Pacific Seafood Faces Lawsuit for Columbia River Pollution

By Isobel Charle, Public News Service

Two Oregon nonprofits have announced they intend to sue Pacific Bio Products, alleging more than three years of repeated pollution violations at its Warrenton, Oregon, location on the mouth of the Columbia River.

The facility is owned by Pacific Seafood and produces fishmeal, shellfish and fish oils used in pet food, livestock feed and aquaculture.

George Kimbrell, co-executive director and legal director at the Center for Food Safety, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said the company’s own data show chlorine discharges reaching more than 73,000 times the daily limit as recently as August.

“Because the fish are kept in a very confined, unnatural way, they require lots of pesticides, fungicides and other toxins to keep the fish free of disease,” Kimbrell explained. “And then, of course, that goes right through the net pens, or cages, and right out into the environment surrounding the facility.”

It will be the second legal action this year against Pacific Seafood, following a July lawsuit by the Center for Food Safety and others over Clean Water Act violations at its rainbow trout – marketed as “steelhead” – facilities on the Eastern Columbia River. The July suit is still in its early stages and the latest suit will be filed in December.

Kimbrell added along with pushing Pacific Seafoods to be in compliance with the Clean Water Act, he hopes the lawsuits will illuminate the harmful effects farmed fish have on wild fish populations and the communities depending on them.

“They market these fish as a, quote unquote, ‘green or sustainable’ seafood option in grocery stores, and they’re not,” Kimbrell contended. “It’s misleading to consumers.”

The Center for Food Safety has been working to stop industrial aquaculture for about 15 years, Kimbrell noted, and have had some success. The group has helped keep the industry out of federal waters off Oregon’s coast. However, he pointed out, the facilities along the Columbia are in state-owned water.

“We have a choice to be made about the future of our oceans and whether we want to protect wild fish stocks,” Kimbrell stressed. “Or if we’re going to follow the lead of some other countries with developing this somewhat new industry.”

Kimbrell underscored one of the biggest risks of farming fish is some fish inevitably escape the confines and can weaken wild populations by spreading diseases, competing for resources and introducing harmful genetic changes through interbreeding.