On February 16 of this year the Maine Supreme Judicial Court ruled unanimously that Nordic Aquafarms didn't own the intertidal land it needs to lay saltwater intake and effluent discharge pipes for its $500 million industrial fish farm in Belfast.

At 1:56 p.m. that same day, Jerry Reid, Governor Mills' chief legal counsel, sent the governor an email, which I obtained under Maine's Freedom of Access Act. The email called the court decision a "self-inflicted wound" by Nordic. "They (Nordic) put millions into a project on land they didn't own... and their own surveyor told them that years ago," Reid wrote.

Two minutes later, at 1:58 p.m., Governor Mills wrote back to Reid. "Oh boy," Mills wrote, "This is not a good message for Maine."

So Maine's highest court stopped a big multinational corporation from illegally taking land from Maine residents and Governor Mills thinks that's "not a good message for Maine."

We can only hope that our next governor will take more than two minutes to throw us under the bus.

Lawrence Reichard lives in Belfast