March 11, 2014 — Kodiak fish processor North Pacific Seafoods pleaded guilty Tuesday in federal court to illegally dumping ammonia into the Kodiak city sewer, while the processor’s chief engineer faces charges of his own.
District Court Judge Ralph Beistline imposed $205,000 in criminal penalties, $55,000 of which should go to the city for “hazardous waste response training” and equipment for sewer and fire department employees, according to an Alaska U.S. Attorney's Office press release.
Kodiak is located near the northeastern tip of Kodiak Island. Life on the island, the largest in Alaska and the second largest in the U.S., revolves largely around maritime activities including commercial fisheries and fish processing plants as well as a large U.S. Coast Guard base.
North Pacific Seafoods is a Seattle-based company and a subsidiary of Japanese corporation Marubeni. It owns five seafood processing plants in Alaska.
According to Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrea Steward, the illegal disposal happened in late November 2011. Employees at Alaska Pacific Seafoods “dumped approximately 40 pounds of ammonia waste from its refrigeration system” into the sewer. Sewage plant employees noticed an odor wafting through their facility and requested the city’s fire department help locate the source of the pungent smell.
“The chief engineer for the Alaska Pacific Seafoods facility at first denied discharging the ammonia when asked about” the odor, according to the release. But the sewer employees traced the ammonia back to the fish processing plant.
According to a plea agreement, the employees donned protective gear and accessed multiple locations along a sewer line to trace the source, a manhole in a public street near the fish processing plant.
Read the full story at the Alaska Dispatch