On 4 September the Bucksport Planning Board approved the site plan submitted by Whole Oceans for its proposed 1.4-million-square-foot facility on the banks of the Penobscot River.
Whole Oceans CEO Jacob Bartlett has also announced plans to build a separate processing facility – for a value of up to $20 million – in the town, within the next four years, according to the Portland Press Herald. The two facilities could, according to Whole Oceans, provide up to 250 jobs in the town.
Whole Oceans plans to start work on the hatchery site in November, followed by the first of two 350,000-square-foot saltwater growout buildings, each capable of raising 5,000 tonnes of Atlantic salmon annually.
Whole Oceans is one of four companies that are currently working on RAS projects in Maine. Nordic Aquafarms has plans to grow salmon in Belfast; Aquabanq recently announced plans to build a salmon RAS; and Kingfish Zeeland, a Dutch yellowtail farmer, has also announced plans for its own RAS for yellowtail in the state.
Whole Oceans also plans to build a similar scale salmon facility on the west coast of the US.
“I’m very pleased and very proud of my team,” Bartlett told the Press Herald after the approval was granted. “We’re ready to move on to the next phase and get started”.
