| Project
Summary
Sturgeon AquaFarms, LLC. has
completed a preliminary design study for a sturgeon aquaculture facility,
which it intends to implement on a site in northern Florida yet to be
selected. The project development plan consists of two stages. The
first stage is a four-year development plan leading to the production
of Russian sturgeon for a premium fish meat market. After establishing
meat production, a small number of selected female fish will be set aside
for caviar production that would be accomplished in the sixth and seventh
project year.
The fish production system
for both phases of the project will be located on a property in northern
Florida with an area of about 160-200 acres. The facility will include
a hatchery building dedicated to sustaining sturgeon reproduction within
the project. The meat and caviar production system will consist of
intensively managed concrete tanks with pure oxygen injection and a recirculating
waste effluent treatment system by which the water used by the project
will be constantly renovated in an ecologically based overland flow treatment
system. The system emulates treatment processes in marshes and grassland
and has the additional benefit of allocating almost three quarters of
the project surface area to artificial ponds and marshlands that will
act as an enhanced wildlife habitat. The project will be a "zero
discharge" system relying on local wells only for sufficient water
to replace water lost by seepage and evaporation.
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