New interest in Bucksport’s mostly vacant paper mill site drew local attention this fall as residents debated enacting a data center moratorium, when it came to light that two companies had recently eyed the property.
But data center developers are not the only ones.
Others have consistently eyed it for years even though the site, 100-plus acres of which is owned by the company behind the unrealized salmon farm Whole Oceans, has not been publicly listed for sale. The mill closed in 2014 and nearly all of its buildings have been demolished since then.
Ideas for the site’s reuse range from shrimp farming to wood pellet production to building self-flying planes to deliver mail to Maine islands, according to a town official and documents the Bangor Daily News obtained from the town through a Freedom of Access Act public records request. And a Whole Oceans representative has taken meetings with interested parties, a town official said.
But none have come to fruition, and it’s not clear whether any ever will. Though the salmon farm has yet to break ground seven years after being permitted, Whole Oceans continues to pay local taxes and said last summer it still planned to go ahead with a much smaller project.
Documents show that the site still has wide-ranging industrial potential that’s drawing interest from numerous sectors, bolstered by its location, that could be realized. While it appears unlikely any new project there could replace the mill’s economic impact, many want to see the site generate local jobs and contribute to the tax base.
“It is what it is, and we just trudge forward and look to other areas of the town where we can make a difference,” said Rich Rotella, the town’s community and economic development director.
Dale Reicks, the hog farmer from Iowa who is behind Whole Oceans, did not respond to questions Friday. The company bought the bulk of the site for $7.25 million in 2019, according to state tax records.
If the site were available, it’s arguably the best one around, Rotella said: the coastal location comes with abundant unused electrical capacity from the mill’s former plant, which doesn’t rely on the grid. Fresh water is available from Silver Lake, which once supplied up to 18 million gallons a day to the mill, and brackish water from the Penobscot River is right on hand.
The river also provides deep-water shipping access, I-95 is only 20 miles away, and the mill sits at the end of a rail line to Bangor. The rail line is dormant and overgrown, though a Massachusetts-based company’s bid to revive it is currently under federal review. Rotella also noted the area’s workforce and Bucksport’s proximity to local colleges.
Because the site is privately owned, Bucksport doesn’t have direct control over what happens there. But interested parties often contact Rotella about it.
Some inquiries come by phone or in person and so were not included in response to a FOAA request.
Recently, for example, he heard from a local resident with ties to Whole Oceans who wanted to start a land-based shrimp farm on the site, and from a company that aimed to make self-flying planes for delivering mail to Maine islands.
Rotella believes such ideas fail to materialize mainly because those pitching them don’t grasp how much the land would cost, suggesting people think they can get a deal but don’t realize Whole Oceans doesn’t need to sell.
More advanced ideas brought to the town have often centered around biomass facilities, which make new use of wood byproducts for electricity or fuel as Maine’s paper industry contracts. Biomass has been a consistent theme in ideas for the area since 2019, documents show.
In 2025, with prompting from biomass supply chain consultant Ecostrat, Bucksport applied for a “bioeconomy development opportunity zone” rating grant that would evaluate suitability for such ventures within a 75-mile radius. That rating system is supposed to help attract interested businesses.
It likely wouldn’t bring a plant to Bucksport itself because no industrial parcels are on the market now, Rotella said, but it could bring secondary business to town if one opened in the region.
Three biomass-related companies that sent letters of support for that application last year said they were considering doing business in the area, documents show.
The town didn’t win a USDA grant in 2025 to help fund that process but may apply again, Rotella said. He’s also considering sending a letter of interest to a biomass-related economic development program from the Maine Development Foundation, which has contacted the town about biomass funding opportunities since at least 2019.
Other ideas for the site run the gamut.
In 2021, developers evaluated the town’s suitability for various offshore wind port options, focused primarily on a vacant industrial parcel up the river known as Sprague North with the mill site as a second choice. The Sprague site sold to Dysart’s in March. No plans for it have been made public since.
In January 2024, a local aquaculture farmer wrote Rotella with interest in getting a grant to buy a right-of-way and shore access at the site for a local community college course, saying it could eventually become a site for workforce development and a business incubator.
Later that year, Arkansas-based wood pellet mill company Highland Solutions described a plan to create production facilities in Maine and ship in bulk, with interest in talking to Whole Oceans about selling its property.
And an area manufacturer of modular homes may have considered the site for a manufacturing hub, one email shows.
Then there were the two data center developers, Canada-based Beacon AI last summer and California-based Kratos AI this summer.
Rotella never heard from Beacon again after a statewide moratorium was floated earlier this year, which Gov. Janet Mills ultimately vetoed. The town’s last contact with Kratos was in August.
He suspects a moratorium the town enacted last month scared them away, he said, as some feared it would. In an interview Friday, Rotella also alluded to local opposition to industrial plans as soon as they become public.
But it isn’t necessarily a bad thing when interest in the site dies down, he said, because it frees up his time to focus on things the town has more influence on.
As for whether the salmon farm will ever happen: “I just don’t know,” he said.
