February 26, 2025 — Turbulent times for Oregon’s seafood industry was the primary topic at the Port of Newport Commission meeting on Tuesday. At the heart of that turbulence wasn’t stormy seas but a new wastewater permitting process instituted by the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ).
Amy Wentworth, Pacific Seafood’s Director of Environment, Health, and Safety, addressed the Port Commission and explained how the new requirements, which are more demanding than those at the federal level or any other state, are impacting processors.
Pacific Seafood operates in five locations in Newport and, in order to meet the new requirements, would have to either build a new wastewater treatment system for each location or find a way to create a centralized treatment facility.
“In the last couple of years, we started to see that the expectations of the DEQ regulation would require seafood processing locations to invest in treatment systems that range anywhere from $1 million to $5 million dollars,” she explained.
The concern for ports, fishermen, and others in the industry is that the costs of responding to the new regulation could push seafood processors to move their operations to Washington or California.
“Newport is an important landing location for us and, being that we see the financial investment is going to be so high, we’re looking for any opportunities to partner,” Wentworth said.
Port Executive Director Paula Miranda said the port has been brainstorming with Pacific Seafood to see if there is a solution that would ultimately benefit the fishing fleet and the port.
“We started having this conversation with Pacific Seafood. We have been brainstorming trying to figure out the best way to go about this. Business Oregon has also been involved and they decided that they would like us to use some of their funds to do some of the investigation necessary,” Miranda said. Since the port would have to make application for the funds, “we are trying to figure out a scope that would help with that,” she added.
Although Pacific Seafood is the largest processor in Newport, Miranda pointed out the port would only participate in solutions that would also benefit other users, either current or future.
“It would be unusual for the port to apply for something for one sole user,” she said, commenting on the possibility of grant funding to help with infrastructure improvement. “Should we move in that direction, we should look at other users in Newport or who might come to Newport,” the director said.
Miranda noted that a considerable number of hurdles would have to be cleared in order to move any kind of joint effort forward.
“We are still trying to figure out what it would take, and we need things like a cost benefit analysis, a feasibility study, and we want to talk about what happens if this doesn’t get built,” she said.
Port Commission President Gil Sylvia acknowledged the complexities of the project. “I can speak on behalf of the commissioners that we want to help but recognize that there are financial issues, legal issues, and uncertainties with what DEQ will or won’t’ accept. It is a complex problem,” he remarked.
