In 2019, Chile’s Ministry of Environment charged Golden Omega for failing to meet sanitary standards, including broken wastewater facilities, inefficient waste separators, and inadequate environmental monitoring from the years 2013 to 2017. These broken wastewater facilities led to Golden Omega discharging wastewater into a Coastal Protection Zone.1 In May 2021, an “ecocide” was reported in the Arica and Parinacota region, where dozens of octopuses and other marine species were found dead as a result of high environmental toxicity, according to La Izquierda newspaper. Swimmers and athletes reported symptoms like throat, eye, and skin irritation, seemingly caused by an external chemical in the water and air. Authorities promised to identify those responsible, although environmental groups like the NGO, United for the Love of the Sea, AUPM, said that Golden Omega and another nearby fishmeal plant were the obvious culprits. La Izquierda interviewed a former worker at Golden Omega who provided details on the company’s production process and associated environmental impacts. He said that fish oil processing produced highly acidic wastewater. This wastewater was sent to the company’s water treatment plant, however, the plant was only operating at 20 percent efficiency, as it was originally designed for a smaller production scale. Occasionally, processing failures resulted in omega-3 oil and untreated sewage, including fecal matter, being discharged into the ocean. Part of the problem was that the treatment plant did not fix a pipeline that had been broken for several years and discharged toxic waste daily.2
Environmental groups, including Vencer, United for the Love of the Sea, and Fridays for Future, called for collective action, organizing a cycling protest from the city center to Golden Omega’s facilities to demand a thorough investigation. Manuel Rojas, a Revolutionary Workers’ party candidate for the 2021 Chilean Constitutional Convention, participated in the protest. He said that resources should be managed by the community and workers. Rojas criticized the Angelini Group, the owner of Golden Omega, for profiting from marine resources, while disregarding environmental concerns and carelessly laying off workers during the pandemic.3 Critics argued that fines had proven ineffective, as Angelini companies could easily pay them while continuing to profit. Activists called for urgent action, including modernizing plant infrastructure and implementing an effective decontamination plan to protect both Arica's residents and its marine ecosystem.4
The 2019 proceedings arose from operational aspects that neither constituted breaches of Chilean regulations regarding liquid effluent discharges nor generated adverse effects on the environment, said Golden Omega spokesperson Nicolás Cruz in correspondence with The Outlaw Ocean Project. Under Chilean law, the proceedings allow for the submission of a compliance program; the company did so and this was approved by the environmental authority before being implemented in full by Golden Omega, bringing it back into operational compliance.5
An exhaustive investigation by the environmental authorities determined that the cause of the May 2021 incident was natural and was due to microalgal bloom in the area, said Golden Omega’s Sustainability and Communications Manager, Nicolás Cruz. “Moreover, Chilean authorities acknowledged that, in the inspections carried out in February and May 2021 through maritime inspections, no contaminant substance or anthropogenic source was detected that could have affected marine fauna.”6
On July 8, 2020, five former Golden Omega employees sued the company for wrongful termination and discrimination. All five employees were involved in forming a labor union at Golden Omega, and were outspoken in their disagreement with company policies throughout the period of rioting and unrest in the country in October 2019. When union membership reached a majority of the Golden Omega employees, all five critical members were fired.7 The Chilean judiciary did not find evidence that they were fired in connection to their union membership, but it still classified the case as a wrongful termination and ordered Golden Omega to pay the plaintiffs a 30 percent increase in their severance pay.
In correspondence with The Outlaw Ocean Project, Golden Omega’s spokesperson Nicolás Cruz said the company has never dismissed any personnel due to their union membership or activity, nor due to opinions related to the period of protests in October 2019. Eight workers were terminated following company restructuring in December 2019 and paid the full severance owed to them under labor regulations, he added, and four subsequently filed legal action. The courts dismissed the action but upheld part of a complaint filed by one of the persons, though the judgment did not state the dismissal was due to opinions regarding the social movement.8