- Many Civil Engineers expect to work with Water and Wastewater design during some point in their career, but they don’t necessarily expect to design a fish farm. Moreover, they don’t expect to design a fish farm that will raise millions of fish each year.

David Inman and Gary Crouch of Anderson & Associates have found themselves in this exact situation since partnering with Eden and Associates to work for Blue Ridge Aquaculture in Martinsville, Va. in 2005.

Blue Ridge Aquaculture can hardly be compared to a typical fish farm operation. At an annual production rate of over 3 million pounds of tilapia, Blue Ridge Aquaculture is already an industry leader for indoor aquaculture facilities both domestically and internationally. They are now charting the future of aquaculture.

A&A had previously used aquaculture as a means to improve wastewater treatment. Now, water and wastewater treatment techniques are being used to support intensive aquaculture systems. In the Blue Ridge Aquaculture project, A&A is assisting with the water quality treatment system for future expansion of the existing tilapia operation, as well as for Blue Ridge Aquaculture’s exciting new research facility.

In collaboration with Virginia Tech, Blue Ridge Aquaculture is building a research facility where indoor shrimp production will be studied. Blue Ridge Aquaculture officially broke ground for the new facility on Monday, October 9, 2006, and will use the byproducts created by their existing tilapia to feed the shrimp. This will cut their costs tremendously, and will eventually assist with their future growth and expansion plans.

Inman and Crouch have hit the books and attended the 6th International Recirculating Aquaculture Conference to increase their knowledge for such a unique project. Though many of the water treatment processes are the same, the system design is driven by the biology of tilapia and shrimp. They hope to expand their knowledge of aquaculture and continue to work on the exciting new projects this science offers. &