From the Courier-Islander – Jan 13, 2011
by Dan McLennan
In the world of closed containment aquaculture, it appears size
matters. Never was that more true in the Campbell River area than in the
past few weeks as a massive floating solid-wall tank was built on the
waterfront by the Agrimarine Industries/Middle Bay Sustainable
Aquaculture Institute (MBSAI) partnership.
“It feels wonderful,”
laughed Robert Walker, vice president for Agrimarine Industries, at the
Middle Bay site Wednesday. “It has been a very long time and it’s
exciting to see it. This is the first one in the world and we’re very
much looking forward to getting fish in it.”
After years of
design, government approval, funding efforts and redesign, sections of
the gargantuan fibreglass tank were assembled on site in the last two
weeks. The 3,000-cubic-metre tank has a 24-metre inside diameter and a
depth of almost nine metres. At press time yesterday, the plan called
for the tank to be towed into place and filled with seawater by the
afternoon.
hope to have fish in the water within the next two weeks,” Walker said.
“There are no other hard-walled tanks of this capacity. We’ve designed
it to address many of the problems that currently exist with the
net-cage industry. We hope to have a working system very shortly and be
able to demonstrate that we have a solution here.”