[sedachv]

> The area is largely agricultural, and the cancer rate for that region is high compared to the rest of the state (Maine). Hmm.

That is probably related to Irving (largest landowner in Maine) forestry practices: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26507652

[m00x]

I grew up there and worked at the NB ministry of agriculture before heading to tech.

While Irving does have a chokehold on everything in NB, there's also a lot of agriculture in NB with very little resources to properly regulate. During my time there, small farmers would spray crops with unregulated herbicides/pesticides/fungicides, and even if we reported them, nothing would get done.

The area was also a huge test site for Agent Orange: https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/corpora...

People aren't very rich and don't take good care of themselves. The education level is low and most people smoke and the rate of obesity is incredibly high: https://www2.gnb.ca/content/dam/gnb/Departments/h-s/pdf/en/P...

[tejtm]

The area is a agricultural wasteland, scoured by repeated glaciation shoving everything down to and including the granite bedrock into the Atlantic. If nutritional value is coming out of something other than a bog or the ocean then someone first added it in as fertilizer.