Pure Salmon, the multnational land-based salmon farming company, has resubmitted environmental planning documents for its proposed 10,000 tonne facility in Verdon-sur-Mer in south-western France.
According to French newspaper Sud Ouest, the company had previously submitted this paperwork earlier in the year. However, the Gironde Prefecture requested additional hydrogeological studies on water management, after concerns that the pumping of brackish water for the fish farm's RAS system could impact on the local drinking water supply.
The updated dossier has now been presented to state authorities on Friday 13 October, with the final decision expected to take up to 9 months.
If all goes to plan, Pure Salmon expects to break ground on the 15-hectare site in 2025, and to begin production in 2027. The development as a whole represents an investment of 275 million euros, and Pure Salmon says it expects to create 250 jobs on-site, at what would be one of Europe's biggest land-based fish farms.
The site, a former port terminal inactive since 2013, has been identified by Gironde Prefecture as a "turn key" industrial site, according to Sud Ouest. The port terminal is still owned by the Grand Maritime Port of Bordeaux, which reached an agreement with Pure Salmon in 2022 to develop its facilities there.
The project has previously met with some controversy, with local environmental groups arguing that the giant salmon farm will pollute the Gironde estuary and negatively impact local wildlife populations and habitats.
However, in its environmental planning dossier, Pure Salmon states that the water discharged from the fish farm into the estuary will be "filtered and treated in accordance with standards that exceed regulatory requirements, with no impact on biodiversity."
In 2021, Pure Salmon acquired the aquaculture division of Kruger Kaldnes, a leading water treatment company. This, it claims in the dossier, provides Pure Salmon with the necessary advanced techniques for water treatment and management.
