Press release: City councilors vacate 2021 condemnation order favoring Nordic Aquafarms

[May 7, 2024; Belfast, Maine] Earlier this evening the Belfast city council voted 5-0 to vacate their August 12, 2021 exercise of eminent domain against our conservation easement. The Friends of Harriet L. Hartley Conservation Area (HLH) commend the councilors for tonight’s vote. Since that August night in 2021, we have maintained that using eminent domain to take private property from one owner primarily to benefit a for-profit company was a mistake and abuse of power. Our legal defense of the easement granted to us by Belfast residents Jeffrey Mabee and Judith Grace has been steadfast. We sincerely hope that the council’s unanimous vote marks the beginning of a restoration of trust between the City and its residents.

The original 2021 decision was intended to buttress plans by Nordic Aquafarms, Inc. to build a 900,000-square foot fish-raising facility on Penobscot Bay.  Critical to that plan was Nordic’s ability to run saltwater intake and wastewater discharge pipelines across mudflats owned by Mabee and Grace. Opposed to the plan, Mabee and Grace put their intertidal land into a conservation easement in 2019 and challenged Nordic’s assertion of “title, right, or interest” (TRI) in the mudflats. The Mabee-Grace challenge went all the way to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court (a.k.a. the Law Court) where their ownership claims — and our conservation easement — were upheld in 2023. Once the Law Court decided Mabee and Grace owned the mudflats, Nordic’s basis for obtaining its state and local permits dissolved and the various permitting authorities were required to review their decisions. This evening’s action is the result of that 2023 Law Court ruling and we thank the councilors and the mayor for their votes.