The U.S. state of Maine is becoming a hub of aquaculture in North America, with three major land-based recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) facilities in the works and a massive in-water farm making its way through permitting.
A start-up with backing from the founder of Global AS – which founded Norwegian cod-farming firm Norcod – American Aquafarms has proposed growing up to 30,000 metric tons (MT) of Atlantic salmon in closed net-pens at a location near Gouldsboro, Maine. The company purchased a 100,000-square-foot former lobster processing facility in Gouldsboro in 2020 with plans to establish a hatchery, fish-farming facilities, and a processing plant there. But the project has run into fierce opposition from local lobstermen and others who question whether such a large endeavor belongs in the area, which is close to Acadia National Park.
“We looked at several areas over the U.S., and to us, we feel Maine is the right place based on water temperature and the potential of the industry in Maine,” American Aquafarms President and CEO Mikael Rones said. “Maine, when we looked at the temperature of the water and the conditions we would be farming in, it was pretty similar to what we are used to [in Norway]. It will be easy to use the technology we developed over many years in Maine. The other reason we chose Maine was based on logistics.”
Logistics were also cited as a primary reason by Nordic Aquafarms, Whole Oceans, and The Kingfish Company – which are in the process of building major aquaculture projects in Belfast, Bucksport, and Jonesport, respectively – for choosing Maine. The state has relatively affordable waterfront siting available, is close to major U.S. East Coast metropolitan areas, has an existing seafood industry with accessible processing and other related infrastructure, academic institutions supporting aquaculture education and R&D, and legislative support “resulting in a straightforward permitting process,” according to Kingfish Company CEO Ohad Maiman.
The Kingfish Company announced on 6 October that its project is on schedule, with state and federal land site permits “on track.” The projected production capacity of the facility has increased from 6,000-to-8,000 MT of yellowtail to up to 8,500 MT of fish per year. The company said it is considering additional production capacity in Maine in the future.
Nordic Aquafarms, meanwhile, has had a slower route forward than its compatriot. Its plan to build an RAS farm that would eventually produce 33,000 MT of Atlantic salmon annually has been fiercely opposed by a small group of local residents. But in August, Nordic received its last permit required to begin construction and is “now ready to move into the final stages of engineering and construction planning” for the facility, the company said.
“It has been a long and comprehensive process and we would like to thank all the hardworking permitting authorities that have been involved,” Nordic Aquafarms President Erik Heim said. “They have dotted every I and crossed every T – the permits are robust. We are now the first fully permitted larger RAS project in Maine, and the most centrally located one.”
Whole Oceans, which is in the preconstruction phase of its efforts to build a RAS to raise up to 50,000 MT of Atlantic salmon in Bucksport, announced in December 2020 it will seek to expand its site by 10 acres, requiring it to update its state and local approvals. Whole Oceans has said it is still finalizing the details of its design and is currently in negotiations on a contract for construction of the project, expected to cost at least USD 250 million (EUR 203 million). The firm has missed its planned groundbreaking date.
It’s not clear whether fundraising issues have delayed the project, but investor confidence in the entire land-based aquaculture sector took a hit over the summer as Atlantic Sapphire – which in January finished construction on the first phase of a Miami, Florida-based RAS facility that it says may eventually produce as much as 220,000 MT of salmon by 2031 – suffered a series of setbacks. Its pilot facility in Denmark was destroyed in a fire on 15 September, and the company lost 400 MT of salmon at its Miami facility in July, causing a USD 3 million (EUR 2.5 million) financial impact, after an incident with a filtration system in one of its grow-out tanks. In March, Atlantic Sapphire suffered a mass die-off of 500 MT of salmon, and partially as a result, in April, it reported a net loss of USD 55.2 million (EUR 46.9 million) in 2020, causing its share price to plunge.
Other RAS facilities in Florida are faring better. Aquaco Farms’ 20,000-square-foot RAS facility in Fort Pierce, Florida opened in 2019 and is currently producing more than 500 MT of pompano annually, with plans to expand. Dallas, Texas-based NaturalShrimp, which operates a pilot RAS farm in its home state, announced it will build a USD 25 million (EUR 20.4 million) RAS land based shrimp farm in northern Florida. And Homegrown Shrimp, which is owned by Bangkok, Thailand-based food giant CP Foods, is continuing with plans first announced in 2020 to build an RAS shrimp farm in Indiantown, Florida, with the goal of eventually expanding it to produce up to 720 MT of shrimp annually. The company began selling post-larvae from its hatchery in March and said it will have shrimp available for purchase by late 2021.
In the U.S. Midwest and landlocked West, a lack of oceanfront access hasn’t hampered the development of the aquaculture industry. Hixton, Wisconsin-based aquaponics salmon and steelhead farmer Superior Fresh, which opened in 2015, is undergoing an expansion, with plans to boost its salmon production volume nearly tenfold to 750 MT. Superior Fresh Chief Science Officer Steven Summerfelt said the company has also begun initial plans to expand into even larger facilities on the U.S. East and West Coasts “that could each be more than twice the size of the operation in Wisconsin and bring locally grown salmon and greens within reach of millions more people.”
“We have great food, a great team and a production facility that can be (replicated) across the country,” Summerfelt said. “We’ve developed technology to work within the regulatory framework. We have zero surface water discharge and that’s a very powerful statement.”
AquaBounty Technologies, the producer of genetically-engineered AquAdvantage salmon, selected Pioneer, Ohio as the location for its new large-scale RAS facility, which will have a planned capacity of 10,000 MT of production, and will be built at an estimated cost of USD 200 million (EUR 168.3 million). AquaBounty already operates a pilot farm in central Indiana.
In February 2020, Riverence Holdings LLC acquired Clear Springs, marking the formation of a powerhouse in the U.S. trout sector.
Filer, Idaho-based Riverence is now the largest land-based trout producer in the Americas, operating 14 farms with the capacity to produce more than 15,000 MT annually, four brood stations, two processing facilities, a value-added processing facility, a waste recovery plant, and a feed mill.
A new land-based salmon farming venture is being planned for the U.S. state of Nevada. West Coast Salmon will seek to build a RAS to raise up to 50,000 MT of Atlantic salmon in Reno, Nevada, with the goal of serving the U.S. West Coast market. The company has announced a three-phase development plan, with the first phase estimated to produce 12,600 MT of head on, gutted salmon once complete.
Not content with plans for its massive project in Maine, Nordic Aquafarms is also building an RAS farm in Humboldt County, California, with site preparation and environmental costs at the former paper mill alone estimated at USD 100 million (EUR 84.3 million), according to the company. Nordic has estimated it will put at least USD 400 million (EUR 337 million) into the project in total.
While a latecomer to the RAS scene, the U.S. Mid-Atlantic is now attracting serious attention from developers. Pure Salmon has broken ground on a USD 228 million (EUR 192.5 million) facility in Tazewell County, Virginia, that will raise and process up to 20,000 MT of Atlantic salmon annually when complete. And Oslo, Norway-based aquaculture firm AquaCon is planning to build a 1.2 million-square-foot aquaculture facility in Cambridge, Maryland, at an estimated price of USD 150 million (EUR 129.4 million) for the first phase of 16,000 MT of capacity.
Photo courtesy of Riverence (Clear Springs aerial photo)
