Icicle Seafoods Resolving Clean Water Act Violations

Icicle Seafoods Resolving Clean Water Act Violations



2007 September -   Seattle-based Icicle 
Seafoods, Inc. and its wholly owned subsidiary, Evening Star, Inc., have 
agreed to spend nearly $2 million to resolve Clean Water Act violations 
associated with the operation of the M/V Northern Victor, a seafood 
processing vessel, in Alaska's Udagak Bay. 
The settlement requires the payment of a $900,000 civil penalty. 
Icicle has already spent approximately $1.1 million cleaning up a historic 
seafood waste pile that created a one-acre dead zone on the Alaskan 
seafloor. 
EPA Northwest Regional Administrator in Seattle Elin Miller said seafood 
processors need to look for new ways to protect the health of the 
seafloor, starting with preventing waste piles. 
"Contrary to popular belief, waste piles on the seafloor do have a 
long-lasting, damaging effect on the environment," said Miller. "This 
waste, particularly the bony material, doesn't ‘just go away'. It degrades 
slowly, causing harm for decades." 
The violations occurred aboard the seafood processing vessel, the M/V 
Northern Victor, which operates in Udagak Bay on the eastern side of 
Unalaska Island. The vessel is permitted to discharge seafood processing 
waste by an EPA issued National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System 
permit. 
Several violations were observed during an inspection conducted in 2003. 
Following the inspection, Icicle made significant improvements aboard the 
vessel to remedy the violations. However, the companies failed to comply 
with one major provision of the permit, which required the cleanup of a 
historic seafood waste pile created by the vessel's discharges prior to 
1999. 
After the U.S. Department of Justice filed suit against Icicle and Evening 
Star in 2006, the companies undertook the removal of the historic waste 
pile. They subsequently agreed to pay the $900,000 civil penalty. 
The Northern Victor is the largest of Icicle's processing vessels and the 
second largest processing vessel in the United States fishing industry. 
With quarters for 222 crewmembers, the ship processes Alaskan pollock at 
her primary operating base in the Aleutians Islands near Dutch Harbor and 
renders the waste into fish meal and fish oil. 

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