The Kingfish Company has secured a win in the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, exhausting opponents' options in the Maine court system after a multi-year battle over its proposal to build a recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) farm in Jonesport, Maine.
The Kingfish Company has been fighting to build a RAS facility in Jonesport, Maine for over half a decade. The company, at the time called Kingfish Zeeland, first announced its intention to build a RAS project in November 2019 to raise yellowtail.
Since that time the company has changed its name to The Kingfish Company, harvested some of its first U.S.-grown yellowtail, and intensified its sales efforts as the company nears a break-even EBITDA thanks to its operations in Kats, Netherlands.
Throughout that time, however, it has been unable to proceed with its Maine-based project – originally intended to be launched by 2021 – due to a number of court battles launched by opponents of the project.
The company received its final state level permits in November 2021, and at the time said it had already received everything it needed to prepare its site for production. It later secured a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers permit in July 2022.
However, some residents in Jonesport staunchly opposed the project. Residents in the town circulated a petition to enact a moratorium prohibiting all aquaculture development in the town – a move that the town soundly rejected in July 2022.
Despite the rejection, the project faced more hurdles from constant appeals of its permits. In December 2022 Project Maine said it planned to appeal planning board approvals of the project. Kingfish Company said Project Maine is largely funded by the owners of the Roque Island Gardner Homestead Corporation and family members who own an island near Jonesport, and accused the family of campaigning to stop the project against the wishes of the town of Jonesport.
That planning board appeal was ultimately denied, but Kingfish then also faced another effort by the Roque Island Gardner Homestead Corporation and Eastern Maine Conservation Initiative to overturn the Maine Board of Environmental Protection’s granting of a Site Location of Development Act (SLODA) and Natural Resources Protection Act (NRPA) joint permit. That appeal was also denied in August 2023.
The fight wasn’t over, and the SLODA and NRPA permits were appealed all the way to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court – which has given the company yet another court victory affirming the state permits for its site.
“The permit for the Maine facility was initially issued by the Maine Department of Environmental Protection in 2021,” the company said. “Opposition groups appealed the permit decision twice – to the Maine Board of Environmental Protection then to the Maine Superior Court. Both appeals were denied.”
With the denial, the project remains fully permitted with all required local, state, and federal permits, and opponents have now exhausted all options within the Maine court system.
“This has been a multi-year battle with a small group of opponents which worked to stop our project,” Kingfish Company CEO Vincent Erenst said. “Due to this opposition, our project was delayed by almost four years.”
Erenst said the repeated appeals have significantly delayed the project’s original timeline, during a period when the escalating costs of other projects forced construction halts and ultimately failure and liquidation.
“Now, with the appeals behind us, the project timeline will be determined by current economic and financial conditions, which we are assessing at this time,” Erenst said.
The company ultimately wants to build a facility capable of producing 8,500 metric tons of yellowtail at the facility, and called its latest victory a win for the state and the country.
“Currently, the U.S. imports more than 85 percent of all seafood. The Kingfish Company’s Maine facility will specifically address U.S. reliance on imports for protein-rich food sources,” Erenst said. “When completed, our Jonesport facility will provide local and U.S. production of our high quality and high-value Yellowtail Kingfish."
