Nordic Aquafarms’ draft environmental impact report (EIR) for its proposed onshore fish farm on the Samoa Peninsula will be released for a 60-day public comment period in December.
During a virtual town hall discussion Wednesday evening, Marianne Naess, commercial director of the Norway-based seafood company, said Nordic Aquafarms agreed to pursue an EIR for the proposed project in May in response to calls for further environmental analysis.
The Humboldt County Planning and Building Department released a mitigated negative declaration (MND) for the project in April, however, a coalition of environmental groups argued that the assessment didn’t go far enough.
“We decided to go with a full EIR based on feedback from the residents of Humboldt County,” Naess said. “I think that was a wise choice for us to do. We have worked with the county and I must say that I have really appreciated the effort that both Nordic and the county have gone through in the last six months to be able to work our way through the EIR. Everything is submitted. We anticipate that it will be out in early December.”
What’s the difference between the two? The EIR process takes more time and includes a Notice of Preparation, a 30-day public review period including public scoping meetings, along with a 45 to 60 day public review period of the draft EIR whereas public review for the MND is only 30 days.
“We also need to reply to input from stakeholders, organizations, and residents. The EIR process allows for more public participation,” Naess added. “In addition to that, there will be an alternate analysis that will look at a few site alternatives around the bay, water source alternatives, and intake alternatives. It will look at project versus no project alternatives and also discuss fish species.”
Naess added that Nordic has submitted several other permits which, “if everything goes according to plan,” are slated for approval next spring.
The project includes clean-up and redevelopment of the defunct Samoa pulp mill facility followed by the construction of five buildings with a combined footprint of approximately 766,000 square feet. The project will create approximately 300 local jobs during construction and 150 permanent jobs when the facility is fully built out.
Once the facility is up and running, the farm will import eggs and the fish will leave as a restaurant-ready product, such as a filet or a head-on fish, said project manager Scott Thompson.
“Once the eggs come in they will be quarantined and once they’re certified to be free of pathogens, they’re allowed to hatch,” he said, adding that the hatchlings must live in freshwater for their early stages of life. “Once the fish reach a certain size, they’re moved out to the grow outbuildings…when the fish reach harvest size, they move to processing. All these fish movements happen underground through swim pipes, so the fish never leave the buildings, which is part of the multiple layers of escape-proofing that have been engineered into this facility. They come into the facility as an egg, they leave as a consumer-ready product on a refrigerated truck.”
David Noyes, Nordic’s vice president of technology, added that the “co-products,” or “product waste,” is maintained as a food-grade product.
“The co-products also leave on refrigerated trucks because there is high demand for the pet food market. They actually have been calling us consistently now for years asking us those byproducts,” he said. “…We will also remove 99% of the solids from the water. Those solids are dewatered to roughly 20% dry matter, which is basically a really moist soil, and those are then shipped off as a high nitrogen material that can be used for a variety of purposes such as composting.”
Naess added that Nordic would like to partner with local businesses to buy such products.
Thompson also addressed traffic impacts, a concern that has been brought forth on several occasions.
“We did do a traffic study out on the peninsula and we’ve counted the number of motor vehicles, motorcycles, trucks, and semi-trucks. Through that analysis, we were able to determine that the number of trucks that we would be adding would not be significant,” he said. “We’re going to have up to 15 trucks a day. Right now there are already hundreds of trucks making trips on the Samoa Peninsula every day. That full analysis is in the EIR but it is something that we looked at closely and are confident that it will be less than significant impact.”
Naess urged community members to visit nafnewsdesk.com/humboldt-faq for more information on the project.
Isabella Vanderheiden can be reached at 707-441-0504.
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