Nordic buys extra land to make US salmon farm ‘better, not bigger’
Nordic Aquafarms has agreed a deal to buy an extra 14 acres of land next to the 42-acre site of its planned on-land salmon farm in Belfast, Maine, in the United States.
According to the Republican Journal, Nordic’s chief executive, Erik Heim, said the primary motivation for buying the plot was to enable larger buffer zones around the site, which will produce 32,000 tonnes of fish annually when complete.
“The additional land will make this a better project, not a bigger one,” Heim told the Journal.
He said mounds with planted trees will surround the northern and eastern borders of the additional property – which is on the north-east quadrant of the site - as a buffer. The entire facility is to be buffered with trees.
The additional land also enables an increase in the buffer zone between the project and a reservoir and existing trails to the south of the site.
Public meeting
According to the Journal, Nordic Aquafarms said it will hold its first public meeting of the permitting process in late September.
The company will present residual discharge figures after treatment, assessments from US scientific partners related to discharge, and information about how the discharge is treated. The public will have an opportunity to ask questions and to comment.
Frederikstad Seafoods, a subsidiary of Nordic Aquafarms, is also building an on-land salmon farm in Frederikstad in eastern Norway. At 10,000m², the company says it will be by far the largest land-based salmon unit constructed in Europe.
Nordic Aquafarms is also a majority shareholder in Sashimi Royal, in Hanstholm in north west Denmark. The on-land facility produces around 1,200 tonnes of yellowtail kingfish farm per year.
