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V O L . X X V I I N O. X V I I I A U G U S T 2 3 , 2 0 2 1 6 Shipyard to repair submarines. e contract will complete the construction of the multi-mission extension proj- ect for Dry Dock No. 1. Currently, the dock can only accommodate Navy Los Angeles-class submarines, which means it would become obsolete when they are removed from service in the 2030s. N O T E W O R T H Y S O U T H E R N The Rotary Club of South Portland- Cape Elizabeth donated $60,000 to the Southern Maine Community College Foundation to fund annual scholarships for students. $1M grant earmarked for 'healthy communities' program Healthy Community Coalition of Greater Franklin County, an affiliate of Franklin Community Health Network and a member of MaineHealth, was awarded a one-year federal $1 million grant to fund Healthy Community Coalition's Hometowns Partnership. e grant award was from the U.S. Health Resources & Services Administration American Rescue Plan. N O T E W O R T H Y C E N T R A L & W E S T E R N Maine Dentistry opened a location at 34 Center St. in Auburn. United Way of Kennebec Valley raised $18,512 to support community program- ming at its 51st Annual Golf Scramble. Island Institute names president e newly named president of the Island Institute brings a background of marine conservation and the sustainability of coastal communities to his role.e Rockland nonprofit, which serves Maine island and coastal communities, named Anthony Chatwin as president, effective Aug. 23. Chatwin led the science and evaluation team at the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. Congressional delegation: Save Maine's 207 Amid projections that Maine's single 207 statewide area code could be exhausted by 2024, Maine's congres- sional delegation is pressing the federal government to preserve the number. e area code, they said, is intertwined with Maine's identity, with businesses and organizations across the state using the three digits in their branding. Under FCC rules, phone numbers are allocated to phone providers in blocks of 1,000, but carriers often leave many numbers in a block unused. e 207 area code is projected to be exhausted by 2024 despite only 37% of the phone numbers being used today. N O T E W O R T H Y S T A T E W I D E U.S. Sens. Susan Collins and Angus King announced that the Maine Comprehensive Suicide Project re- ceived $849,000 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Injury Prevention & Control to support youth suicide pre- vention programs in Maine. The Department of Economic and Community Development selected two projects: Pumpspotting with the Maine Bureau of Human Resources, and OpBox and Acadia Composite Materials, with multiple state agencies, as the first Maine companies to partici- pate in its Early Adopter Program. $1.7B in funding approved for Kittery shipyard e federal government said it will award a $1.7 billion contract to build out a dry dock facility at Portsmouth Naval B U S I N E S S M A I N E Business news from around the state S T A T E W I D E S O U T H E R N M I D C O A S T & D O W N E A S T C E N T R A L & W E S T E R N B R I E F Land, not water, is apparently last obstacle for Belfast aquafarm B y L a u r i e S c h r e i b e r B E L F A S T — Nordic Aquafarms, the Norwegian firm propos- ing construction of a land-based salmon farm in Belfast, has received the last permit needed to get the operation off the ground, the company said. Actual ground, however, remained a point of contention until recently. The city of Belfast needed to resolve a title dispute over an intertidal area where discharge pipes for the facility are planned. Now the Belfast City Council used eminent domain, a process by which a government can take private property for public use with payment or other compensation, to acquire the property. Nordic said it received a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, making the Belfast project the first large-scale, land-based recirculating aquaculture system to be fully per- mitted in New England. The company, whose U.S. headquarters are in Portland, received all other necessary state and local permits in 2020. With permits in place, Nordic can move into the final stages of engineering and construction planning. But the stretch of mudflat was needed in order to run pipes from the upland facility to Belfast Bay. Belfast City Council voted to exercise eminent domain to clear up the ambiguities. At the council's meeting in early August, the city's attorney, Bill Kelly, said the council has the right to clear defective title by exercising eminent domain for the public benefit. Said Councilor Michael Hurley, "What's contemplated is a ditch across the tidal flats that a couple of pipes will go in." Nordic has said the facility, if it now goes forward, will be one of the world's largest land-based salmon farms, with a total capital investment expected to be between $450 million and $500 million for an end-to-end operation, on 54 acres, that includes hatcheries and fish processing The goal is to construct in several phases a land-based salmon operation with annual salmon production capacity of 30,000 metric tons, or 66 million pounds. The first phase was expected to cost $150 million. Belfast was selected after the company assessed interna- tional markets and conducted comprehensive site searches throughout New England. The company operates three recirculating aquaculture system farms in Scandinavia, and has a proposal underway to build a facility in Humboldt County, Calif. R E N D E R I N G / C O U R T E S Y O F N O R D I C A Q UA FA R M S Nordic Aquafarms estimates its total investment in Belfast could be $450 million to $500 million. The 54-acre site would include hatcheries and fish processing. A rendering from 2019 shows the proposed site and layout for Nordic Aquafarms' land-based aquaculture facility in Belfast.

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