HARPSWELL

Selectmen Thursday rejected a proposal to build an extensive, land-based aquaculture project on townowned land at Mitchell Field.

Citing an inability to reach favorable terms, board members unanimously voted to end negotiations with Harpswell Oceanic Center, Inc., a local consortium which had sought a 30-year lease and planned to build an 11-acre, eco-friendly fish-farming facility on the property.

Primarily selectmen worried that, if the fish farm defaulted on its loans, either the town would have to bail it out or that creditors then would have a claim to the land upon which the facility stood. They also wanted approval of sub-leases made by HOC, and balked at language which indemnified HOC’s principal officers against “misrepresentations, fraud or environmental problems.”

Tony Barrett, an HOC board member and chief negotiator, said the town’s fear of losing municipal property because of bad loans was unfounded.

The selectmen’s rejection “seems to imply that Harpswell Oceanic was asking the town to put up Mitchell Field as collateral for its loan agreements or to undertake payment of loans if it defaulted,” Barrett said. “That was never requested. This fear has been brought up just recently, and was not at our insistence.”

In March 2011, voters during annual Town Meeting authorized selectmen to negotiate with HOC, whose original proposal was submitted in May 2011. It called for a technologically advanced, innovative and ecologically neutral series of saltwater breeding and research tanks to be constructed on the former U.S. Navy refueling grounds.

The facility was to include both a non-profit marine biology research arm as well as a commercial, land-based aquafarm that would raise sustainable seafood for retail market. An intricate web of water filtration and circulation circuits would provide fresh water to the growing stocks, as well as treating waste effluent before releasing it back to the ocean off Harpswell Neck.

Now, 18 months later, no decisions had been reached, the project still lacked a lease, and Harpswell Oceanic was under pressure to move ahead.

“We need a place for it,” Barrett said. “We need the stakes in the ground or we risk losing credibility with our investors.”

A small-scale pilot program already is under way in the eastern Maine town of Franklin, about 15 miles east of Ellsworth in Hancock County. Operated in conjunction with the University of Maine at its Center for Cooperative Aquaculture, or “CCAR,” Harpswell Oceanic’s board members decided to start there and move operations to Mitchell Field when — and if — the town approved its lease application.

Now, said Joanne Rogers, HOC’s president and board chairman, another site will have to be found. She said the project leaders are considering other locations but declined to provide examples.

“I’m extremely disappointed,” Rogers said after Thursday’s vote. “I thought we had something uniquely suited to the town of Harpswell, and it’s very disappointing to think that now it’s not going to happen here.”

jtleonard@timesrecord.com

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