1 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 Trident Seafoods Cordova North

Plant Address Cordova, Alaska

NPDES Permit # AKG520493

Date of Visit Thursday, August 19, 2010 People Contacted Leo Vargas, Plant Manager Rick Isaacson, Prince William Sound Operations Manager

Seafood processed Salmon (pink, chum, and sockeye)

Products Canned salmon Frozen, whole (H&G) and fillets Fresh, whole (H&G) and fillets Salmon roe (Ikura and “fresh” roe) Range of annual production volume 30 to 45 million pounds Months of operation Salmon season (May/June through September) Discharge type Screened wastewater and some ground solids discharged through NPDES permitted outfall Website http://www.tridentseafoods.com/

Trident owns two plants in Cordova. The Co rdova South plant specializes in fresh and frozen high value fish. This plant, Cordova North, is a high volume plant producing canned and frozen pink salmon. In 2009 they processed about 20 million pounds of pink salmon and 10 million pounds of other species. In 2010 they were anticipating processing about 45 million pounds of fish. In compar ison, the Cordova South plant projected processing 14 million pounds in 2010. Figure 1 shows an exterior view of the plant.

The Cordova North plant has 12 refrigera ted seawater (RSW) holding tanks and purchases city water for their fresh water needs. They operate four canning lines. Two produce traditional canned salmon (including skin and bones) and two produce skinless/boneless product. The skinless/bonele ss lines are equipped with new can fillers

that index the fish so that the fillets are vertical in the can.

Trident recovers the salmon roe and processe s it into Ikura and unbrined “fresh” roe. Both products are shipped to customers frozen.

Waste Management. In 2009 Trident started up a recovery plant located next door to the Cordova North plant. Waste is transported fr om the cannery to the recovery plant through three stainless steel pipe s that can be seen in Figure 1 . Heads are transported separately from combined guts, frames, and skin. Clean -in-place (CIP) wastewater is transported to2 the recovery plant through one of the two black plastic pipe s. Wastewater is returned from the recovery plant to the cannery thr ough the second black plastic pipe for disposal via the cannery outfall.

In 2007 Trident began hauling a po rtion of its waste to an off shore disposal point, with the remainder of the waste ground and disc harged through their permitted outfall. The start-up of the by-products plant has reduced the amount of waste discharged. In 2010, Trident discharged through the outfall wh en the by-products plant was not operating (e.g., when production was too low to start up the by-products plant). Waste that could not be incorporated into the fi sh oil and fish hydrolysate (i.e ., bones) was hauled off shore in the gut boat Mud Bay ( Figures 2 and 3 ) for disposal.

Figure 1. Processing plant3 Figure 2. Plant and waste disposal boat

Figure 3. Waste disposal boat4