On Feb. 16, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court ruled that Nordic Aquafarms didn’t own the intertidal land it needs to lay saltwater intake and effluent discharge pipes for the $500 million industrial fish farm it wants to build in Belfast.

A 2018 artist’s rendering of the Nordic Aquafarms facility proposed for construction beside Little River in Belfast. Courtesy of Nordic Aquafarms

At 1:56 p.m. that same day, Jerry Reid, chief legal counsel to Gov. Janet Mills, wrote in an email to Mills and various state officials that I acquired under Maine’s Freedom of Access Act, saying the court’s decision was Nordic’s “self-inflicted wound.”

Reid elaborated: “They (Nordic) put millions of dollars into a project on land they didn’t own, and … their own surveyor apparently told them that years ago.” Exactly. That’s exactly what the Nordic opposition has been saying for years. And, two minutes later at 1:58 p.m., Mills responded to Reid’s email: “Oh boy. This is not a good message for Maine.”

Apparently, Gov. Mills thinks that Maine’s highest court stopping a big corporation from illegally taking land from Maine residents is “not a good message for Maine.”

I disagree.

Lawrence Reichard
Belfast

This letter was corrected at 10:50 a.m. on Monday, Aug. 7, 2023, to reflect the correct identity of Gov. Mills’ correspondent in the email exchange that letter writer Lawrence Reichard acquired under Maine’s Freedom of Access Act.