Norway-headquartered aquaculture firm Nordic Aquafarms has abandoned its years-long fight to build a recirculating aquaculture system [RAS] salmon farm in Belfast, Maine, U.S.A.
"It’s a sad day for Maine’s economy and the outlook for aquaculture and any significant investment in the state," Nordic Aquafarms U.S. CEO Brenda Chandler said in a release. "While a few may view this as a victory, we argue that this is a significant loss overall, not just for Nordic Aquafarms but for the community. The expanded tax base for Belfast was significant; new jobs for the area were significant; and Maine’s leadership in aquaculture-born solutions is also significant.”
The nearly seven-year battle has centered on a stretch of oceanfront intertidal zone through which Nordic would need to build pipelines to complete the project.
Andrew Stevenson, the press secretary for the Friends of the Harriet L. Hartley Conservation Area, which comprises the disputed land, said that Nordic’s decision to abandon the project was “good news,” though he called for the company to financially “compensate the people who suffered the most from the company’s stubborn campaign of regulatory manipulation, self-serving public relations, and legalized bullying.”
"Neither our organization nor the members of the community who have been supporting our work are anti-aquaculture,” he said. “What concerned us from the beginning is that the size, design, and location of this particular fish factory – it's really not a farm – are not going to make a positive environmental or even a positive long-term economic impact on the Midcoast community."
Chandler has pushed back on similar claims in the past, saying that aquaculture is needed to alleviate pressure on wild stocks.
“Activism has its place, but with the oceans under increasing pressure, solutions like land-based aquaculture are not just innovative – they are essential," she said. “By cultivating finfish in a controlled, environmentally responsible manner, land-based aquaculture addresses several critical challenges: a reduction of the overall carbon footprint; minimizing water usage; reducing reliance on imported seafood; and protecting wild fish populations. At a time when global food security is a pressing issue, projects like this represent a small but impactful step toward a more sustainable future.”
Stevenson, however, said the cause for concern was more narrowly focused on the needs of the Midcoast Maine community, saying that there were a number of legal, community, and environmental problems with the company’s plans to run pipelines through an intertidal zone.
He said not only did the property owners have a right to control the land, but he pointed out that because the electrical grid in the area does not currently have the capacity to power a facility of the size Nordic planned, the project would require an update to a section of grid in Camden and Belfast. He also explained that the project would pump “about 7 million gallons a day of treated wastewater into a bay area that flushes very slowly.”
“We were concerned about the impact on Belfast Harbor, on North Port, and on Isleboro, which is the nearest island community to that discharge point,” he said.
What the company initially imagined would be one of the world’s largest land-based salmon farms faced significant push back from its inception.
In 2018, two residents whose land abutted the proposed site brought a suit against the city of Belfast, arguing that it had violated state and local law when it amended city planning documents and zoning codes to allow the project to go ahead. That suit was resolved by Waldo Superior Court Judge Robert E. Murray, who ruled in favor of the municipality, finding that it had followed the rules in the planning and zoning change processes.
Next, the company faced a lawsuit filed in the same district by two Belfast residents, Jeffrey R. Mabee and Judith B. Grace, who claimed to be the true owners of the intertidal zone that the Nordic project planned to run pipelines through.
The Maine Department of Environmental Protection had previously found, during the permitting process, that Nordic had demonstrated what the law calls sufficient “right, title, and interest” to the intertidal zone.
That suit alleged that the intertidal land, however, was not owned by the individuals with whom the company had made its agreements.
In response to that suit, city counselors in Belfast attempted to use eminent domain in 2021 to seize the disputed area of intertidal zone. Local activists pushed back on this plan, creating the Harriet L. Hartley Conservation Area on the land that Nordic planned to use for the site. At the time, Stevenson said that the city council’s attempt to use eminent domain reflected fears that the company would lose the lawsuit over the disputed land.
City Councilor Michael Hurley disagreed, saying at the time that the opponents of the farm aimed to “exhaust Nordic through time and money” spent on litigation.
Ultimately, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court ruled that Mabee and Grace were the true owners of the intertidal land in 2023, and the Belfast City Council reversed course in May 2024, unanimously vacating its previous decision to use eminent domain to give Nordic access to the land.
"Despite this turn of events, we remain optimistic while we continue to evaluate options that are in the interests of the company as well as the local community and the broader region,” Nordic told SeafoodSource at the time.
On 17 January, the company officially abandoned the project, blaming the “long-fought legal challenges waged by the opposition."
“I cannot thank our supporters enough,” Chandler said. “We sincerely thank the hundreds of people who worked tirelessly on this project at city, state, and federal levels, and we want to send special thanks to our supporters who advocated with reason and truth.”
