Processors warn Westport shrimp season paused after Ecology draft permit changes

Pacific Seafood told the Washington Coastal Marine Advisory Council on March 18 that a draft wastewater permit from the Department of Ecology would exclude roughly half of the company's Westport production from the calculations used to set new permit limits. Amy Wentworth, Pacific Seafood’s senior director of EHS and fisheries policy, said the agency’s reinterpretation sharply reduced allowable discharge limits and “constrains our future production and lacks a clear path to support economic growth.”

The company announced it will “hibernate” shrimp processing for the upcoming shrimp season to install upstream pollution‑prevention upgrades intended to reduce shrimp protein in wastewater and avoid a midseason shutdown. “The pollution prevention upstream is better than spending millions downstream,” Wentworth said, adding that…