Construction stress confirmed as cause of Atlantic Sapphire emergency
On-land salmon farmer Atlantic Sapphire says a “thorough investigation” has confirmed its initial conclusion about the cause of a crisis that led to an emergency harvest of almost 200,000 fish at its Bluehouse facility in Florida in late July.
The fish were in a grow-out unit that had been recently stocked despite not being fully commissioned.
The total weight of the fish harvested was approximately 400 tonnes (head on gutted), of which 150 tonnes were to be sent for processing and sale. The company did not yet have enough capacity to process the rest of the harvested fish.
At the time, Atlantic Sapphire said it believed disruptive construction work close to the operating environment, including loud sounds and severe vibrations, stressed the fish, and that there was no indication of intoxication or disease.
Constant and sudden stressors
“We have concluded our thorough investigation of the incident in Miami and the initial conclusion prevails. A combination of constant and sudden stressors related to construction delays caused the event,” said Atlantic Sapphire USA chairman, co-founder and chief executive John Andreassen in a post on Twitter last night.
“The extraordinary situation due to Covid causing delays have forced us to stock systems that had remaining work and ongoing construction close to the fish. We’ll provide further details in the H1(20) report.”
In March, 227,000 salmon died at Atlantic Sapphire’s Langsand Laks commercial pilot facility in Denmark. The mortality was believed to have been caused by high nitrogen levels which have since been addressed with a designed modification.
