ST. GEORGE, Maine — The founder of a seafood processing plant that closed earlier this year said he is still working to get the facility back up and running, perhaps for next year.
An auction of the property, building and equipment at Sea Hag Seafood had been scheduled for June 17 but was postponed.
Stef Keenan of Keenan Auction Company said Tuesday that the postponement was at the request of the owner and lender.
Kyle Murdock, who founded Sea Hag, said Tuesday he was still working on a way to get processing to return to the facility. For this year, business activity will be limited to buying and selling lobsters and selling bait from the dock.
“I’m talking with a number of people on possible new partnerships. There are still a lot of opportunities,” Murdock said.
A day before the scheduled auction, Sea Hag agreed to have a $25,000 lien placed on the property by the Maine Department of Environmental Protection as part of a proposed administrative consent agreement. The $25,000 would cover the penalty for violation of the company’s wastewater discharge license.
The company had been required under the permit issued by the state in 2012 to submit electronic discharge monitoring reports each month to the Department of Environmental Protection. The consent agreement points out that many of those reports were late by up to two months, up until June 2015 after which none were filed.
The Department of Environmental Protection had initially assessed a penalty of $43,485 but lowered it to $25,000 with stipulations that include submitting the missing reports. The state is accepting public comment on the consent agreement through July 20.
The Sea Hag facility consists of 7.5 acres of waterfront property at the mouth of Long Cove in Tenants Harbor.
Earlier this year, Murdock said the plant lost nearly an entire processing season in 2013 because of electrical problems. In 2014, the company used its remaining credit to construct a wharf, which was to be paid for, in part, with a working waterfront grant through the Land for Maine’s Future program, he said. The project was approved for a grant, but the state said the company did not follow through on steps such as getting an appraisal to receive the funding.
“With increasingly challenging market conditions, it became clear to us last fall that we needed to make changes to our business model and negotiate a new agreement with the property owner and our other creditors,” Murdock said in May.
Sea Hag Holdings consists of a group of investors for which Murdock said he serves as the day-to-day manager. The plant opened in September 2012 at the former Great Eastern Mussel Farm plant, which had been foreclosed on in 2009.
The project’s financing included a nearly $1.7 million loan from Camden National Bank and a $400,000 grant through the Maine Department of Economic and Community Development.
The grant money was provided to the company after it created 23 jobs for low- and moderate-income workers and after it met the terms of the federal program, Maine Department of Economic and Community Development spokesman Douglas Ray said in May. The town of St. George had sponsored the grant application, but the municipality will not be liable for any repayment, Ray said, because the jobs were created.