Environmental groups are alleging a Pacific Seafood-owned seafood processor in Warrenton, Oregon, is discharging harmful pollutants into the Columbia River.
Nonprofits Center for Food Safety, and the Northwest Environmental Defense Center recently filed a lawsuit in federal court claiming BioOregon Protein, also known as Pacific Bio Products-Warrenton — a subsidiary of Pacific Seafood — has, for years, violated pollutant discharge limits set in its U.S. Clean Water Act permit.
They’re asking a judge to issue an injunction against Pacific to stop it from polluting nearby waters.
FILE - Crab pots near the Pacific Seafood processing plant in Newport, Ore., Nov. 22, 2025.
Alejandro Figueroa / OPB
From a site adjacent to the Columbia River, BioOregon Protein processes fish and shellfish byproducts to turn into livestock and aquaculture feed ingredients and other products like organic fertilizer.
Its parent company, Clackamas-based Pacific Seafood, is one of the largest seafood companies in the country, with several locations up and down the West Coast.
In their lawsuit, the nonprofits allege BioOregon has violated a Clean Water Act permit issued by the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality 6,180 times over the course of three years. They claim the seafood processor discharged chlorine, a cleaning agent, in quantities roughly 4,000% greater than allowed by the permit’s limits and failed to submit monitoring reports.
“That raises alarm bells. Chlorine is very toxic to fish and wildlife, and negatively impacts water quality,” said Kingsly McConnell, a staff attorney at the Center for Food Safety. “And when we’re reviewing the records and seeing that these are consistent violations, we know that it’s having an impact on water quality, because that’s what the purpose of the permit was.”
The National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System, or NPDES, permit in question sets limits and conditions to protect the environment and nearby bodies of water.
Seafood processing industry groups have, in the past, attributed some of these compliance issues to what they say are DEQ’s “restrictive and unworkable permit conditions.”
Lacy Ogan, a spokesperson for Pacific Seafood, told OPB in an email statement the 6,000 violations are a “made-up number” based on the nonprofit’s “egregious misunderstanding of the permit requirements and reporting process.”
“This type of lawsuit is unfortunately used by a variety of environmental groups and their lawyers to extract attorney fees and excessive penalties over minor issues experienced by companies working tirelessly to comply with stringent and complex federal permits,” Ogan wrote in a statement.
DEQ issued what’s called a pre-enforcement notice to BioOregon in November of 2025 for exceeding residual chlorine and pH limits in its permits.
A spokesperson told OPB the agency is working with BioOregon to bring the facility back into compliance, and has ordered it to take some corrective actions, such as reporting on chlorine-reduction progress and meeting a reduction limit by Oct. of 2027. DEQ has not issued any civil penalties against the company since 2022.
Pacific Seafood has, in the past, been subject to civil penalties from DEQ for failing to comply with effluent limits on its permits at some of its other processing facilities across the state, as well.
In 2023, DEQ issued a $41,000 penalty against another Pacific Seafood site in Warrenton, just two miles away from the BioOregon processor, for discharging fish waste off a dock into the Skipanon River — a tributary of the Columbia River.
