By David Wilkins - Daily World Writer, The Aberdeen Daily World - February 11, 1999
WESTPORT - The Department of Ecology has issued an order to a Westport seafood processing company, holding it responsible for discharges of fish processing waste from fishing vessels tied up in the Westport boat basin.
Westport officials, industry managers and state legislators say that enforcement of the order could result in the closing of Westport's two major processing plants.
"If they make this order stick, it will take away two-thirds of the city's tax base," Mayor Berkley Barker said at the Feb. 9 City Council meeting.
"They've backed off, for now, but I'm certain they'll be back."
Department of Ecology officials declined comment on the specifics of the case against Merino's Seafoods.
"Basically that order is under appeal to the Pollution Control Board, and while it's under appeal we can't really talk about it," Department of Ecology spokeswoman Sandy Holloway said from Olympia Wednesday. "In general, we're talking about a very strong concentration of fish waste that is biologically unhealthy for that harbor. It's a natural thing, but it's dirty."
Merino's was served with the order Jan. 6. General Manager Dennis Rydman said Washington is the only state on the West Coast that enforces a set of 1970-era federal Environmental Protection Agency standards called the "new source limits" so strictly.
Job losses
"If they're going to expect these vessels as well as these plants to meet these limits, we're all out of business. The industry shuts down," Rydman said this morning. "What's happening here is that the industry will relocate from Washington to Oregon.
"We're seeing that already. Washington Crab moved its fillet plant from Westport to Oregon. All the fish are now trucked to Oregon. They were right next door to us. When that plant closed, 45 jobs were lost."
New source discharge limits on "biochemical oxygen demand," a measure of suspended microorganisms in wastewater, were set by the federal Environmental Protection Agency 30 years ago.
"It's basically the germs in your wastewater," Rydman said. "You can't screen them out, or air-float them out. They're too small. One way to get them out is to chlorinate the waste stream, but that would result in a lot of chlorinated water being dumped into the ocean.
"The other way is to build big holding ponds to put the water in, and then the germs eat each other. But the amount of water we're talking about - Merino's and Washington Crab together use about three-fourths of the city of Westport water supply, about 500,000 gallons a day - we'd have to dam up all the cranberry bogs in Grayland to hold that much water."
According to Rydman, the EPA set the standards based on the assumption that technology would be available by the year 2000 that would make the limits economically feasible.
Rydman says that hasn't happened.
"The technology hasn't changed," said the plant manager. "Sure, if you have a trillion dollars you can fly to the moon or anything, but the fish business in Westport is no better than it's ever been - maybe a little worse. The kind of money to do the things they're talking about is totally out of the question."
Rydman added that the only way to comply with the Department of Ecology order would be to build a dedicated wastewater treatment plant at a cost of around $10 million, just to treat water from vessels in the harbor.
After a meeting last week with Senate Majority Leader Sid Snyder, D-Long Beach, and other legislators, as well as Westport city officials and industry officials, the Department of Ecology decided not to enforce the order while the case is under appeal.
However, the department has already fined Merino's for fish byproduct discharges from their plant, the most recent being a $42,000 fine imposed last year. If the liability is extended to include vessels in the harbor, some residents are concerned that the entire town's livelihood is in danger.
"If they extend this to include any sailboat dumping bilge water, what does this mean?" Grayland resident Wayne White asked the City Council at Tuesday's meeting. "We don't have a boat basin any more?"
Customarily, as a fishing vessel unloads the day's catch at a processing plant, the ship will wash the accumulation of blood, guts, scales and other biological material into the marina.
Seagulls and fish in the harbor feast on the smelly smorgasbord, which many say raises the question of why the Department of Ecology would object to vessels dumping what amounts to a load of fish food in the water to begin with.
"The EPA doesn't enforce new source standards on any of the processors in Alaska," Rydman said. "It would put half of them out of business and the EPA knows it."
Westport and other local officials see it as over-regulation by the state.
"It's the strictest possible interpretation of the 1972 Environmental Protection Act," said Westport's Public Works director, Fred Chapman. "Even though we're talking about a naturally produced protein byproduct, they're seeing it as a health and water quality hazard."
"Other states have looked at this and decided it was unworkable," added Westport City Administrator Randy Lewis. "For some reason, Washington has decided to go ahead with it."
Sen. Snyder has taken an interest in the case because of Merino's problems and similar regulatory issues faced by the Ilwaco Fish Co.
"I've been frustrated with (the Department of Ecology) for a long time," Snyder said from his Olympia office on Wednesday. "They're enforcing the federal regulations that they have, under the Environmental Protection Act. Oregon enforces the same laws, but Oregon has a much more liberal interpretation. On the Oregon side of the Columbia River they dump a lot more fish by-products in the water - they think it's advantageous to have it in there for food.
"It's frustrating when we're working in the Legislature to promote rural economic development and it seems sometimes like they're trying to shut down what few jobs we have. It seems like those agencies have more power than the legislators," Snyder said.
In a letter to Snyder dated Jan. 12, Department of Ecology director Tom Fitzsimmons says that Merino's and Ilwaco Fish aren't being held to a standard that is any higher than Oregon's or anywhere else.
"As far as we understand, the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality ... implements the same federal technology-based effluent limits in their permits as Ecology," Fitzsimmons writes.
Rydman disagrees.
"In Oregon, the fish processors are allowed to grind their solid fish waste and dump it into the Columbia River. We're talking solids that will fit through a one-inch pipe," the plant manager said. "The state of Washington Department of Ecology doesn't want us to dump a germ."
Fitzsimmons' letter adds that in the department's view, the impact on the environment is the key, rather than the source of the discharge.
"Large point sources such as Ilwaco Fish and Merino's Seafood can have significant environmental impacts," Fitzsimmons writes. "For example, from April through October 1991, Ilwaco Fish discharged an average biochemical oxygen demand load of 1,240 pounds per day to Baker Bay.
"This is equivalent to a city of 50,000 people. Even though the waste products are 'natural,' they can cause profound environmental impacts."
Rydman sees it as an example of a state agency overstepping its boundaries.
"The Department of Ecology's charter is not to put businesses like Merino's Seafoods out of business," he said. "It's not to take all the jobs out of Westport and kill us. But that seems to be the track that they're on."
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