February 12, 2014 — Three fishing companies that operate in Alaska have been fined about $275,000 by the Environmental Protection Agency for pollution violations stretching back to 2008. KUCB’s Lauren Rosenthal has more.
Blue North Fisheries and Golden Fleece also admitted to letting their Clean Water Act permits lapse for some of their boats, which means they were illegally emitting waste for a time.
Processing vessels are allowed to dump their scraps of unwanted fish overboard, as long as they grind it up into small pieces as specified by the EPA first. They also have to keep tabs on the time and volume of those emissions — and make sure they don’t contain too much metal.
The EPA didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Blue North Fisheries of Seattle agreed to pay almost $95,000 for seafood waste violations on two of their Bering Sea freezer longliners.
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