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.