BELFAST, Maine — The plan to build a large indoor fish farm in Belfast is hitting yet another snag after years of lengthy legal challenges from conservation groups.
On Tuesday, the Belfast City Council could undo an eminent domain order it granted in 2021 to secure a piece of tidal land that the company Nordic Aquafarms would use to run intake and outflow pipes from its proposed farm to the ocean. The likely decision follows a Maine Supreme Court ruling in 2023 that found the city was incorrect in its interpretation of who owned much of the property in question.
"The city council is not comfortable having taken property based on facts that changed over time," Kristin Collins, the city attorney for Belfast, said Monday.
Collins was asked by the city council to draft a document revoking the eminent domain order from 2021. To conservation groups who have tried to slow Nordic's progress through litigation, this move by the city council is a victory against a project that relies on ocean access.
"This is pretty huge," Jill Howell, the executive director of the non-profit Upstream Watch, said. "The eminent domain vacating is an enormous blow to their project."
But Nordic Aquafarms is undeterred in its quest to see its fish farm through, promising to deliver economic benefit and sustainable aquaculture.
"If it can’t go forward with pipelines into the ocean, we will find another way,” Jacki Cassida, a spokesperson with Nordic Aquafarms, explained.
The alternatives Cassida presented included putting discharge pipes in another location, or creating a farm that recirculates water used in the fish tanks.
The Belfast City Council will vote on whether to strike down the eminent domain order at a meeting on Tuesday evening.