Saving Seafood

ALASKA: Bristol Bay Tribes and entities renew call for permanent watershed protections

March 8, 2021 — The United Tribes of Bristol Bay, Bristol Bay Native Association and Bristol Bay Economic Development Corporation published “The Call” in December, after the Army Corps of Engineers denied Northern Dynasty’s permit application for the proposed Pebble Mine.

United Tribes of Bristol Bay is a Tribal consortium that represents 15 Tribes in the region. The Bristol Bay Native Association and the Bristol Bay Economic Development Corporation support UTBB’s proposal.

At a virtual town hall earlier this month, UTBB presented a road map for the two-part plan.

“Tribes in the region and BB leadership have came together once again, to revive their previous request for 404c action, and we put a proposal forward for both administrative and legislative action for Bristol Bay,” said UTBB Deputy Director Lindsay Layland said.

404c is a section of the Clean Water Act that restricts discharged dredged waste in defined waters or wetlands. Tribes in the region called for that veto over 10 years ago, when Pebble was first proposed.

Read the full story at KNBA

Alaska safety inspectors tried to fine Copper River Seafoods $450,000. Their commissioner blocked it.

March 4, 2021 — Department of Labor commissioner Tamika Ledbetter blocked nearly $450,000 in fines against a seafood plant her own inspectors said willfully violated COVID-19 workplace safety standards, according to internal documents.

Now, state lawmakers are investigating.

House Rep. Zack Fields, an Anchorage Democrat who used to work for the Department of Labor, said he and his Labor & Commerce committee co-chair got a complaint from a whistleblower that Ledbetter was blocking enforcement of state workplace safety standards.

“Alaskans have to work to provide for their families,” Fields said. “When they go to work, they shouldn’t have to risk their lives to put food on the table.”

Fields’ committee is holding a hearing to address questions about a Copper River Seafoods plant in Anchorage and Juneau-based Alaska Glacier Seafoods. Both companies had large COVID-19 outbreaks last year.

Read the full story at Alaska Public Media

ALASKA: 2 Pebble appeals, 2 different outcomes

March 3, 2021 — Two requests to appeal the decision to deny a key permit for a proposed copper and gold mine in Southwest Alaska met different fates.

The Army Corps of Engineers didn’t accept the state’s attempt to appeal a November 2020 decision to deny a permit for the proposed Pebble Mine, a long-controversial effort to place an open-pit mine near the headwarters of the largest sockeye salmon fishery in the world.

Meanwhile, Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd., the Vancouver-based parent company of Pebble Limited Partnership, reports that a Feb. 24 letter indicated the corps accepted Pebble’s request for an administrative appeal.

Mike Heatwole, a spokesperson for Pebble Limited Partnership, said Saturday in an email Pebble looks forward to having the appeal fully vetted.

In an email, Luciano Vera, deputy chief of public affairs for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Pacific Ocean Division, said the division engineer determined that the state does not meet the definition of an “affected party.”

Read the full story at the Juneau Empire

Alaska fishermen optimistic as Pacific halibut fishery opens

March 3, 2021 — The Pacific halibut fishery opens March 6, and increased catch limits combined with a cautiously optimistic outlook for the near future have fanned interest in buying shares of the popular fish.

In January, the International Pacific Halibut Commission boosted total halibut removals for 2021 by 6.5% to 39 million pounds for taken by all users and as bycatch in fisheries of the West Coast, British Columbia and Alaska. That is higher than the total take for the past three years.

For commercial fishermen, the halibut catch limit of 25.7 million pounds is an increase of 2.6 million pounds over 2020. Alaska gets the largest chunk at 19.6 million pounds, and all regions except for the Bering Sea will see increased catches.

“People are thrilled to see that, hopefully, the tide has turned after catch limits for most areas have been declining for about the past 15 years. And they are happy to know they’re going to see some more pounds on their permits this year,” said Doug Bowen of Alaska Boats and Permits in Homer.

“By all accounts the market looks like it is warming up,” agreed Lisa Gulliford at Permit Master in Tacoma, Washington. “Interest and flexibility from both buyers and sellers is always good news and I am hopeful this trend will continue through the year.”

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

ALASKA: Army Corps agrees to reconsider Pebble Mine permit denial

March 3, 2021 — The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will reconsider its decision denying a permit for the proposed Pebble Mine.

The agency has accepted an appeal application from the Pebble Limited Partnership. The Army Corps says the application is sufficient to begin an administrative appeal.

The Corps decided in November that Pebble’s plan to mitigate the environmental damage was inadequate and that the project doesn’t serve the public. The open pit gold mine would be among the largest in the world. The site is upstream from Bristol Bay.

Read the full story at Alaska Public Media

ALASKA: What is going on in Bristol Bay?

March 2, 2021 — Despite record retail prices and a consistently strong demand, Bristol Bay salmon fishermen saw a nearly 50 percent drop in their base ex-vessel price in 2020 — from $1.35 a pound in 2019 to $0.70 in 2020. That’s a 65-cent drop in a single year.

The Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association published a new report that lays out likely reasons for the low base price. It also offers the region’s fishermen a range of solutions to consider for the future, and is seeking feedback from stakeholders to help set goals for the association.

“Demand for Bristol Bay sockeye is very high. Retail prices are at record levels. Anecdotally, wholesale prices are flat to up compared to last year — significantly so for once-frozen fillets,” says the BBRSDA’s white paper, released Monday, March 1. “When consumer prices are high or increasing for a product, the underlying raw material price usually goes up, not way down. In short, 2020 should have been a terrific season for Bristol Bay fishermen and ex-vessel prices, but it wasn’t (or at least it hasn’t been thus far).”

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Army Corps accepts appeal from developer of proposed Pebble mine but rejects Alaska’s appeal

March 2, 2021 — The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has accepted an appeal request from the developer of the proposed Pebble copper and gold mine in Southwest Alaska, keeping alive the company’s hopes that it could one day see the project developed after the Corps denied the project a key permit last year.

The Corps also rejected the state of Alaska’s request for an appeal, prompting a response from Gov. Mike Dunleavy, who said that the rejection sets a precedent that could put other projects on state land at risk.

“This is another example of the federal government imposing a flawed decision that blocks Alaska’s ability to responsibly develop its land and resources,” Dunleavy said in a statement issued Friday.

The Corps’ Alaska District in November, under then-President Donald Trump, denied a permit for the project, calling it “contrary to the public interest.”

Read the full story at Anchorage Daily News

BBRSDA report addresses Alaska fleet’s frustration over huge drop in salmon ex-vessel prices

March 2, 2021 — Despite record retail prices and a consistently strong demand, Bristol Bay salmon fishermen saw a nearly 50 percent drop in their base ex-vessel price in 2020 – from USD 1.35 (EUR 1.12) per pound in 2019 to USD 0.70 (EUR 0.58) in 2020, a USD 0.65 (EUR 0.54) drop in a single year.

The Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association has published a new report that lays out likely reasons for the low base price. It also offers the region’s fishermen a range of solutions to consider for the future, and is seeking feedback from stakeholders to help set goals for the association.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

In the Aleutians, climate change and ocean acidification impacts add to legacies of past exploitation

March 2, 2021 — In the waters around the Aleutian Islands, the 1,200-mile chain that arcs across the southern edge of the Bering Sea from Alaska to Kamchatka, modern climate change has layered atop a centuries-old legacy of human assaults to send combined impacts cascading through the marine ecosystem.

Evidence is in the once-colorful corals that have nurtured schools of fish supporting some of the world’s largest commercial seafood harvests. Under the clear waters is a pale world that signals a habitat in a tailspin.

The pale-pink scene shows the slow death of cold-water coral reefs that used to be buffered by the kelp, said Doug Rasher, a marine ecologist with the Maine-based Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Science. “We’re passing the tipping point where these reefs have persisted and been able to survive,” said Rasher, who led a study of the coral ecosystem’s downward spiral.

The reefs are dying because they are being attacked by an exploding population of sea urchins. Having mowed down the surrounding kelp forest, the urchins are consuming the algae that the reefs produce to build their structures. The urchin population is booming because the sea otters that used to eat them have disappeared.

Climate change also weakens the corals. Warmer waters make the urchins grow faster, requiring them to eat more. Rasher’s study examined the algae’s microscopic growth layers and found that urchin foraging increased by up to 60 percent since preindustrial times.

Adding to the assault is ocean acidification, to which the Bering Sea is especially vulnerable. The shallow Bering, with its relatively cold waters, abundant sea life and wide seasonal fluctuations, is naturally primed to hold carbon. And carbon emitted by fossil-fuel burning is absorbed from the atmosphere into the water, lowering pH levels and threatening calcium-building life forms — not just the coral reefs, but shellfish such as crabs, as well the tiny creatures such as pteropods that make up the diet of fish like salmon.

Read the full story at Arctic Today

Tribes, fishermen decry Alaska and B.C.’s decision not to extend transboundary monitoring

March 2, 2021 — A 22-page final report released on Thursday culminates two years of data collected from water, sediment and fish tissue in three transboundary watersheds that straddle the frontier. And now, Alaska and British Columbia governments say their work is done.

“Given the existence of other sampling programs planned by state, federal or provincial agencies throughout the transboundary region, there is no need to continue the joint program,” the state and province said in a joint-statement.

Congress appropriated more than $3 million for renewed stream monitoring at border stream gauges operated by the U.S. Geological Survey.

“With all the resources didn’t feel like it was necessary for multiple agencies to be collecting the same thing,” Terri Lomax, a program manager with the state Department of Conservation, told CoastAlaska.

She’s been part of the cross-border effort ever since Gov. Bill Walker signed a landmark agreement in 2015 with B.C. to set up joint water quality monitoring for a shared watershed that hosts a booming Canadian mining sector that drains into Southeast Alaska.

“We’ve developed a lot of partnerships and a lot of relationships over the last couple of years,” she said. “We didn’t have these relationships with British Columbia.”

Provincial officials say they agree that the program has run its course.

Read the full story at KRBD