Southwest Virginia fish farm project ‘on pause’ due to tariffs, gas prices

Pure Salmon’s large fish farm project in far Southwest Virginia is currently “on pause,” primarily because of federal tariffs and “instability in the Middle East” and its effect on gas prices, according to a state lawmaker who has long championed the development.

Moving forward with the project at this time of volatility and unpredictability would cost “tens of millions” of additional dollars, said Del. Will Morefield, a Republican from Tazewell County.

“The company was ready to resume construction a few months ago, but due to the instability of the tariffs, it makes planning extremely challenging and costly,” Morefield said in an emailed statement released in response to questions from Cardinal News. 

“The increase in the price of the project because of the tariffs is estimated to be in the tens of millions of dollars. It does not make economic sense for the company to resume construction until this can be resolved.”

So far, only site work has been done and an access road built to the 200-acre property that straddles the Russell-Tazewell county line. Construction of the buildings will be the last phase. 

Pure Salmon has said that the aquaculture center will raise and then process steelhead trout; some will be used to make pet products and the rest will be sold to grocery stores and restaurants.

The tariffs, which are taxes on imported goods, are heavily favored by President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly changed the amounts, paused and then reinstated them. They would come into play when Pure Salmon begins the next phase of the project, which is to install 20 miles of water pipe underground. This phase is essential due to the huge amount of water required for an aquaculture center.

“The majority of the components for the first stage are manufactured in China because there is not a source in the United States that can manufacture the components for less,” Morefield said.

Buying those materials from China would mean steep tariffs that would make it cost-prohibitive, he said. The tariffs vary widely on construction materials.

The increase in fuel prices resulting from the war in Iran is compounding the problem by making everything more expensive, the delegate added.

It was Morefield who proposed the fish farm project after a visit to Israel, where he met executives from a company that supplied technology for commercial aquaculture facilities around the world. He has said that he immediately saw the potential for a similar project for his home region, which was going through a major downturn in the coal industry.

That was 13 years ago.

One of the last public updates by the company on the indoor, land-based project came in April 2025, when several Pure Salmon officials appeared before the Russell County Board of Supervisors in Lebanon. At that time, they said the plan was to open the facility by late 2028 or early 2029. The company said then that it had spent $80 million so far on the project.

Pure Salmon has said the facility will employ more than 200 workers. The project is sometimes called “Project Jonah.”

Emails and calls seeking an update on the fish farm to Lala Korall, the Richmond-based spokesperson for the project, have gone unanswered since December.

Attempts to contact the company through its website have also been unsuccessful.

Morefield said Pure Salmon will not make a public comment on the project’s status “out of caution while they work through and hope that a resolution on the tariffs will be resolved.”

The project remains on the company’s website, along with three other fish farm projects that Pure Salmon is building in Japan, France and Brunei in Southeast Asia. Morefield said the facility in Mie, Japan, is similar to what’s planned for Southwest Virginia and is nearing completion.

Water, sewer, power upgrades on hold

In 2021, the local project was estimated to require a $300 million investment by the company. In recent years, however, Pure Salmon officials would only say that costs have increased and that the facility will total “several hundred million dollars.”

Also on hold are water and sewer improvements that Tazewell County agreed to make to fulfill the fish farm’s water needs of up to 400,000 gallons per day. The improvements include a new water line and upgrades to pump stations.

County Administrator Eric Young said the county has secured $9.5 million in grants to pay for the projects. Originally, the improvements were expected to cost about $10 million; Young bid out the project twice in hopes that prices would come down but said it’s now expected to cost nearly $13 million.

The latest delay stems from Pure Salmon’s promise to pay for the balance of water and sewer improvements over the total amount of the grants, which would be nearly $3.5 million. Young said in a phone interview that he last spoke to Pure Salmon officials in December and even offered to finance the company’s portion of the project, but “they’re just not in a position to put that money out yet.”

Appalachian Power also planned to make improvements for the fish farm that would involve building about 2 miles of electric transmission line and a new substation.

The project remains on APCo’s website, but the last update was written in July 2023; it says that the project team was working to finalize the project schedule and would update landowners and the community.

According to the utility’s website, construction of the project was to have begun in early 2023 and be completed in late 2024.

Asked about the status of its portion of the project, APCo released a statement.

“Appalachian Power’s role in a project like this is to evaluate and plan for the electric infrastructure needed to serve that customer’s request,” the statement said. “Because this remains a customer-driven project and certain details are commercially sensitive, we are not able to provide specific updates on project status, cost or timing at this time.”

Delays, changes and challenges

Over the years since it was proposed, the fish farm has undergone a number of other delays, changes and unexpected setbacks that have had some people questioning whether it would ever be built.

The last big change came when Pure Salmon announced it was changing the type of fish that would be raised and processed at the Southwest Virginia facility. Originally, the fish was going to be tilapia, which was later changed to Atlantic salmon.

Last year, the company said it would instead produce the lookalike steelhead trout to save money. Steelhead is as healthy as salmon and less expensive for consumers, company officials said.

Going with the steelhead trout will also save the company about $25 million because it will not have to build a desalination facility, according to Morefield. The fish farm is expected to produce about 10,000 tons of fish per year, according to the company’s website.

Originally, the fish farm was being developed by an Israeli company called AquaMaof. In 2019, the private equity firm 8F Asset Management took over the project and created Pure Salmon, which is the company now involved in the development of the facility. It is based in Abu Dhabi.

Several years ago, the company discovered issues with porous clay and a few sinkholes on the site. The company has since taken steps to settle and compact the soil on the land, which is off U.S. 19 behind Southwest Virginia Community College.

In the summer of 2024, crews spent about four months at the site working on soil remediation, the company has said.

The issues with the land resulted in another change. Previously, the farm was to be built almost entirely in Tazewell County, but it now will be constructed mostly on the Russell County portion of the site.

The most recent work at the site has been construction of the access road, which was Russell County’s contribution to the project. It was built with help from an $850,000 grant from the Virginia Department of Transportation. The county also used about $423,000 of its coal and gas severance tax revenues to help pay for the road.

County Administrator Lonzo Lester said the work was done in two parts and is not quite complete yet.

The road was needed because existing roads weren’t in good enough shape to handle the heavy trucks and equipment needed for the water pipe installation. That work must be completed before the buildings are constructed, which will be the last phase of the project. The company has said that there would be nine buildings on the campus.

Lester said the road is now a construction road and the final pavement won’t be put down until the water pipe work is completed because the heavy vehicles would destroy it, he said.

The project in Southwest Virginia isn’t the only fish farm recently put on hold because of the tariffs, Morefield said. Great Northern Salmon has indefinitely paused work on its $300 million land-based salmon farm in rural Maine because tariffs would increase the cost by millions of dollars, several news sources have reported.

Morefield and Young said they’ve heard concerns from residents about how much local money has gone into the Southwest Virginia project. Both said most of the local money, such as tax incentives and a $10 million loan from the Virginia Coalfield Economic Development Authority, is tied to performance and will only be disbursed if Pure Salmon hits agreed-upon benchmarks, such as the number of jobs created.

“They don’t actually get any money until they have boots on the ground and they have jobs,” Young said.

In the meantime, Morefield and Young said they are willing to be patient in hopes that the issues will be ironed out and the project will eventually proceed, though no one knows when that might be.

“It has taken a long time to do this project, but right now they’re the only project we’ve got that has 200 jobs attached to it,” Young said. “It’s their money, not ours. … They’re still with us. They’re still talking to us. They say they’re still planning on going forward. And we’re just going to have to wait and be patient with them.”