Maine’s other big indoor salmon farm clears administrative hurdle paving the way for 50,000 tons of production.
State regulators have issued a wastewater discharge permit for an indoor salmon farm proposed for the old Verso Mill site in Bucksport, Maine, USA according to Bangor Daily News.
At full production, Whole Oceans will produce 50,000 tons of Atlantic salmon per year using entirely land-based technology.
Read more: Second land-based farm planned in Maine will produce 50,000 tons a year
Brian Kavanah, an acting director of the Bureau of Water Quality at the Maine Department of Environmental Protection, said that the 69 million litres of treated water that will go into the Penobscot River daily should not pose a threat to water quality.
“To ensure that that’s the case, we’ve put a couple things into this permit,” Kavanah told the publication. “One of the conditions is the applicant needs to do a dye study, to really determine the flow of water in that area, particularly around Verona Island — the two channels around Verona Island and also there’s in-stream nitrogen sampling going on.”
Whole Oceans said that it had pre-sold 100% of production for the next ten years.
Competitors, Nordic Aquafarms, is also building a indoor salmon farm in Maine. The company plans to construct a facility with an annual capacity in the range of 32,000 metric tons, to be built in phases over the next six to seven years. Construction is expected to start in 2019, the company said, with “first-fish” in 2020.
