State releases preliminary draft to renew Westward Seafoods' Unalaska wastewater permit

The Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation released a preliminary draft permit Monday that would reissue Westward Seafoods' wastewater discharge permit for its processing plant on Captains Bay in Unalaska.

The company gets the first look. Westward's 10-day review runs through 11:59 pm AKST Nov. 17. DEC will then prepare a draft permit and fact sheet for a formal 30-day public review period, when public comments will be accepted. The current permit expires Feb. 28, 2027, according to DEC's permit issuance plan.

The plant processes seafood and turns heads, offal and unusable tissue into fish meal. Water used in processing passes through a 0.5-millimeter screen to recover tissue pieces and is discharged without further treatment.

Wastewater leaves through two outfalls. Outfall 001A ends 1,200 feet from the plant, north of the rocky reef Bailey's Ledge, in a diffuser, a pipe end with several openings, about 61 feet deep at low tide. It carries screened wastewater and, from October through June, stickwater, the fish tissue liquid removed when meal is dried. From July through September, stickwater is typically discharged by vessel instead. Outfall 002A ends under the plant dock and carries meal-plant saltwater and cooling water.

The preliminary draft includes a 200-by-253-foot mixing zone around the diffuser, where wastewater mixes into the bay, covering temperature, color, turbidity, residues, dissolved oxygen, sediment and total ammonia. It also includes a 2.0-acre zone of deposit, a seafloor area where processing residues are allowed to settle. A separate 100-foot-radius mixing zone around Outfall 002A covers temperature, total ammonia, arsenic and zinc.

In September, the Unalaska City Council approved a new 10-year lease for Westward's seafood waste outfall line at $2,250 a year, Alaska News reported Sept. 24.