Kingfish farmer defeats latest legal bid to block RAS facility in Maine
Seriola farmer Kingfish Maine has overcome another appeal of the municipal permit for its proposed 8,500-tonnes-per-year land-based facility in Jonesport, Maine, it has announced in a press release.
The opponent, Protect Downeast, has filed multiple appeals of the permits issued for the recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) project which has been fully permitted since 2022, said Kingfish Maine. All appeals ruled upon to date have been denied.
The latest appeal was heard before Maine’s Business and Consumer Court which, by written decision earlier this week, rejected all of Protect Downeast’s arguments and denied the appeal. In doing so, the Maine court found in favour of The Town of Jonesport and Kingfish Maine and upheld the permits issued by the Planning Board under the town’s Land Use Development Ordinance and Shoreland Zoning Ordinance.
Facts and science
“We are encouraged by the court’s decision to deny another appeal by Protect Downeast. Our permits stand on a factual and scientific basis that we adhere to all requirements set forth by the Town of Jonesport,” said Vincent Erenst, chief executive of Kingfish Maine’s Dutch parent company, The Kingfish Company. “We thank the community for the continued support of our project.”
Separately, Kingfish Maine’s state-issued environmental permits have also been upheld by the Maine Board of Environmental Protection and the Maine Superior Court, as the company awaits the ruling on a separate appeal at the Maine Supreme Judicial Court due in the coming months.
Protect Downeast is understood to be funded by the owners of the Roque Island Gardner Homestead Corporation (RIGHC), a family company that owns the private Roque Island and eight adjoining islands which are separated from Kingfish Maine’s mainland shore site by Chandler Bay.
The Kingfish Company has not yet started work on its US facility, but has a broodstock facility at the Centre for Cooperative Aquaculture Research (CCAR) in Franklin, less than an hour’s drive from Jonesport, and has harvested fish from that. The yellowtail kingfish (Seriola lalandi) were distributed to and served at restaurants in Maine, Boston, Washington DC, and California.
