It’s a small piece of economic good news for Lubec – but even a small piece is welcome around Cobscook Bay these days.
The former Stinson Seafood plant, which was closed last July, is about to be a facility operated by North Atlantic Seafood of Stonington. Although the company will probably hire only six to eight workers, the operation will be a benefit to area lobster fishermen, according to North Atlantic president Adelbert Gross.
The Lubec facility “will basically be the same as Stonington,” which means “a grading, holding and packing operation, just lobster for now, although we might do scallops once the season starts,” Gross said.
North Atlantic Lubec plant manager Nick White said the company hopes to be up and running by mid to late June, adding that the new facility will mean that lobstermen will no longer have to worry about shipping and trucking their lobsters to other locations.
“When you come in, we’ll weigh your lobsters, and you can pick up your check the next day,” White said. “It’s as simple as that.” He adds that the plant will sell fuel, bait, bait bags, gear, pot buoys, rope, “but we also plan to sit down and discuss this with fishermen as to what exactly they would like to see here.”
In mid-May the major job was installing and testing tanks in the facility. “Obviously, it’s important to get the aeration going right, and we’re going to be testing the air and water in the tanks for at least two weeks,” White said.
Gross says that North Atlantic actually purchased the Stinson plant from Connors Bros. in January. He declined to reveal the purchase price. “We heard about it last September, seemed like they were asking a reasonable price, so we decided to go forward,” he said, adding that leasing out some of the facility may be in the plans.
“There’s been lots of renovation. We basically tore the guts out of the factory, saving whatever we could find that was reusable. We tried to take advantage of what was already there.”
When the Stinson plant closed last July, approximately 100 jobs were lost, and Gross realizes that six or eight new jobs won’t make much of a dent.
“We’re the new kid in town,” he said, “and it’s been a tough haul, but we hope to be a good asset to the town and to the fishermen.”