Aquaculture plant set for Machiasport

MACHIASPORT – A plan by a Canadian firm to reopen its salmon processing plant next year could mean 80 new jobs for this small seaside community.

Although the opening of the Cooke Aquaculture plant is good news for Machiasport, it is disappointing for Eastport, where officials had hoped the plant would locate.

“The recent announcement by Cooke Aquaculture to reopen its Machiasport processing plant instead of the Eastport facility came as a disappointment to the city,” Eastport City Manager George “Bud” Finch said Thursday. Finch recalled that in 2006, when Glenn Cooke, CEO of Cooke’s Aquaculture, and Gov. John Baldacci met in Eastport, the company announced its plans to invest $60 million in stocking salmon in Maine, but it was mum on where it would site its processing plant.

Cooke is the co-founder of the Blacks Harbour, New Brunswick, company started more than 20 years ago. The family-owned and operated company, according to its Web site, processes and sells more than 80 million pounds of Atlantic salmon each year.

Finch said the city would continue to work with Cooke Aquaculture and the state to seek other opportunities for the city. “We expect the bay and our central location to the Maine and Maritime coastal areas will ultimately make the city a key player in the aquaculture industry. Aquaculture, along with shipping and tourism, plays a key role in our economic future, and we anticipate its continued expansion as the global demand for high quality farmed fish grows,” he added.

Nell Halse, Cooke’s vice president of communication, confirmed Thursday that the Machiasport plant would reopen sometime next year. She said the company, which has operations all over Atlantic Canada and Maine, has its own hatcheries and processing plants.

“That means that we take care of the whole value chain from eggs to plate,” she said.

Over the years, the company has bought out other Maine farming operations.

In an April 2004 deal with Atlantic Salmon of Maine, Cooke acquired aquaculture lease operations, the Machiasport processing plant and hatcheries in Solon and the Rangeley village of Oquossoc.

In December 2005, it bought Heritage Salmon and Marine Harvest of Canada and Europe.

That same year, the state’s attorney general settled an antitrust lawsuit challenging the company’s acquisition of a number of salmon aquaculture lease sites in Washington and Hancock counties.

The state alleged the acquisition would have placed Cooke in a virtual monopoly position, controlling most of the lease sites in the state suitable for raising salmon. The settlement required Cooke to surrender its leasehold interest in four specified aquaculture sites to the Maine Department of Marine Resources.

In addition, Cooke was required to divest or sell its interest in two significant salmon aquaculture sites in Cobscook Bay known as Prince Cove and Rodger’s Island within six months.

After the acquisitions, the industry foundered in Washington County. “We had hardly any fish in the water in Maine, so we just couldn’t keep the plant open,” Halse said. “One of our commitments was to try and build the institution back up in the state of Maine.”

And that is what Cooke Aquaculture did.

In 2006, the company put 3 million fish in the water in Maine, Halse said.

The year before, the whole industry had only about 300,000 fish in Maine waters. More than 18 months later the fish were ready to be marketed.

“Those fish that were put in in 2006, we started harvesting last fall,” she said. “We then had to make a decision as to where we would open the [processing] plant because we also had a facility in Eastport that we had acquired.”

Halse said the Machiasport plant, which began operation in 1987, is a good facility. She said the company is completing some upgrades at the plant and production is expected to begin next year.

They expect to hire almost 40 people when they start, but once all the lines are working, they anticipate employing 80 people in full-time year-round jobs, she said.

The company has salmon pens from Eastport to Machiasport.

“That is really important for us, too,” she said of the number of pens. “We are now operating under what we call a Bay Management Principal, where we only put fish in a particular area each year, we rotate our crops and we have a fallow period between crops. That is actually regulated by the state.”

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