NEBRASKA CITY – GoodLife Agriculture is moving forward with its plans for  a new aquaculture facility in Nebraska City despite an October fire at its springboard enterprise Nebraska Vegetable and Protein.

The aquaponics farm at Nebraska City was described as one of only two combined fish and vegetable farms in the United States. Its crops and the live Atlantic salmon that were to be used to seed the expanded facility, were lost in the fire. However, the proven effectiveness of salmon production despite being 750 miles from the nearest ocean remains.

Co-founder Kiel VanderVeen said Thursday the company is moving forward on its plans for the 600,000-square-feet facility, but with an additional 20,000-square-feet to replace the facility destroyed in the October fire.

He is still hoping for groundbreaking this year.

 Photo taken from Nebraska Vegetable and Protein website

GoodLife Agriculture received approval from the Nemaha Natural Resources District for two new wells in an aquifer recharged by the Missouri River. The company announced plans for a 7.5-million-gallon water system.

A company website says McNeil Industrial of Omaha has been chosen to engineer and construct the farm’s water cooling and product freezing systems.