Procesamiento De Agua De Pescado

CASE STUDY: FISH PROCESSING PLANT WASTEWATER TREATMENT
1

Miroslav Colic, Clean Water Technology, Inc.
Wade Morse, Clean Water Technology, Inc.
Jason Hicks, Clean water Technology, Inc.
Ariel Lechter, Clean Water Technology, Inc.
Jan D. Miller, University of Utah
1
Clean Water Technology, Inc.
6860 Cortona Dr., Building A
Goleta, CA 93117

ABSTRACT
This presentation describes thefull scale installation of a wastewater treatment system at the
Ocean Gold Seafood (“OCS”) plant in Westport, Washington, USA. Local Government requires
that fish processors remove total suspended solids (TSS), fats, oil and grease (FOGs) and
colloidal materials almost completely in order to allow for efficient disinfection. The OCS plant
had only a limited amount of space. Clean WaterTechnology, Inc. (“CWT”) and OCS teams
designed the system with an underground equalization tank, 1/8 inch rotating drum screens,
flocculation – flotation (“GEM System”) and chlorination – dechlorination.
Hybrid centrifugal – dissolved air flocculation – flotation (the GEM System), is the key
component of the wastewater treatment plant. The GEM System built to treat 500 GPM of
wastewater required onlyan 8’ – 16’ area. The System has operated since 2004. TSS and FOGs
are almost completely removed to less than 20 mg/l and 1 mg/l, respectively. This allowed for
successful breakpoint chlorination – dechlorination and fecal coliform removal (99.995%). The
produced sludge after overnight drainage contains over 15% of solids. Novel ultrahigh
molecular weight polyacrylamide flocculants used inthe process enabled TSS and FOG removal
even at high salinity. The GEM System variable mixing energy inside hydrocylone heads and
columns enabled activation of flocculant long polymeric chains without chain or floc breakage
that occurs with classical impeller high energy mixing.
KEYWORDS
Fish processing wastewater treatment, flocculation – flotation, TSS, FOG and fecal coliforms
removal6860 Cortona Dr. • Goleta, CA 93117 • Phone (805) 685 9100 • Fax (805) 685 9105

www.cleanwatertech.com

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INTRODUCTION
The seafood industry consists primarily of many small processing plants, with a number of larger
plants located near industry and population centers. Numerous types of seafood are processed,
often at the same plant. Saltwater fish (tuna, sardines, pacific whiting,swordfish), mollusks
(oysters, clams, scallops), crustaceans (crabs and lobster) and others such as shrimp, octopus etc.
are often processed concurrently or seasonally.
As in most processing industries, seafood – processing operations produce wastewater containing
a substantial amount of contaminants in soluble, colloidal and particulate forms. The degree of
contamination depends on theprocess. It may be small (washing operations), mild (fish
filleting), or heavy (boat storage tanks unloading, blood water from facilities storage tanks, “stick
water” from fishmeal processing).
Wastewater from seafood processing operations can be very high in dissolved and suspended
organic materials. This results in high biological oxygen demand (BOD) and chemical oxygen
demand (COD). Fats, oil andgrease are also present in high amounts. Often suspended solids
and nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphate can be high. Unpleasant odor and high temperature
are also issues. Seafood processing wastewater was noted to sometimes contain a high
concentration of sodium chloride from boat unloading, processing water and brine solutions.
The major types of waste found in seafood processingwastewater are blood, offal products,
viscera, fins, fish heads, shells, skins, and meat “fines”. The major process operations include
product receiving, boat unloading, sorting and weighing, preparation (butchering, scaling,
filleting, skinning, evisceration), inspection and trimming, product processing such as pickling
brining etc, further processing (canning, bottling), packaging and dispatch....