The One That Got Away: This Small Town Is Left in Limbo After Betting Big on GMO Salmon
www.propublica.org
AquaBounty GMO salmon was going to be the future of fish — and the future for one Ohio village that offered incentives to make a new facility happen. But years after breaking ground, there are no fancy fish tanks. No designer fish. No new jobs.

Reporting Highlights

  • High Hopes: A village in Ohio looked to transform its economy. An ambitious company wanted to transform the way we eat. They came together in hopes of changing their futures.
  • Red Carpet: Although the company, AquaBounty, had never made a profit, public officials rolled out the red carpet — especially the village mayor, who had ties to AquaBounty.
  • Frozen Site: Even with so much public assistance, the project fell apart, and the village that hoped for a transformative industry is carrying the cost.
  • @Stamau123
    4•5 days ago

    Reading the article it appears to be a drawn out scheme by the mayor to flip land and water rights for cash

    • partial_accumen
      4•5 days ago

      Yep, the mayor (Kidston) tried to enrich himself years earlier selling water rights of the town to Toledo. The mayor was successful in using his insider knowledge to buy up the land before the sellers knew there was a development interest, then the mayor sold the land for $2.1m to the company he was lobbying for. So he screwed the town, local governments (that backed loans), and even the company.

      For those wondering why the facility was never finished its this part:

      “Despite the opposition, the state granted the water permits, explaining that all requirements were met and certain safeguards were in place. But AquaBounty still had a problem: It didn’t have a way of moving water between its farm and the site about a mile east where it planned to withdraw and discharge it — on land owned by Kidston’s company.”