It’s not over till it’s over. Nordic Aquafarms may have left Belfast’s shores without ever turning a spadeful of dirt on its proposed multimillion-dollar land-based salmon farm, but legal issues are still churning in its wake.
The last two unresolved lawsuits are now before Maine’s Supreme Judicial Court. Plaintiffs Jeffrey Mabee, Judith Grace and the Friends of Harriet L. Hartley Conservation Area are seeking damages, reimbursement of litigation expenses and attorney fees in two cases, one involving slander of title and the other eminent domain.
Slander of title occurs when a party publishes false statements, with malice or reckless disregard for their falsity, that question the validity of another party’s ownership of real property such as land or a home, and causes damages by inhibiting its sale or causing the true owner(s) to incur costs in removing the cloud on their title.
Judge Michael Duddy, whose Business and Consumer Docket in Portland took over and consolidated several pending Nordic-related cases two years ago, has ruled consistently against the plaintiffs in the litigation transferred to him. In January, Duddy ruled that they had not proven Nordic slandered Mabee/Grace’s title or that they suffered any damages. On July 16, he issued a final judgment, finding in Nordic’s and the city of Belfast’s favor on all eight counts in a challenge to the city’s use of eminent domain to benefit Nordic and transfer the use of Mabee and Grace’s intertidal land to the company — including a portion located outside the city’s municipal boundaries established in 1813. The court’s judgment found no liability on the city’s part and did not award any penalties, attorney fees or costs to the plaintiffs.
The decision went the other way earlier, when Mabee, Grace and the Friends appealed their title claims case (in which a Waldo County Superior Court ruling had gone against them) to the Supreme Judicial Court: In February 2023, the state’s high court found in the plaintiffs’ favor.
That 2023 ruling established that Mabee and Grace own the intertidal area where Nordic claimed an easement from Janet and Richard Eckrote, who erroneously had stated they owned those mudflats, based on false deeds that Nordic recorded. The high court validated the friends group’s conservation easement on the intertidal land, and ruled that a deeded restriction on the adjacent upland property (then owned by the Eckrotes) allows only residential uses.
Nordic needed both the upland lot and the intertidal land for its industrial water intake and outflow pipes from the proposed aquaculture operation to the bay.
When that Nordic effort failed, the Belfast City Council took the Mabee/Grace intertidal property by eminent domain for the company’s pipes, including the intertidal land outside Belfast’s boundary. After the supreme court ruled in Mabee/Grace’s favor, Waldo County Superior Court remanded the eminent domain taking to the City Council for reconsideration based on the high court’s findings.
In May 2024, the city vacated its eminent domain order and restored title to Mabee and Grace two weeks later. Deciding to take a close look at Belfast’s municipal boundary in that area, the city then hired an independent surveyor to establish the boundary line set by an 1813 statute. The surveyor found that part of the mudflats taken in August 2021 actually lay outside the municipal boundary, and the City Council adopted and recorded that survey in November 2024.
Nordic’s loss of the property rights case in 2023 and the subsequent failure of the city’s eminent domain scheme came at a steep price for the Norway-based company, and in January 2025 it left town — seven long years after the fish farm project was announced with much fanfare and raised hopes of eventual tax benefits. The two lawsuits now on appeal before the Supreme Judicial Court seek to recover the plaintiffs’ costs of fighting for their property rights, including surveyor and attorney fees, as well as damages.
The parties expect the cases to be concluded within a year.
This story appears through a media partnership with Midcoast Villager.