Canada and Norway, and it is discouraging that Erik Heim and Marianne Naess, former executives of Nordic Aquafarms in Belfast, are now peddling in Millinocket the same falsehoods they peddled in Belfast for four years.

Lawrence Reichard
Belfast