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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 Icicle Seafoods 

Plant Address Petersburg, Alaska 

NPDES Permit # AKG520303 

Date of Visit Saturday, August 14, 2010 

People Contacted Patrick S. Wilson, Plant Manager 

Paul Walters, Production and Fleet Manager 

Mike Clutter, Corporate Environmental Compliance Director. 

Seafood processed Salmon, halibut, cod, crab (various species) 

Products Canned salmon 

Frozen crab 

Others as listed in Table 1 

Waste products processed Salmon heads, viscera, trimmings, and other processing 

waste. 

Byproducts Pet food grade salmon oil 

Fish Meal 

Range of annual production volume [Confidential Business Information (CBI), removed from 

this report] 

Months of operation February - November 

Salmon season (May/June through September) 

Discharge type Grind and discharge via permitted outfall 

Website http://www.icicleseafoods.com/ 

Background 

According to the Icicle website, the plant in Petersburg is the oldest operating seafood 

processing plant in Alaska. Operations began in 1926. The plant operates February 

through November, processing fish listed in Table 1. From June through early September 

they can pink salmon. Other products are fresh and frozen fin fish and crab. They also 

process a special form of spring herring roe (roe on kelp), which is frozen and shipped to 

Japan. 

Table 1: Fish processed at Icicle, Petersburg 

Month Seafood Processed 

February King and Tanner Crab 

March Herring, Halibut, Black Cod, and King Crab 

April Herring, Halibut, and Black Cod 

May Herring Roe on Kelp; Halibut; Black Cod; Herring 

June Dungeness Crab and Salmon (gillnet, seine , troll) 
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July Salmon (seiner, gillnet, troll), Dungeness Crab 

August Salmon (seiner, gillnet, troll), Dungeness Crab 

September - November Halibut, Black Cod (Long line), Dungeness Crab (limited) 

December – January Closed 

Meal plant. In addition to processing seafood, Icicle produces fish oil and fish meal from 

a byproducts plant. In the mid 1970s, Icicle operated byproducts plants in both Petersburg 

and Seward. At that time, Icicle harvested herring for their roe. After the roe were 

stripped, the fish bodies were discarded as waste. The byproducts plants processed these 

waste herring into fish meal. Roe stripping ended in the early 1990s and the meal plant 

was shut down in the late 1990s. It was rebuilt 4 years ago and now operates during the 

salmon season (early July through the end of August). [CBI, removed from this report.] 

The byproducts plant does not have extra capacity during the salmon season. 

Products from the byproducts plant are fish oil and fishmeal. The fish meal is used in 

aquaculture. [CBI, removed from this report.] It can’t be used for human food with out 

additional refining. In the past, Icicle burned the oil in boilers. 

Other products. During salmon season there is a lull in producing other fish because the 

halibut and cod fishermen fish for salmon.. Halibut is shipped via Alaska Air or the ferry 

system. Most halibut is sold fresh and all cod is frozen. Halibut heads are used for bait 

with 100% utilization. 

Water supply. Icicle uses about 1 MGD of city water for the canning retorts. When all 

three canneries in Petersburg were operating, the city reservoir went dry. The city built a 

new reservoir that can accommodate the three canneries, but only one (Icicle) operated in 

2010. Icicle uses seawater for fluming and for live crab tanks, and for hosing docks. 

They operate three large condensers (Figure 1). Until last year the condensers used oncethrough fresh water; they now use a closed cycle glycol system. 

Icicle adds chlorine to the city water used in the cannery retorts and checks the chlorine 

concentration for each retort batch. Icicle is not required to monitor the chlorine 

concentration in the plant discharge but extensive testing by Icicle has found no 

detectable amount of chlorine. Until recently, Icicle used seawater in the egg room, but 

now uses chlorinated city water to reduce the probability of bacterial contamination. 

Icicle plans to upgrade the sump on the cannery side in 2012. 

Comments on EPA’s Non-Remote Alaska Seafood Processing Project. Mike Clutter 

expressed concern about EPA’s planned economic impact analysis. He noted that seafood 

processing is a very competitive business and some information is confidential. Among 

the changes since EPA’s 1980 analysis is that there is now only one cannery in 

Petersburg (the Ocean Beauty cannery did not operate in 2010, but could operate again). 

In the past, Petersburg produced millions of pounds of little salad shrimp. It now 

produces no shrimp. 
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Tour. The plant is divided into a cold storage side (for producing fresh and frozen 

products), the cannery side, an egg room, and the reduction (meal) plant. Cold storage 

side operations started in 1926. They freeze some pink salmon and process fresh coho, 

sockeye, chum and king salmon. Eggs removed from the salmon in cold storage side 

operations are pumped to the egg room for further processing. 

Fish arrive in plastic or metal totes (Figure 2) or are pumped out of tender holds with the 

fish transfer pipe (Figure 3). 

The dock is built on wooden pilings. The dock was recently rebuilt and given a concrete 

surface (Figure 4). Formerly, some totes leaked blood through the dock and into the 

harbor. Now the water that collects on the dock (including any tote leakage) is directed to 

a sump and then pumped to Icicle’s permitted outfall in the middle of the harbor. In 

addition, an oil/water separator was installed before the sump to collect any oil that might 

leak from the hydraulic lines used on cranes and other material moving equipment. All 

stormwater runoff is routed to the oil/water separators and the separators are regularly 

inspected. If an oil sheen is detected, the source of the leak is identified and the leak is 

stopped so no oil will flow into the bay. 

The main seafood byproduct sump is 15 feet across. Material collected in the sump is 

pumped through hydroseive screens. Solids are ground then conveyed to the reduction 

plant. When the reduction plant is not operating, solids are pumped through a Kodiak 

grinder, Vaughn chopper with a 3/8” sieve plate, and discharged through the outfall. The 

outfall is located near the red buoy shown in Figure 5. The discharge is about 120 feet 

from the shore. It attracts large numbers of seabirds (visible in the picture) and sea 

urchins. According to Icicle, the discharge point is in a location with swift tides that 

provide excellent flushing so there is no zone of deposit of waste solids as documented 

by annual dive surveys. 

Figure 6 shows the interior of a small building used for processing roe and miscellaneous 

fish. Figure 7 shows a station where fish are sorted as they are unloaded from the boats. 

Employees sort fish by size and type and remove any non-fish material (e.g. seaweed). 

The station is roofed to eliminate contamination from bird feces and to keep rainwater off 

of the employees. Fish unloaded with the fish transfer pump go through the dewatering 

box (Figure 8). Refrigerated seawater is returned to the fishing boat or discharged 

through the outfall. Fish are sluiced in seawater (Figures 9 and 10) to holding tanks. 

Temperature of the fish must be 33 - 34° F. Temperature is measured as the fish are 

removed from the transfer belt. 

Crab. A tank of live crab is shown in Figure 11. Crab are butchered, cooked, and cooled. 

Alternatively, butchered crab is brine frozen, either whole or as sections. Frozen crab is 

packed into 25-pound boxes. Waste shells and guts are ground twice before discharge 

through the outfall. 
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Cannery. Icicle operates five canning lines feeding into nine retorts (Figure 12). At the 

end of a canning cycle, the retorts are opened and hot water flows into a recovery system. 

The recovered hot water is filtered and then used as boiler feed water. 

Recovery Plant. Solids from the hydrosieve are transferred to the recovery plant by pipe 

and then conveyor belt (Figures 13 and 14). The belt passes through a metal detector. If 

metal is detected, the belt stops and employees use a hand-held metal detector to find and 

then remove metal from the byproduct stream. In the recovery plant, an employee 

removes non-fish material (seaweed, ear plugs, etc.) from the byproduct stream (Figure 

15). She wears an air-purifying respirator because of the smell (there are no toxic vapors). 

An inclined auger conveys the byproduct stream to an Autio grinder. 

The byproduct is ground (Figure 16), heated, and passed through a tri-canter (Figure 17)

to separate the byproduct into solid, aqueous, and oil phases. The aqueous phase contains 

soluble proteins, salts, and other small molecules and is known as stickwater (Figure 18). 

The warm stickwater from the tricanter is returned to preheat the ground waste. The 

stickwater is usually piped to the ground fish hopper but due to a pump breakdown at the 

time of the visit it was pumped through a hose. 

The oil phase from the tricanter passes through a polishing centrifuge (Figure 19) and is 

dispensed into SpaceKraft totes. [CBI, removed from this report.] 

[CBI, removed from this report.] Figure 20 shows the fish meal as it came from the drier. 

It contained noticeable bone fragments. From the drier, the meal is pulverized in a 

hammermill, to break up the bone and other solids. The meal must meet specifications for 

oil, protein, ash, and moisture. If there is too much oil, the tricanter is adjusted so more 

oil is removed from the ground fish slurry. If the meal contains too much moisture, it will 

mold and be unusable. From the hammermill the meal is processed in a crusher, then airblown into bags. There is no planned cooling step — the meal is cooled in bags[CBI, 

removed from this report.] 

The recovery plant operates up to 24 hours per day at peak production. Excess 

byproducts can be stored in totes. [CBI, removed from this report.] 

Icicle noted they cannot send all of their waste to the byproduct recovery plant. They 

need to dispose of seafood processing waste by another means (currently the grind and 

discharge through their permitted outfall) because: 

 Sometimes production is too low, not generating enough for the meal plant to 

operate. Although it might be possible to freeze waste until the minimum amount 

is accumulated, freezing is expensive. For example, sometimes in the late season 

they process as little as two to five totes per day of black cod. 

 Sometimes production is too high, exceeding the meal plant capacity and waste 

storage capacity so excess waste must be discharged; and 

 The meal plant is not designed for crab waste or for fish heads with embedded 

hooks (e.g., cod heads caught with long lines). Also, due to lack of production, 
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there is not enough byproduct stream in the spring and fall to produce meal. As a 

result, these wastes must be discharged. 

Discussion. [CBI, removed from this report.] 

Icicle expressed the following concerns about taking waste from another processor: 

 contamination (foreign matter, like fish hooks); 

 cost and logistics of transport 

 freshness issues 

o potential degradation of the end product 

o Potential for odor complaints from the town – when the wind blows 

toward the town they may stop the recovery plant and this reduces their 

capacity. 

 
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Figure 1. Condensers 

Figure 2. Chum Salmon in Metal Tote 
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Figure 3. Concrete Dock and Fish Transfer Pipe 

Figure 4. Icicle Petersburg Dock 
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Figure 5 Outfall Near Red Buoy 

Figure 6. Egg Room 
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Figure 7. Fish Sorting Station 

Figure 8. Dewatering Box 
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Figure 9. Fish Flume Empty 

Figure 10. Fish Flume with Fish. 
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Figure 11. Crabs 

Figure 12. Canning Retorts 

 
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Figure 13 Waste Transfer Lines 

Figure 14. Conveying Waste Into the Meal Plant 
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Figure 15. Sorting Waste 

Figure 16. Ground Waste in Meal Plant 

 
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Figure 17. Tricanter 

Figure 18. Stickwater
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Figure 19. Fish Oil from Polisher 

Figure 20. Fish Meal