After years of legal battles, Nordic Aquafarms drops proposal for Belfast salmon farm
Rendering / COURTESY NORDIC AQUAFARMS
Despite being fully permitted, the project hinged on a strip of beach needed to connect the plant to the sea.
Seven years after landing in the coastal Waldo County city of Belfast with a proposal to build a 900,000-square-foot land-based salmon farm, Nordic Aquafarms has abandoned the project.
“This decision comes after long-fought legal challenges waged by opposition,” the Norway-based company said in a news release.
The exit comes after the company invested tens of millions of dollars and received all local, state and federal permits needed to build the plant, on 57 acres purchased from the city in 2020.
“This is a sad day for Maine’s economy and outlook for aquaculture or any significant investment in the state,” said Brenda Chandler, Nordic Aquafarm’s U.S. CEO.
Nordic Aquafarms' investments in Norway and Denmark include some of the world’s largest land-based seafood production facilities and it has a project underway in California. The firm uses a recirculating aquaculture system of production, based on large indoor tanks and water treatment systems.
Project opponents
Opponents of the project include two local organizations, Upstream Watch and Friends of Harriet L. Hartley Conservation Area.
“From the start, this was an ill-conceived development project proposed on the forested, wetland Little River ecosystem that would have resulted in millions of gallons of nutrient-laden discharge into Penobscot Bay daily, and never had the necessary title, right or interest to all of the land needed for the project,” Upstream Watch said in a Facebook post following Nordic’s announcement.
“This is good news indeed!” Friends of Harriet L. Hartley Conservation Area said in a separate release.
The plan
In January 2018, Nordic Aquafarms Inc., a 100%-owned subsidiary of Norway’s Nordic Aquafarms Group AS, announced plans for a land-based salmon farm in Belfast, to be built in two phases.
At full build-out the Belfast facility was expected have an annual salmon production capacity of 30,000 metric tons, or 66 million pounds, along with hatcheries and fish processing facilities.
The company’s salmon project in Maine was fully permitted in 2021, and Nordic exercised the purchase option for the property, from seller Belfast Water District.
In 2021, the Belfast City Council voted to seize a stretch of mudflat that was the subject of a title dispute, in a bid to advance Nordic’s proposal, allowing the company to run intake and discharge pipes from the facility to Belfast Bay, buried under land owned by the city
But neighboring residents claimed ownership of the intertidal portion of the land and challenged the legality of the seizure. In one public meeting, an opponent suggested the presence of the industrial operation would negatively impact the city’s character and said the firm’s operations would have negative consequences on the intertidal area and the bay.
A Maine Superior Court decision subsequently ruled in favor of the seizure.
Vote to vacate
But in 2024, the city council vacated its eminent domain action, leaving Nordic without the intertidal land needed for the project.
Nordic subsequently filed a lawsuit asking the Maine Superior Court to determine the validity of the council’s vote to vacate.
In its most recent release, the company touted land-based aquaculture as a “meaningful environmental” solution that offers a “scalable, sustainable way to meet the growing demand for seafood without depleting and damaging our oceans.”
The company reasoned that the operation would have expanded the city’s tax base and provided jobs.
“By cultivating finfish in a controlled, environmentally responsible manner, land-based aquaculture addresses several critical challenges: a reduction of the overall CO2 footprint; minimizing water usage; reducing reliance on imported seafood; and protecting wild fish populations,” said Chandler.
Friends of Harriet L. Hartley Conservation Area said an “array of legal actions against the company” taken by neighboring landowners and the two organizations still need to be settled.
That includes the disposition of the land that Nordic bought for the project.
The Friends group filed an emergency motion in the Business and Consumer Division Court aiming to attach Nordic’s Belfast properties, establish a trustee process over the properties and put in place a temporary restraining order on the company, as “a precautionary move to prevent Nordic from transferring or encumbering any of its real property or property rights on land owned” in Belfast and Northport.
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