OQUOSSOC – Despite a massive fire that ravaged Atlantic Salmon of Maine’s flagship hatchery in Embden, a spokeswoman says there will be no changes at the company’s other hatchery, located in Oquossoc.

Nearly 3 million young fish died late Thursday night in the fire, which is still being investigated. The remains of those fish have already been shipped to New Brunswick, where they will be turned into cat food, said company spokeswoman Melissa Field.

Atlantic Salmon of Maine owns another smaller hatchery in Oquossoc, as well as 14 ocean pens.

On Monday, Field said it was too early to determine the future of what is left at the Embden hatchery, or what direction the company will take in the wake of the disaster.

“It’s too early to know right now,” she said, adding that executives at the company’s headquarters in Belfast had been in meetings all day Monday trying to “better position” the company for the future.

“We should know within a month,” Field said. “There are a lot of complex factors here that really need to be looked at.”

One of those complex factors is a May 9 ruling by a federal judge in Portland who found the company in civil contempt for violating a court order that barred it from stocking smolt in its pens. A penalty has yet to be announced in that case.

As for now at the Oquossoc hatchery, which has been owned by the company since 1987, there will be no changes, she said. “Everything is status-quo right now.”

When asked whether the market would be negatively affected by the loss of the Embden facility, Field said, “No. Those fish were more than a year and a half away from the grocery store.”

sdepoy@sunjournal.com