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North Pacific Seafoods pays EPA to settle alleged Clean Air Act violations from illegal incinerators

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North Pacific Seafoods pays EPA to settle alleged Clean Air Act violations from illegal incinerators

Nov 30, 2022 | 7:15 pm ET
By James Brooks
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North Pacific Seafoods pays EPA to settle alleged Clean Air Act violations from illegal incinerators
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Fishing boats line the dock in Kodiak's St. Paul Harbor on Oct. 3. One of the state's largest seafood companies will pay $345,000 to settle alleged Clean Air Act violations. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)

One of Alaska’s most prominent seafood companies will pay $345,000 to the Environmental Protection Agency after illegally operating three incinerators in Naknek.

The EPA announced a settlement agreement with North Pacific Seafoods on Tuesday.

Alice Corcoran, a public relations officer for the EPA, characterized the settlement as “on the bigger side of big” for the agency.

The agreement, which heads off proposed penalties for alleged Clean Air Act violations, was signed in August by Dave Hambleton, president and CEO of North Pacific. Hambleton did not return a phone message seeking comment.

According to the EPA’s documentation, North Pacific operated the incinerators — used to dispose of paper, cardboard and other waste — without a permit between 2017 and 2021, when the company shut them down and removed them. 

The company also failed to perform emission testing and properly train the operators of the incinerators, the EPA said.

The Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation did not issue a separate fine but did participate in the EPA’s investigation.

Jason Olds, director of the DEC’s Division of Air Quality, said incinerators aren’t uncommon in rural areas, particularly in industrial camps that need to get rid of waste.

“There’s exemptions from permitting requirements that they could have sought with these incinerators, but they didn’t do that, and they didn’t do it timely,” he said.

Had North Pacific chosen to keep the incinerators operating, the state could have intervened, he said, but “when they started walking through what that picture would look like, and how those violations would become essentially a part-state issue, the operator elected to just shut the units down permanently.”

Olds characterized the size of the fine as “on the higher end of average.”

North Pacific Seafoods, which operates processing plants in Togiak, Sitka, Kodiak, Naknek and on the Kenai Peninsula, is owned by Kanaway Seafoods, a branch of Canadian Fishing Co., which is itself part of Jim Pattison Group, a firm owned by Canada’s third-richest man.