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OREGON FISH COMPANY SENTENCED FOR CLEAN WATER ACT VIOLATIONS
Release Date: 05/06/99
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FOR RELEASE: THURSDAY, MAY 6, 1999
OREGON FISH COMPANY SENTENCED FOR CLEAN WATER ACT VIOLATIONS
Crystal Ocean Seafood Inc. (Crystal Ocean), which operates a fish processing plant in Astoria, Ore., was sentenced on April 27 in U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon in Portland for violating the Clean Water Act. The court ordered Crystal Ocean to pay restitution of $100,000 that will be divided among the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality ($50,000), the Western States Project ($25,000), and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife ($25,000). As part of its sentence, Crystal Ocean will also serve three years probation and must publish a notice in the Astoria city newspaper to admit its criminal violation of the CWA as well as encourage other fish processing plants to comply with their CWA permits. Crystal Ocean processes Pacific Whiting into artificial crab meat known as ASurimi.@ Approximately 72-84 percent of the whole fish is discarded as a result of the process, and Crystal Ocean illegally discharged more than 30,000 pounds of this fish waste into the Columbia River in violation of its CWA permit. The illegal discharge of large quantities of fish processing waste can be harmful to fish and other aquatic life in the area of the discharge. Before relocating its operation from Burlington, Wash., to Astoria, Ore., Crystal Seafood had been cited several times and fined more than $180,000 by the Washington Department of Ecology for similar water quality permit violations. This case was investigated by EPA’s Criminal Investigation Division, the Oregon State Police, the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, and was prosecuted by the U.S. Department of Justice.
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