Construction permits that Whole Oceans obtained in 2019 to build a land-based salmon farm in Bucksport have now expired, according to town officials.
Whole Oceans, which is owned by Iowa-based pork producer Dale Reicks, was the first of multiple large-scale fish farms that were proposed for Maine to obtain all of its needed permits. But like the other proposals, some of which have since gone defunct, it has yet to break ground to build anything.
Now, it will have to go through the town’s planning board review, and get new permits, if it wants to move ahead with the project.
“Those have expired,” Rich Rotella, the town’s community and economic development director, said Wednesday of the company’s local building permits. “They can reapply.”
The land-based farm, which previously has been projected to cost $250 million to build, would occupy a waterfront property on the Penobscot River that used to be home to a paper mill, which shut down in 2014.
The lack of activity at the site, which likely can be blamed at least in part on the COVID-19 pandemic and a lawsuit the company faced, has led to growing skepticism that it will ever happen. Candidates in the town’s local town council elections have either urged patience in waiting to see if it comes to fruition, or have said the town should plan for the likelihood that the salmon farm will never be built.
