Bruce Carman of Mariner Farms, LLC, discussed the project in 2014 with the International Falls Economic Development Authority during a public hearing.
The International Falls Economic Development Authority ended 2014 with a bang by moving forward Monday on a project in the multimodal district.
The project, a closed loop food production facility, would produce tilapia, lettuce, and other produce which could be sold to local grocery stores and restaurants, as well as shipped out of town.
A public hearing on the project held before Monday’s regular meeting featured Bruce Carman of Mariner Farms, LLC, the project’s developer, and Carol Helland, Rainy River Community College provost, discussing the local benefits of the project.
In a unanimous vote during the regular EDA meeting, the board approved a motion to sell the 1.5 acres of land for $1 to Mariner Farms, LLC, and to approve the draft development agreement for the project.
The project would represent a minimum $1.5 million investment in the community, EDA President Gail Rognerud said, and would create five to six jobs, as well as paid internships for RRCC students. The only incentive Mariner Farms is seeking is a $1 sale price for the land, she said, which is below cost.
Background
The International Falls facility is based on an existing facility in Silver Bay, which has been operational for two and a half years, Carman said. That facility is a public-public partnership between the city of Silver Bay and the University of Minnesota-Duluth, he said, and is known as Victus Farms.
The proposed International Falls facility is around 10,000 square feet, Carman said, and is a unique, patent-pending facility. The fish are grown in tanks, with the nutrient-rich waste the fish produce flowing into troughs, where produce is grown on a floating raft system, he said. The water is oxygenated by the produce, and flows back into the fish tanks.
The closed-loop system means there’s no waste produced and no pollution, Carman said. Any output produced by the system is either sold for revenue or reintroduced to the system as a fertilizer.
“We want to be able to grow enough food to be able to take care of the needs of the local community, International Falls and the surrounding area,” Carman said. “And then be able to produce more produce or fish so that it can be distributed.”
The facility will be powered by renewable energy, Carman said. It’s an environmentally responsible system, he added, and also allows for control of energy costs, and therefore production costs.
“If we know what our costs are going to be today, six months from now, a year from now, we can lock into long-term contracts with consumers,” Carman said.
The electricity at the facility would be provided through solar power, Carman said, and the solar array would fit on the roof. Heat would be provided by a boiler and forced furnace powered by biomass consisting of wood chips or wood pellets. Geothermal cooling will be used to cool the facility in the summer.
Water for the facility will be captured from snow melt or rain, he said, so the facility won’t have to buy water from the city to fill the troughs. They need potable water for processing, so they will need some water from the city for that purpose.
“To grow the products we have not had to purchase water,” Carman said.
Production
The facility could produce 2,000 fish per month, or 4,000 pounds, Carman said. It would also produce 8,000-9,000 heads of lettuce per week, he said, which is just short of one semi-truck trailer load. Food distributors serving the area could fill their trucks before they leave town following their deliveries.
“It’s about growing it here, and then finding the distribution network already in place to backhaul it to Wadena, backhaul it to Cloquet, Northfield, Minneapolis,” Carman said.
Duluth and southern St. Louis County consume 400,000 heads of lettuce per year, Carman said, so there’s a market and a demand for the lettuce the facility would produce. They could also ship the produce into Canada, Rognerud said, because of the unique way it’s grown.
Mariner Farms works to identify ecosystems where different plants and seafood can grow in harmony, Carman said. The tilapia system can produce lettuce, basil, tomatoes and peppers, as well as algae and duckweed. They’re also looking at systems that would incorporate shrimp, lobster, clams, kelp and plankton.
Education
There’s an educational component to the project because Mariner Farms needs educated, qualified people to work in the facility, Carman said. The company has aligned with RRCC to educate students to work in the facility, and to provide a learning opportunity to students through paid internships at the facility.
“It’s not just anybody off the street who can understand the biology, and the relationships between the fish and the plants, and the balance,” Carman said. “It’s a balancing act, it’s not just clear-cut science.”
Helland said RRCC has some of the core courses for the program in place, and the college would need to add an aquaponics component to the program via an online course. The faculty have been meeting with Carman, she said, and believe the college could roll the program out quickly because many of the courses are already offered.
There’s a potential to expand the proposed facility, Carman said, which is why the development agreement between Mariner Farms and the EDA gives Mariner Farms the right of first refusal on the 1.5 acres adjacent to the proposed facility. The expansion could be for research and development, he said.
Board response
EDA member Paul Eklund said he’s gotten a lot of questions from people about the project, and community support and interest has been prevalent throughout the process.
“This is a very exciting thing, this is cutting-edge,” Eklund said. “This community needs a win, we need to have a win, we need something positive.”
Selling the land for $1 isn’t an unusual practice, Eklund said, and the taxes on the property will pay back what the EDA has invested in the land in a few years.
“Nobody’s asking us to pay the taxes,” Eklund said. “They want to pay taxes to us.”
It’s important for a developer to show confidence in coming to International Falls, EDA member Pete Kalar added.
“We need confidence in our community,” Kalar said. “It could start a domino effect, not only for the multimodal district but all over town it could draw businesses.”
Sustainable agriculture is the wave of the future, EDA member Cynthia Jaksa said, and a project like this puts International Falls at the forefront of the movement.
“I really want to thank you, Bruce, because to have faith in our community in coming here,” Jaksa said. “You could have gone to other cities.”
EDA member Bob Anderson said they need to thoroughly review the project because past projects that weren’t vetted thoroughly promised jobs that never came to fruition.
“When you create that expectation and it never comes about, and that has happened in the past with this EDA,” Anderson said. “Citizens get kind of down in the mouth.”
Carman said he understood Anderson’s concerns, and that Silver Bay had the same concerns in 2008-2009 when that project was in its infancy.
“We wanted something that would mean something to the local residents, the local community,” Carman said. “Affordable, quality food is an important aspect of that.”
