Meet the chef who will be preparing it:
"A planned salmon farm, which would be among the world’s largest, raises hopes and fears in Maine" by David Abel Globe Staff December 06, 2018
BELFAST, Maine — The controversial proposal by a Norwegian company to build one of the world’s largest indoor salmon farms in Belfast would be a boon to this cash-strapped city on Penobscot Bay, bringing in millions of dollars in property taxes and as many as 100 new jobs, but the $500 million plant, which would clear more than 50 acres of woods along the coast and become by far the biggest building in this city of 6,500, has sparked significant dissent throughout Belfast, including a lawsuit, protests at local meetings, and several write-in candidates for City Council.
They “worry that the beautiful bay could be sent back to the ecological dark ages, when the bay ran with chicken blood.”
Local officials have mainly welcomed the proposal, with city councilors voting unanimously to change the zoning where the plant would be built. Many of them see aquaculture as a sign of things to come in Maine, a way to diversify a coastal economy that has become overly reliant on lobster, especially as climate change threatens to disrupt the vital industry.
The Globe's dish is already starting to stink.
Proponents of the plan, which mirrors a similar project under consideration in nearby Bucksport, note that the United States now imports more than 90 percent of the seafood the public consumes, most of which is farmed.
With a rising demand for seafood and a need to reduce expenses and carbon emissions, the country should be expanding its homegrown aquaculture, they say. Maine, with its long coastline and access to substantial amounts of freshwater and saltwater, provides an ideal location.
If the necessary permits are approved, Nordic Aquafarms plans to break ground on the project this summer and begin selling as much as 15,000 metric tons of salmon by 2021. If the first phase succeeds, the company plans to more than double its production by 2024.
A similar salmon farm is now under construction on a former tomato field in Homestead, Fla. When that plant is completed in about a decade, it will be even larger than those planned for Maine.
Company officials say it’s the right time to move operations to the United States, because the technology of indoor salmon farming has matured to the point that such large-scale operations are now feasible. Moreover, ocean salmon farming has become increasingly expensive and beset by a range of problems, including diseases such as sea lice, escapes into the wild, and pollution.
Many of those problems are eliminated when using special recirculation aquaculture systems that filter the massive tanks, they say, but the tension in the city has been so great that a freelance opinion columnist at the local newspaper was fired after his boss at the Republican Journal received complaints from Nordic Aquafarms and accused him of crusading against the proposal.
At least they didn't kill him like you-know-who.
The opponents’ concerns include the massive amounts of water the plant will use, which they worry will deplete local aquifers; the digging of trenches for an outfall pipe they fear could disturb mercury deep in the sediment from previous pollution; and the fecal matter and other effluent that will carry substantial amounts of nitrogen and other chemicals into the bay, which could harm fish and cause toxic algae blooms.
I just lost my appetite.
“When you slow down and start to look at the large-scale realities of this concentrated, industrial activity, there’s just no avoiding serious environmental consequences,” said Ellie Daniels, an organizer of Local Citizens for Smart Growth, which filed the lawsuit against the city and is considering further legal action to block the project. “Our primary concern is that this is a concentrated animal feeding operation that poses very real threats to our environment and to our natural resources.”
Unlike that other thing, which is looking more and more like a money grab -- regardless of what is going on with the weather.
Some local fishing groups are also opposing the proposal. They worry about the consequences of the bleach, methanol, and other chemicals the plant would empty into the bay, saying that any tainted seafood could put the entire industry at risk.
“Penobscot Bay shouldn’t be treated as a cesspool or a dumping ground,” said Kim Ervin Tucker, legal counsel for the Maine Lobstering Union. “If there’s any contamination at all, it could damage the reputation for wholesomeness of the Maine lobster brand. That would be terrible.”
Despite such concerns, the company’s plans have been endorsed by several of the region’s major environmental and scientific groups, including the Conservation Law Foundation, the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, and the Altantic Salmon Federation.
While the groups acknowledge there are legitimate concerns, they’re confident they can be managed by effective oversight......
Then they are truly nothing but indu$try fronts, aren't they?
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Would you like to try the lobster?
"The grueling and messy work of lobster processing" by David Abel, Globe Staff December 11, 2018
RICHMOND, Maine — Maine’s lobster processing industry has been thriving in recent years. Since Shucks opened in 2006, the lobster catch in Maine has nearly doubled, as has its value.
With a record 132 million pounds of lobster caught in the state in 2016, which was worth $538 million, Johnny Hathaway entered the business at a good time.
The signs of that success are visible nearly every morning before dawn. Hathaway’s employees — nearly all of them immigrants, some of whom came to Maine on a temporary work visa — start the day by donning boots, latex gloves, plastic smocks, hairnets, and surgical masks. They walk through a set of double doors and prepare for hours of grueling work.
Just like at the Marriott.
The first order of business is feeding the lobsters into a large cylinder that Hathaway calls the “Big Mother Shucker.” The 16-foot-tall, 80,000-pound machine uses a relatively new technology in the industry called high-pressure processing.
The advantages include slaughtering the lobsters in about six seconds. Hathaway says it is “the only humane way to kill lobsters.”
More important for the business, the machine helps shuck the raw meat from the shell.
In fact, it was Hathaway’s discovery of the technology at an oyster processing plant in Louisiana that led him to close a seafood restaurant that he ran with his five children in Kennebunkport and make the move into the lobster processing business.
This was his epiphany:
As the Gulf of Maine continues to warm faster than nearly any other body of water on the planet, Hathaway and many others in the lobster industry question whether the waters will be able to sustain such a robust lobster population. Temperatures one day this summer reached nearly 69 degrees, the second-warmest day ever recorded in the gulf.
??????
Then why are they pulling frozen-solid turtles out of Cape Cod, and how often have we been told one cold day does not a trend make?
The stench of agenda-pushing hypocrisy is overriding the fishy smell coming from my Globe.
“The majority of people feel that we’re at our peak in landings right now,” he says. “That’s on the front of everybody’s’ minds,” but he’s not a pessimist.
While the lobster population is likely to decline considerably as temperatures warm, Hathaway believes the industry will adapt.
“We just have to plan for it and add value,” he says, noting how chefs have been experimenting with recipes such as lobster-infused mac and cheese.
“I think the best time is ahead of us. There’s a huge market out there for Maine lobster.”
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After looking at those photos, I've lost my appetite for mercury-laden seafood.
NEXT DAY UPDATE:
Eat thi$.
