The Center for Food Safety (CFS) and the Northwest Environmental Defense Center (NEDC) announced they intend to sue Pacific Bio Products – a subsidiary of Pacific Seafood – over alleged pollution at its facility in Warrenton, Oregon, U.S.A.
The two groups sent a letter of intent under the Clean Water Act to Pacific Bio Products, alleging the facility has made repeated violations of the legislation involving effluent discharge outside legally allowed limits.
The two groups claim the company’s outfall pipes have breached pH limits, that the company violated its discharge permit’s monitoring and reporting requirements, and that it has not submitted required annual reports on wastewater solids, quality assurance, and outfall pipe inspections, among other issues.
"If Pacific Seafood is going to operate in the threatened Columbia River estuary, it is essential that it comply with each and every condition of its Clean Water Act permit," NEDC Executive Director Jonah Sandford said in a release. "These conditions are written to ensure that discharges from the facility don't impact water quality, aquatic life, or nearby human populations. The hundreds of violations identified in the notice letter illustrate that the facility is causing real harm to this treasured ecosystem that must be stopped."
CFS has filed lawsuits against the seafood and aquaculture industries before, including lawsuits against Pacific Seafood Aquaculture for alleged Clean Water Act violations, filing lawsuits to shut down shellfish aquaculture operations in Washington state, and filing to intervene in aquaculture industry lawsuits over commercial net pen bans.
In this case, CFS claims the Warrenton facility was exceeding certain daily discharge limits, with isolated instances reaching 73,000 percent over the daily limit of permitted discharge for chlorine.
"The Columbia River and Oregon Coast are already burdened by pollution and habitat destruction from multiple sources," CFS Staff Attorney Kingsly McConnell said. "Adding this kind of pollution only deepens the crisis for local communities and Tribes who rely on the river for their sustenance, culture, and livelihoods. When the government fails to enforce our environmental laws, the people have both the right and the responsibility to respond."
A Pacific Seafood spokesperson, in a statement sent to SeafoodSource, denied the allegations against the company.
“Here we go again – another lawsuit against the seafood industry by the same cast of characters we and many others have dealt with many times before,” the spokesperson said. “Folks like this will throw around a lot of false statements to try to make a splash with the media.”
Pacific Seafood has been fined in the past for water-quality issues, including a USD 222,000 (EUR 188,000) fine in 2024 for Clean Water Act violations at its Westport, Washington-based facility. That same facility was also fined USD 123,000 (EUR 105,000) in April 2022 for similar water quality violations.
