The borough assembly approved a one-acre tidelands lease to Canoe Lagoon Oysters at its Tuesday night meeting.
Co-owner Brian Herman said the business would use the intertidal area in front of the former airplane pullout at 4 Mile Zimovia Highway to raise oysters in floating containment bags and hold them for sale.
Having the site in Wrangell would allow the operation to bring maturing oysters over in good weather from the existing farm on the Blashke Islands, established in March 2020, making it easier to harvest the oysters when bad weather prevents deliveries from the site just off Prince of Wales Island, he said.
Having the marketable oysters in town would avoid the 30-mile boat trip in rain and rough water to meet supply demands from customers, Herman said.
The port and planning and zoning commissions in September reviewed and approved Herman’s request to lease the site.
The borough assembly Tuesday approved a delayed start date to the lease, estimated at June 2022, so that Canoe Lagoon Oysters can complete the required state testing for the operation.
Before he spends time and money in doing the testing for the site through the state, which is costly and time consuming, “we want to make sure we’ll be able to complete the process,” Herman said in an interview Tuesday.
The annual lease will be 6% of the site’s appraised value, which the borough will set after the property is appraised.
At any one time, Canoe Lagoon Oysters expects to use about 10% of the 42,000 square feet of the area under the lease. The bags will be rotated within the area to minimize any impact to clams in the beach area at the airplane pull-out site, which is designated for recreational use.
Canoe Lagoon Oysters is not seeking to restrict any public access to clamming, according to the material presented to the assembly.
With the tidelands lease approved, Herman said the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation will have to conduct a water quality test and site visit.
Then, the Department of Fish and Game will require a pathology report to make sure nothing biologically harmful is being transported on the oysters from the Blashke Islands site to the new one.
The process to ready the site for growing oysters could take more than a year, Herman said.
Depending on how long the process takes with Fish and Game and the DEC, Herman estimates it could be spring or summer of 2023 before the Wrangell site will be operational.
Herman last month reported the business was selling 200 dozen oysters a week, with a goal of boosting that to selling 400 dozen oysters a week.
Brian and Kristy Herman have invested about $300,000 in Canoe Lagoon Oysters, they said last month.
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