Wednesday, September 24, 2014

UniSea Settles Over Clean Air Act Violations

UniSea Inc. has settled with the US Environmental Protection Agency over alleged violations of the federal Clean Air Act risk management program at its facilities at Dutch Harbor.

The issue centered on the presence at UniSea’s plant of more than the 10,000-pound Clean Air Act threshold of anhydrous ammonia and more than the 2,500 pound threshold of chlorine during an EPA inspection on July 21, 2010.

UniSea, with offices at Dutch Harbor and Redmond, Washington, has a product line that includes pollock fillets, pollock roe, surimi, crab, Pacific cod, halibut and black cod, fish meal and oil, distributed throughout North America, Asia and Europe.

EPA officials said they found several violations of the risk management plan regulations, and the agreed on settlement included a $142,175 penalty.

Section 112r of the Clean Air Act requires all public and private facilities that manufacture, process, use, store or otherwise handle flammable gases and toxic chemicals to develop risk management plans.

Those risk management plans are used by local emergency planners and responders to protect the public from accidental releases of toxic gases, including chlorine, propane, sulfur dioxide and formaldehyde.


Companies must also create an emergency response strategy, evaluate a worst case and probable case chemical release, develop and implement a prevention program that includes operator training, a review of hazards associated with using toxic or flammable substances, proper operating procedures and equipment maintenance.