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Site Visit Report 

Alaska Seafood Processing Industry Petition Response 

Lindsay Guzzo 

Environmental Engineer 

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 

Region 10 Permits Division 

guzzo.lindsay@epa.gov

206-553-0268 

 Betsy Bicknell 

 Senior Environmental Engineer 

 Eastern Research Group, Inc. (ERG) 

 betsy.bicknell@erg.com

 703-633-1612 

Plant Name Ocean Beauty Seafood 

Plant Address Kodiak, Alaska 

NPDES Permit # 

Date of Visit Wednesday, August 18, 2010 

People Contacted Timothy J. Blott 

Plant Manager 

Joe Frazier, Director, Corporate 

Food Safety, QA, and Regulatory 

Affairs 

Seafood processed Bottom fish, all types 

Salmon 

Cod 

Pollock 

Crab 

Products Frozen 

 Whole (round) fish (H&G) 

 Fillets 

 Roe (ikura and sujiko) 

Canned salmon (skinless/boneless) 

Range of annual production volume 50 to 55 million pounds per year 

Months of operation Year round 

Discharge type Screened solids are trucked to Kodiak Fishmeal Company 

Screened wastewater is discharged through NPDES 

permitted outfall, meets O&G and TSS limits. 

Website http://www.oceanbeauty.com/

Ocean Beauty’s Kodiak plant operates 12 months per year. In January they process 

bottom fish and generally process whatever fish is in season. They produce frozen fillets 

and round fish (H&G), frozen crab sections, and fish roe. They also produce canned 

salmon. 

The frames from the fillet process are frozen and then used to produce a minced product. 

They also freeze and sell cod heads, milt, and roe. 

Operations. Ocean Beauty has 700 feet of dock space, including two unloading stations. 

Nine refrigerated seawater tanks on the dock receive fish pumped out of holds. Fish are 

moved into the plant using an elevator, and then conveyed across the plant. They operate 

two lines, a high volume line, and a low volume line. 

Dungeness crab is cooked, brined, and frozen. 
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Salmon for canning are processed in a mechanical butchering line. The fish are filleted 

and skinned. The sockeye salmon frames go to a mincer. 

Waste Management. Some waste from the butchering tables is placed directly into totes. 

Most waste is sluiced into floor drains that are routed into one of two sumps. Wastewater 

from both sumps is pumped to rotosheer rotary screens. Ocean Beauty has two screens 

that alternate. Maintenance consists of changing the chain once/year. The Ocean Beauty 

managers considered the screens to be trouble free. The only difficulty is when foreign 

material (e.g., a pan or broom handle) gets into the drains. This will back up the sewer 

line and they need to stop production until the line is cleared. 

Waste from the rotary screens falls into a hopper and into a truck parked under the 

hopper. Ocean Beauty contracts with a truck that works for them full time. It parks under 

the hopper until it is full and then takes off for the fishmeal plant. Ocean Beauty noted 

that there has never been a problem with meal plant capacity. It has always been able to 

take their waste. There is a back-up plan in the event the meal plant goes down, however. 

In this event, the waste would be trucked to a ramp at the Western Alaska dock and 

dumped into a barge. The barge will haul the waste out to sea for disposal in a designated 

dumping zone. 

Ocean Beauty stated they strive to keep the waste as whole as possible. The center feed 

rotary screens handle whole fish heads and other solids. The waste is wet, but dewatered. 

The wastewater is sampled periodically by dipping sample bottles into the sumps. The 

samples are analyzed by Kodiak Seafood Laboratory. 

Discussion. Tim Blott and Joe Frazier explained that Ocean Beauty’s Kodiak plant has 

been screening the solids from its wastewater since the mid-1970s. At that time, they sent 

their waste to the old Biodry fishmeal plant. The Kodiak channel was in very bad shape. 

Kodiak was a 100 million pound per year shrimp processing center. Shrimp shells formed 

mats of waste that generated hydrogen sulfide gas that bubbled to the surface. Joe Frazier 

mentioned that because of similar crab shell waste piles in Dutch Harbor they have a 

TMDL that requires 0.5 mm screening. He also noted that the diesel-powered generators 

required to operate seafood processing plants in Unalaska contribute to air quality 

degradation. Unisea spent millions of dollars on Clean Air Act PSD/Title V permitting 

projects in Dutch Harbor. 

In Kodiak, the city’s electric power is generated by hydroelectric generating stations, 

wind turbines, and a back up diesel generator.