EPA Rule Would Drop Discharge Permits for 65 Alaska Trawlers

Sixty-five Alaska offshore seafood processing vessels would no longer need a Clean Water Act permit to discharge fish waste into federal waters under a rule the Environmental Protection Agency proposed Sept. 4. Their permit keeps them away from Steller sea lion rookeries, eider critical habitat and refuge waters. Those conditions would end with it.

The change is six words. EPA proposes deleting the phrase "which is being used as a means of transportation" from the regulatory definition of a pollutant discharge. That phrase is why a factory trawler working the Bering Sea needs a discharge permit and a passing ship does not.

The proposal offers one worked example: permit authorization "would no longer be required for discharges into the contiguous zone or ocean from offshore seafood processor trawlers because these facilities are not secured to the seabed." The contiguous zone runs from three miles offshore to twelve, and the rule reaches the ocean beyond it.

The word Alaska does not appear in the rule text.

What the Alaska permit requires

The Alaska share shows up in EPA's economic analysis, which counts 79 permitted offshore processors nationally. Fourteen are under a Washington and Oregon permit. Sixty-five are under the Alaska permit, whose conditions are written around Alaska animals.

Vessels may not discharge within three nautical miles of a Steller sea lion rookery or major haul-out, or within one mile of critical habitat for the Steller's eider or spectacled eider, or within one mile of national parks, refuges, wilderness areas and state sanctuaries. Large dischargers inside sea lion critical habitat must grind their waste to half an inch or smaller. West of 144 degrees, unground discharge must stop when a sea lion comes within 250 meters. Crews keep a daily watch for short-tailed albatross, both eiders and sea lions, and report sea lion counts to the National Marine Fisheries Service every year.

The permit also requires annual reporting, which is why the volume is known: in 2015, the 91 vessels reporting discharged roughly 1.1 billion pounds of fish waste.

The tradeoff EPA describes

The rule "would also eliminate permit-required monitoring and reporting, potentially reducing the information available for public review," the agency wrote. Foregone benefits "could include the current management of localized seafood processing discharges to ocean waters beyond three miles, with possible effects on marine species and receiving-water quality." Against that, EPA estimates about $1.7 million a year in industry savings, about $22,000 per operator.

EPA frames the change as correcting a 1979 regulation it now says narrowed what Congress wrote in 1972, and cites the Supreme Court's 2024 Loper Bright decision. Ocean dumping, oil pollution and vessel incidental discharge laws are unaffected.

The proposal contains no Endangered Species Act analysis. Its text does not mention the Act, the National Marine Fisheries Service, Steller sea lions or essential fish habitat. The Alaska permit it would make unnecessary was issued in 2019 after an Endangered Species Act consultation that produced a Biological Opinion on its effects. The rule's only consultation section addresses tribes, and there EPA states the action has no tribal implications.

As of Sept. 24, no Alaska agency, tribal government, permit holder, fishery management body or the National Marine Fisheries Service had filed a comment. Forty-four members of the public had. One argues that a test based on seabed attachment "could create a broad loophole for mobile industrial facilities."

How to comment

Written comments are due Oct. 19 through the federal rulemaking portal, docket EPA-HQ-OW-2026-6965. The notice lists no public hearing.