Olympic Forest Coalition Files Clean Water Act Suit Against Coast Seafood

Discharging 25,920 gallons per hour,*

Coast Seafoods should be required

to apply for a discharge permit.

(*estimate from Coast Seafoods discharge report)

It's not grandma's hatchery anymore.

Did you notice my Notice?

Following a Notice of Intent to File Suit sent to Coast Seafoods, dated October 20, 2015, the Olympic Forest Coalition  has followed through and filed a Clean Water Act lawsuit against Coast Seafoods. In the papers filed, OFC claims Coast Seafoods is illegally discharging waste water through pipes and culverts into Quilcene Bay without a discharge permit. Coast Seafoods claims as they are a hatchery facility, they are exempt.

Wiegardt Brothers Pleads Guilty

to Clean Water Act Violation

in Willapa Bay

Pristine waters of Willapa Bay?

Do you really care about clean water?

This suit follows a plea of guilty by the Wiegardt Brothers* shellfish company last June, in Willapa Bay, for violating the Clean Water Act. In that case the shellfish company was accused of violating conditions of its discharge permit, resulting in a $100,000 fine and a $75,000 community service fee. Unlike shellfish hatcheries, in the case of Wiegardt Brothers, their processing facility was required to have a National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit. Conditions of that permit required specific samples to be taken from a specific spot which were not done for a period of almost 2 years. (*Wiegardt Brothers is one of the shellfish companies wanting to spray imidacloprid on shellfish beds in Willapa Bay, with Ken Wiegardt being the one who has signed the new permit application January 8, 2016.)

A non-point discharge?

We see what we want.

It's a factory, not a nursery. It discharges waste water through pipes. That water is not as clean as what is drawn in. This facility needs a permit.

Modern shellfish hatcheries are not benign operations of days gone by. In the case of Coast Seafoods, OFC claims water entering the facility from Puget Sound does not exit the facility in the same state. They point to chemicals being added to buffer the water; antibiotics being added to kill bacteria; phytoplankton being added; water temperature being changed; and, chlorine-based chemicals being added. And water discharged containing all of it, impacting Quilcene Bay.

Control their discharges, but not mine. 

The shellfish industry does not like being regulated. They have the motivation and the money to hire well paid attorneys and marine biologists willing to create studies painting a picture which is not reality. They are altering the marine ecosystems of Washington's waters and what the Shoreline Management Act and the Clean Water Act were intended to regulate. Get involved. They are.