Nat,
I take any opinions from paid experts with a grain of salt.
I had seen that document before.
The salient points are below, along with my non expert rebuttal of each. Again, I am not really against the salmon farm, but I am totally against their current plan for putting 7 million gallons of waste water into the bay. One percent of 7 million is a lot of dirty water. think about the reversing tides and how long it will take for each days water to get out to open waters 3o miles away, meanwhile the next 7 million gallons is still coming day in and day out.
• Nordic Aquafarms (Nordic) has developed a thoughtfully engineered RAS production facility. They've drawn on Norwegian know-how and technology, Maine-based environmental engineering expertise, and Maine-based construction expertise to do so.
Nobody has ever done a land based salmon farm installation that is remotely this large, I realize that this does not mean it can’t work, but I don’t want to risk the health of Penobscot Bay to find out. They should be looking at ways to reuse the waste water.
Water based salmon farming is proving to be extremely dirty and an ecological disaster in Scotland, Just as in concentrated pig farming, you cannot have an unnatural density of animals without also concentrating their waste products at extremely unhealthy levels.
• Nordic has assembled an outstanding site and related easements with neighbors to build a safe, contained facility, provide it with adequate groundwater and seawater inputs, and convey process waters underground to avoid shoreline impact and discharged offshore at suitable depth and with appropriate distribution.
Not sure about their water requirements and the ability of the Waldo county aquifers to sustain those requirements long term. .
• The nutrient and temperature impact of facility discharge, as modeled, will have negligible impact when considered in the context of the tidal current and water volume characteristics of West Penobscot Bay and Belfast Bay. Nordic has sought second opinions to insure development of a best-practice design to minimize discharge impacts.
It is very difficult to believe that 1500 extra lbs of nitrogen a day flowing into a merely partial dispersal environment is not going to have a serious effect. Many informed people are questioning their water flow modeling. More importantly the current outflow pipe ends in line with the Bayside mooring field, this is not even close to what I would consider a deep water discharge. This pipe has shrunk very quietly from the originally announced 1.5 miles to just .5 miles. Which puts it right in line with the Bayside (Northport) shore line, as the Little river outlet is well inside at the moufh of a cove.
• Nordic has developed a competent strategy to collect baseline ecosystem information against which to monitor impact from operations as they grow and evolve.
This only tells me that they will know when they are failing, but what will be the actions taken when it does begin to have a negative effect on the Bay waters and ecology. This is not stated.
• Nordic has gone beyond addressing normal discharge permit environmental engineering requirements to observe that the ultimate risk and determinant of ecosystem impact will be operating practices. They're coupling Norwegian operational expertise and experience with hiring capable, local facility managers with a long-term commitment to Maine. This combination is the best insurance we could ask for against operational risk.
Again “Norwegian expertise” has no bearing when this has not ever been tried. I’d like to see them use their “Norwegian expertise”, to find a way to remove 99.99% of the solids, phosphorus, nitrogen, viruses, and cleaning agents that will be in the water coming out of the 24/7 7 million gallons a day discharge. Also meeting discharge requirements and having no impact are not the same thing.
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