Unalaska, AK – Icicle Seafoods will pay $900,000 for failing to clean up a pile of fish waste off the coast of Unalaska in a settlement reached with the Environmental Protection Agency.

The settlement was agreed upon in June and filed with the agency this week. The case started four years ago when an inspector for the state Department of Environmental Conservation found that a 1-acre pile of fish waste had accumulated under the Northern Victor, a floating processor owned by Icicle and anchored in Udagak Bay off of Unalaska. The waste amounted to a violation of the Clean Water Act.

The Northern Victor is still discharging fish waste in Udagak Bay, but EPA enforcement officer Margo Young said that now they're doing so within their permitted limits.

"We're hoping that the changes really are taken seriously by Icicle Seafoods, and that they are good stewards of the environment," she said.

Much of the waste predates Icicle's purchase of the Northern Victor in 1999. The company was supposed to clean up the pile by 2002, but didn't actually get around to it until this year. President Don Giles said his company simply "screwed up."

Young said that the "dead zone" created by the pile appears to be recovering.

"After the removal, recovery did start rapidly, so we're confident that that portion of the seafloor will actually be restored," she said.

The cleanup cost Icicle $1.1 million in addition to the $900,000 fine. The Northern Victor has had other problems this year, too--a processor named Joseph Arop disappeared off the ship in February. His body was found two months later in Udagak Bay during the cleanup effort.