Officials in Groton, Connecticut, U.S.A. announced recently a private company is interested in buying a recently shuttered lobster facility in the city and turning it into a land-based fish farm.
East Coast Seafood’s Garbo Lobster facility caught the eye of Deaderick SSB, a Delaware-based limited liability company, according to The Day.
The 34,700-square-foot former facility at 415 Thames Street, built in 2002, is located along the Thames River and is owned by Just in Case LLC under East Coast Seafood Group of Topsfield, Massachusetts, U.S.A., according to land and business records. East Coast, which owns Garbo Lobster, shuttered the lobster facility in January. The company said at the time it planned to shift Groton's operations to a Prospect Harbor, Maine, facility that East Coast Seafood and Garbo Lobster acquired in 2012, as well as to its facility in New Bedford, Massachusetts.
Mark Branse, a lawyer hired by Deaderick SSB to work on local land-use issues, told The Day the company plans to purchase the property and raise fish in the facility.
"The proposed facility will utilize large tanks within the existing building, within which various fish species will be grown in a sustainable manner," according to the description of the proposed use. "The growing tanks will receive a constant flow of water directly from the Thames River, which water will circulate through the tanks, and be returned to the river."
The Deaderick proposal appears to be allowed in the Waterfront Business Residence zoning district and to be the same as the property's existing use, according to a legal notice filed by zoning enforcement officer. That means it does not require the approval of the city’s planning or zoning commissions.
Numerous land-based recirculating aquaculture systems are currently being planned or are under construction in New England, including salmon farms announced by Nordic Aquafarms, Whole Oceans, and Aquabanq, and a yellowtail farm proposed by Kingfish Zeeland.
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