Aquaculture application chugs along in Belfast
COURTESY / NORDIC AQUAFARMS INC.
A interior view of Nordic Aquafarms’ land-based aquaculture facility in Frederikstad, Norway. The Belfast Planning Board is reviewing the company’s municipal permit applications, a process expected to result in about 80 decisions.
The Belfast Planning Board continues to take information on Nordic Aquafarms Inc.’s plans to construct a land-based salmon farm off U.S. Route 1.
The board held a special meeting Sept. 4, to hear the company’s stormwater management plan and plans to control soil erosion and sedimentation.
It was the seventh meeting of the board on the application. The meetings so far have been held only to take information, Wayne Marshall, the city’s director of code and planning, said in his introduction. No public hearings have been scheduled yet.
“We’re attempting to look methodically through the application,” Marshall said.
The board began its “substantive review” of the application on Aug. 5, Marshall previously told the city council.
The review began once the board had determined that Nordic Aquafarms had established sufficient right, title and interest to be able to proceed with the project, he explained.
“It was a critical decision by the board,” he said.
Once all the information is in, the board will go back through the entire application to reexamine all the relevant issues, he said.
“There’s quite a few more meetings to go,” he said. “There’s about 80 decisions the board has to make.”
Nordic Aquafarms submitted an application to develop a land based salmon aquaculture facility on a 56-acre site on the northwesterly side of Route 1, near the lower reservoir of the Little River. The company proposes to develop the project in two phases over at least five years, according to its application.
Total production capacity at build-out is estimated to be 72.7 million pounds (33,000 metric tons) of salmon per year. Phase 1 involves the construction of about 414,450 square feet of building space, and Phase 2 involves the construction of about 392,804 square feet; each phase involves rearing and processing a similar amount of salmon. The facility would use a recirculating aquaculture system to process water used in the land-based salmon tanks.
In June, Nordic Aquafarms announced it named Gilbane Building Co. and Landry/French Construction as its construction managers for the facility. Based in Providence, R.I., with 48 offices worldwide, Gilbane Building Co. has been a construction manager in northern New England for nearly 50 years. Landry/French is based in Scarborough and provides construction management, design/build and general contracting services to a range of clients.
Last week, the planning board in Bucksport approved Whole Oceans’ application for a salmon aquaculture facility on the former Verso Paper mill site in that town.
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