On March 21, opponents of the $450 million Nordic Aquafarms industrial fish farm filed suit against Nordic and the City of Belfast. The suit seeks to enforce restrictions the State of Maine placed on 12.5 acres of land when the state gave the land to the City of Belfast, which then gave the land to the Belfast Water District, which then sold the land to Nordic Aquafarms. The restrictions were designed "for the protection of a municipal watershed."

Long story short, the restrictions would bar Nordic from building its fish tanks in what seems to be the only viable place for Nordic to build them.

The city says the restrictions no longer apply, but it seems to me the city is missing the bigger picture here. The state put the restrictions in place to protect our watershed — the watershed that provides drinking water to all of us. That, it seems to me, is the larger point here, and the city seems to have lost track of that.

Needless to say, clean water is a good, necessary and vital thing for the health and well-being of our entire community. I think all of us can see the importance of that.

Lawrence Reichard lives in Belfast