Fish Factory Trial Opens in Waldo County Superior Court

The game is on.  Attorneys filed pre-trial briefs on Wednesday, June 16th, for the June 22nd opening of the trial pitting Jeffrey Mabee and Judith Grace (Mabee-Grace) against Nordic Aquafarms, Inc. (NAF).  Mabee and Grace are defending their “title, right, and interest” in an intertidal zone that Nordic must invade to build the saltwater intake and wastewater discharge pipelines for a land-based salmon-raising factory.  Day 1 of the trial will include a site visit by Waldo County Superior Court Judge Robert Murray to the contested zone, accompanied by surveyors from both sides of the controversy. 

The June 22nd trial is Phase 1 in the long-running dispute between Nordic and plaintiffs Mabee and Grace.  Siding with Nordic are Janet and Richard Eckrote, Mabee-Grace neighbors who claim they own the intertidal land below their lot.  Proving the Eckrotes do not own the area is critical to the Mabee-Grace case.  If the Eckrotes do not own the intertidal area, any agreement NAF made with them is worthless. 

Kim Ervin Tucker, attorney for Mabee-Grace and the Friends of Harriet L. Hartley Conservation Area (HLH) filed a 43-page defense of her client’s rights.  In her point-by-point refutation of the Eckrote’s alleged ownership, Tucker flatly states: “[T]he ‘orphaned intertidal land’ fiction – concocted by NAF and Surveyor Dorsky – has no basis in fact and law and should have been abandoned by NAF no later than December 14, 2018, when NAF’s counsel obtained a copy of Harriet L. Hartley’s probate file.”  

Elsewhere in its own brief NAF argues that its industrial pipelines are a kind of “fishing” and are permitted under the public trust doctrine in the Colonial Ordinance of 1641.  “NAF’s assertion regarding the meaning of ‘fishing’ under the Colonial Ordinance of 1641-1647 is without basis in Maine law and is contrary to prior holdings interpreting the activities protected,” Tucker points out. 

Tucker’s brief asks the Court to determine four points:
(1) the August 6, 2018 easement agreement between NAF and the Eckrotes – by its own terms – ends at the high-water mark;
(2) the Eckrotes have no title to the intertidal land below their lot;
(3) NAF’s “release deeds” from alleged Hartley heirs are irrelevant; and
(4) building an industrial pipeline through an intertidal zone is not “fishing.” 

The trial takes place at 8:30 a.m., Tuesday, June 22nd, in Waldo County Superior Court.  The public may attend but must be masked while in the courthouse.  The pretrial briefs are public documents.  Contact Andy Stevenson if you would like digital copies of them.