Cooke Gets Green Light to Build $72M Salmon Farm in N.B.

SAINT JOHN — Cooke Inc.’s Kelly Cove Salmon Ltd. has received the environmental green light from the province to get started on its land-based Atlantic salmon post-smolt aquaculture facility.

“Land clearing of the construction site is scheduled to begin this week,” says Joel Richardson, Cooke’s vice president of public relations said in an email exchange with Huddle.

The $72 million project will sit in Bayside’s Champlain Industrial Park, next to Passamaquoddy Bay. It’s expected to take three years to build and will create “340 direct construction jobs and 222 indirect and induced jobs” the company announced.

“Bayside near Saint Andrews is well suited for this project because there are world experts in salmon farming, marine biology, engineering, science R&D, and fish health in the local community and in Charlotte County. New Brunswick is a hub of expertise on aquaculture and fisheries operations and technologies,” Richardson says.

The hybrid system uses large, round tanks on land to grow the fish, which are past the smolt stage of their life cycle, when they would prepare to go out to sea. In the case of this facility, the ground-source wells used for water have already been approved under the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA).

“Hybrid systems, involving a mix of land and marine-based fish farming will continue to be part of our future. We have been operating land-based salmon hatcheries and marine farms sustainably for 38 years,” Richardson says.

He says the benefits of this form of Recirculating Aquaculture System (RAS) production “are multiple.”

“Longer lifespan on land means reduced exposure to challenging marine environment such as severe weather events. [There’s] greater control on production and growth and better marine site utilization. [It offers] new opportunity for greater production in ocean waters by shortening time Atlantic salmon spend in marine cages.”

This approval was the final regulatory step before work could get underway on the facility, which will be a first for Cooke, but likely not the last, Richardson says.

“We have not implemented this model elsewhere yet, but we do have plans underway for other provinces and other countries where we farm salmon,” he says. He notes that the province indicated its support for innovative land-based fish farming in its New Brunswick Finfish Aquaculture Growth Strategy 2022-2030, released last year.

Cooke has been expanding its Atlantic salmon operations in Charlotte County, New Brunswick, over the past several years with a new freshwater hatchery in Pennfield and a salmon processing plant in St. George. Investments in these facilities total over $70 million.

Sorenson Engineering Ltd of Saint Andrews and Sweeney International Marine Corp (SIMCorp) of St. Stephen will be working on the project.

Cooke has made a number of significant acquisitions recently and with this facility, they are making another big investment into the southern New Brunswick economy.

In March the company acquired American seafood distributor Slade Gorton, late last year the company announced an agreement to join forces with St. Stephen chocolatier Ganong. The company also recently acquired Australian firm Tassal Group which was shrouded in controversy over the use of sonic seal deterrents at their salmon farms. An activist group posted a billboard on Rothesay Ave. in Saint John decrying the practice.

Alex Graham is a Huddle reporter in Saint John. Send her your feedback and story ideas: [email protected].