March 22, 2023
By: Anne Berleant
Ellsworth American
American Aquafarms’ proposed penned salmon farm in Frenchman Bay may be dead in the water as originally proposed after the state terminated lease applications for two 60-acre sites, but the Norwegian-backed company still owes money in Maine and owns property in Prospect Harbor.
South Portland engineering company Sebago Technics asked Cumberland County Superior Court to attach a lien on American Aquafarms, and Judge Thomas McKean signed a judgment Jan. 29, to the tune of $75,795.85 or more. The judgment includes attorney fees, costs and interest.
The money has not been paid, while the company undergoes a restructuring process, Thomas Brennan, American Aquafarms’ director of project development, told The American March 21.
“The intent is, once the reorganization is done, is to square up with outstanding payments,” he said. “It’s embarrassing. But it’s housekeeping that remains undone.”
The housekeeping includes a “shake-up” in the investment strategy of the company that the company is trying to resolve. “That’s really the holdup,” Brennan said.
The American has reached out to Sebago Technics President Mark Adams for comment.
And while financing strategies are being revised, American Aquafarms President Keith A. Decker was named March 1 in an agreement to use Gouldsboro property owned by American Aquafarms as collateral for a $1,125,000 payment to Decker. The property is the former Maine Fair Trade plant. Brennan said the agreement is actually a lien, probably for money the company owes Decker.
But right now, American Aquafarms’ parent company, Blue Future Holdings, is focused on new projects in Norway, Brennan said, rather than those not making progress — like American Aquafarms.
While the company legally challenged the Maine Department of Marine Resources’ decision in May 2022, it withdrew its lawsuit filed in Cumberland County Superior Court two months later. In the meantime, it purchased the former Maine Fair Trade facility in Gouldsboro.
Which brings the question, will American Aquafarms return with a new aquaculture proposal?
“I don’t know the answer to that,” Brennan said. “Anyone paying attention would agree that the [previous] process was complicated.”
The proposal drew anger and fear from the surrounding Frenchman Bay communities and environmental and fishing advocate groups, spawned Frenchman Bay United and prompted testimony and demonstrations at public hearings.
The failed proposal is also behind new legislation Bar Harbor state Rep. Lynne Williams introduced in Augusta. An Act to Establish Coastal Waters and Submerged Lands Regional Planning Commissions is currently before the Marine Resources Committee and would give local coastal regions more control over waterways.
Brennan said that for any new proposal, American Aquafarms would ensure direct involvement with the DMR and the Frenchman Bay community, which “quite honestly was not the best the first time around.”
“So, in some form, the answer is yes,” he concluded. “But what the form is, I can’t tell.”