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AK0049786 Westward Seafoods Captain's Bay Facility

NOTICE OF REVIEW 
ALASKA POLLUTANT DISCHARGE ELIMINATION SYSTEM (APDES)
Preliminary Draft Individual Permit
TO DISCHARGE TO WATERS OF THE UNITED STATES

Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC)
Wastewater Discharge Authorization Program
555 Cordova Street; Anchorage, Alaska 99501

DEC has prepared an APDES Preliminary Draft Permit. The preliminary draft permit and associated documents are available to the applicant for a 10-day review. Following the closure of the 10 day applicant review period, DEC will prepare a draft permit and fact sheet for a formal 30-day public review period. Public comments will be accepted during the formal 30-day review period. You can access the documents on DEC’s Wastewater Discharge Authorization Program webpage at https://dec.alaska.gov/water/wastewater/.

DEC Contact: Anne Weaver, 907-269-7483, anne.weaver@alaska.gov

Review Period: November 2, 2026 through November 17, 2026 11:59 pm AKST

Permit: AK0049786 – Westward Seafoods Captains Bay Facility

Proposed Permit Coverage:
DEC proposes to reissue APDES permit AK0049786 for the Westward Seafoods Captains Bay Facility.

Description of Discharges: 
Westward Seafoods owns, operates, and maintains the facility, which conducts seafood processing and seafood meal reduction. The facility is located in the City of Unalaska, Alaska on Captains Bay.

Processing wastes (i.e., heads, offal, unusable tissue parts) are flumed to dewatering conveyors where they are transported to the meal plant for reduction to fish meal, a marketable secondary product. Water used in bailing, butchering, processing, and fluming is collected before final discharge and passed through a 0.5-millimeter (mm) screen to recover residual tissue pieces. Screened wastewater is discharged without further treatment through Outfall 001A. In some cases, product is recovered from wastewater prior to screening, such as recovering tissue from surimi wash water using centrifuge decanters before the wash water is sent to the screens. 

Screened solids and unusable seafood parts are sent to the meal reduction plant. Fish meal processing produces a stream of noncontact saltwater used in evaporation machinery and to scrub dryer vapors from the meal dryers. This wastewater is discharged from Outfall 002A, along with cooling water from electricity generation and refrigeration compressors.

A second fish meal wastestream contains stickwater (fish tissue liquids removed in the dehydration process) along with impure condensate from the evaporator, liquid discharges from conveyor machinery, clean-up wash water, and machinery cooling water. Stickwater is typically discharged by vessel July through September and discharged from Outfall 001A October through June. A skimmer was installed in 2014, and it skims fish oil from stickwater prior to discharge.
Outfall 001A terminates 1,200 feet from the facility in a multi-port diffuser north of the rocky reef Bailey’s Ledge, at a depth of -61 ft mean lower low water (MLLW) above substrate at -83 ft MLLW but in close proximity to depths extending to -200 ft MLLW. Outfall 002A terminates at -3 ft MLLW, under the facility dock.

There is a 200-foot x 253-foot mixing zone around the Outfall 001A diffuser for temperature, color, turbidity, residues, dissolved oxygen, sediment, and total ammonia. There is also an authorized 2.0-acre zone of deposit for residues on the seafloor.
There is a 100-foot radius mixing zone for temperature, total ammonia, arsenic, and zinc around Outfall 002A.

Administrative Record: 
The APDES preliminary draft permit, fact sheet, and associated documents are available for review via the DEC’s Wastewater Discharge Authorization Program webpage at https://dec.alaska.gov/water/wastewater/ or at the DEC offices located in Anchorage, Fairbanks, and Juneau. Please contact the office of your choice to arrange for hard copies of the documents to be available for your review. 

To receive email notifications about the APDES Program, including when permits are available to review, join the APDES email list.

555 Cordova Street
Anchorage, AK 99501
907-269-6285

610 University Avenue
Fairbanks, AK 99709
907-451-2100

PO Box 1800
Juneau, AK 9811-1800

Location: 410 Willoughby Street, Suite 303
Juneau, AK 
907-465-5300

Disability Reasonable Accommodation Notice: 
The State of Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation complies with Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990. If you are a person with a disability who may need special accommodation in order to participate in this public process, please contact ADA Coordinator Kristin Mabry, kristin.mabry@alaska.gov, 1-907-334-0884; or TDD Relay Service 1-800-770-8973/TTY or dial 711 at least 3 days prior to the expiration/closure date of this notice to ensure that any necessary accommodations can be provided.
 

Attachments, History, Details

Attachments

None

Revision History

Created 10/30/2026 4:23:25 PM by jrschlosser
Modified 10/30/2026 4:24:14 PM by jrschlosser

Details

Department: Environmental Conservation
Category: Public Notices
Sub-Category:
Location(s): Statewide
Project/Regulation #: AK0049786
 
Publish Date: 11/2/2026
Archive Date: 11/18/2026
 
Events/Deadlines: