© 2024 Maine Public

Bangor Studio/Membership Department
63 Texas Ave.
Bangor, ME 04401

Lewiston Studio
1450 Lisbon St.
Lewiston, ME 04240

Portland Studio
323 Marginal Way
Portland, ME 04101

Registered 501(c)(3) EIN: 22-3171529
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Scroll down to see all available streams.
SIGNAL ALERT: WMEB TV will be off the air for maintenance for an extended period on 10/3/24.

Belfast City Council ends bid to take land for controversial fish farm

A rendering of the proposed Nordic Aquafarms land-based aquaculture farm.
courtesy of Nordic Aquafarms
/
via the BDN
A rendering of the proposed Nordic Aquafarms land-based aquaculture farm.

The Belfast City Council voted Tuesday night to vacate an order it issued in 2021 to take intertidal land by eminent domain to accommodate intake and discharge pipes for a controversial fish farm project.

The vote is the culmination of six years of efforts to derail the Nordic Aquafarms project by opponents who argued that the land is privately owned and holds a conservation easement prohibiting industrial development.

Jill Howell, President of Upstream Watch, said she hopes the vote allows the community to move forward.

"This has split and divided people who were friends and neighbors and members of the community in a really unfortunate way. With resolution of this, or at least the beginning of resolution of this project, hopefully repair can start to happen within Belfast," Howell said.

Howell said still unresolved are litigations involving state issued permits and an appeal of Belfast Zoning Board of Appeals permits for the project.

The Department of Environmental Protection said that it received a petition to revoke the permits Wednesday morning, but that the licensee must be granted a hearing before the Commissioner can take any action.

Nordic Aquafarms did not immediately respond to a request for comment.