Saving Seafood

ALASKA: As Pebble closes in on federal permit, supporters and critics disagree on impacts

July 28, 2020 — The Pebble Limited Partnership is now one step away from receiving a federal permit for the proposed Pebble Mine, a deeply controversial development that would tap large copper and gold deposits at the headwaters of Bristol Bay.

Pebble CEO Tom Collier says the finished environmental impact statement shows the mine can be built without harming the environment.

“The final EIS is the first time that a federal agency has engaged in a rigorous review of the specific plan that we intend to use to build this project,” Collier said. “After doing that, in the draft and preliminary final, they concluded that the project won’t damage the fishery.”

The report says construction of the mine will impact up to 200 miles of streams and 4,000 acres of wetlands.

Lisa Reimers is a board member of Iliamna Natives Limited. She supports Pebble’s development and says the environmental impact statement provides enough safeguards to protect the environment around the project. Reimers says this affects her on a personal level as well.

Read the full story at KTOO

ALASKA: Bristol Bay setnetters get their hands dirty (and sometimes lose a finger) to put salmon on your dinner table

July 27, 2020 — Most Alaskans know that commercial fishing is very important to the economy of our state. A small number of folks understand the ins and outs of a commercial gillnet operation. Fewer still understand what a setnet fishery is.

When one speaks of the gillnet fishery, the picture that comes to mind is one of a picturesque vessel with a long line of glistening white floats strung out behind. That is a semi-accurate depiction.

The setnet fishery bears little resemblance to that picture.

Setnetting is hard, dirty work — at least in Bristol Bay. If you are wearing name-brand raingear, few would recognize it because it would be covered in mud.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

Trump administration signals controversial mine can move ahead, reversing Obama-era position

July 27, 2020 — A controversial gold and copper mine proposed in Alaska was given a major push forward Friday as the Trump administration issued a final report concluding the Pebble Mine project would not cause long-term harm to one of the world’s largest remaining salmon runs.

The new report, by the Army Corps of Engineers, is a sharp reversal to the Obama administration Environmental Protection Agency’s conclusions of the project, which essentially blocked progress on the mine because of environmental concerns by citing the potential for permanent damage to the pristine Bristol Bay watershed.

The Pebble Mine project has been a lightning rod for controversy for some two decades and has been widely assailed by numerous interest groups in Alaska and the lower states, and also faced opposition from many Alaskans.

The new report by the Army Corps is a major triumph for the project developers, illustrating the Trump administration’s opposite approach to the project from the Obama administration and echoing other large environmental reversals it has ordered on other findings from the previous administration.

Perhaps the new report’s most striking finding is that the colossal mine and its development “would not be expected to have a measurable effect on fish numbers and result in long-term changes to the health of the commercial fisheries in Bristol Bay.”

Read the full story at CNN

Seafood companies kept COVID-19 from infecting Alaskans. Now they’re trying to keep the virus out of their plants.

July 27, 2020 — This spring, as Alaska hunkered down and kept COVID-19 rates low, residents of the state’s fishing towns raised strong objections to the arrival of thousands of fishermen and seasonal plant workers, fearful that the visitors could bring the virus with them.

Available state data appears to show that strict state and local mandates, plus tight restrictions imposed by seafood companies, ended up stopping those visitors from spreading the virus. The Bristol Bay Borough, Alaska’s salmon hub, had just one resident case of the virus through Monday.

And now, as infection rates rise among the Alaska public, the dynamic has flipped: It’s the seafood companies that have to protect their workers from Alaska residents.

Many of Alaska’s processing plants, particularly in Bristol Bay, are staffed exclusively by seasonal workers who live on company property. And this year, companies operating in the region have avoided major outbreaks by barring workers from leaving their property.

Read the full story at KTOO

Senator Cantwell Slams Trump Administration Analysis of Pebble Mine That Could Put Bristol Bay at Risk of Irreparable Harm

July 27, 2020 — The following was released by The Office of Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA):

Today, U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA), the Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, slammed an environmental analysis released by the Trump administration that could pave the way for approval of the proposed Pebble Mine in Bristol Bay, Alaska:

“Mining and fish spawning habitat don’t mix. Mining pollution not only kills fish, but it can permanently destroy their habitat. Building a mine on top of an estuary kills salmon and the jobs that depend on them. That’s why this decision is shameful. We have seen analysis after analysis—including from the Trump administration’s own EPA—showing the Pebble Mine will irreparably harm Bristol Bay and over 50 million salmon that return to the watershed every year. But the administration has chosen to push forward and help special interests at the expense of Pacific Northwest fishermen, Alaska Native communities, shipbuilders, suppliers, sportsmen, restaurants, and so many others. Whatever the administration may say, this fight is not over.”

Senator Cantwell has long fought to protect the Bristol Bay watershed and its important environmental and economic place in the Pacific Northwest. In January of 2014, she called on the Obama administration to protect Bristol Bay from mining after a report showed the proposed mine would threaten salmon runs and damage the commercial fishing industry. In July of 2014, Cantwell praised proposed science-based protections for the Bristol Bay watershed. In October of 2017, Cantwell and other members of the Washington state congressional delegation urged President Trump to listen to Washington fishermen and businesses before removing protections from Bristol Bay. In May 2018, Cantwell called on the Trump administration to hold public meetings in Washington state on the proposal and increase transparency for the permitting process. And in July 2019, Cantwell slammed the Trump administration’s decision to withdraw protections for Bristol Bay.

Rapid Virus Tests Headed for Alaska’s Fishing Industry

July 24, 2020 — Alaska will receive rapid testing machines and kits to help test for Covid-19 the thousands of workers who travel to the state each summer to work in the fishing industry, according to the General Services Administration website.

The Department of Health and Human Services aAlaska will receive rapid testing machines and kits to help test for Covid-19 the thousands of workers who travel to the state each summer to work in the fishing industrywarded Cepheid Inc. a $1.68 million contract to provide these machines and kits. The Cepheid machines are used for point-of-care tests—typically done in hospitals and urgent care clinics at the bedside of patients—and provide results in 45 minutes. The tests don’t require samples to be sent to a lab.

There have been some fishing-related outbreaks in Alaska, with 85 crew members aboard a fishing ship testing positive, 96 workers at an OBI Seafoods processing plant, and 9 cases linked to an Alaska Glacier Seafoods processing plant, all in July. There were also outbreaks at two other OBI Seafoods plants with 12 and three workers testing positive.

Read the full story at Bloomberg Law

A shift in who’s involved in Alaska seafood industry outbreaks means virus may be harder to contain

July 24, 2020 — Alaska’s three largest coronavirus outbreaks involve workers in the seafood industry, a sector that prompted concern as the the summer’s fishing seasons started in June but for months seemed to be under control.

Now the outbreaks have changed.

The new outbreaks come with “high attack rates” and a harder-to-contain demographic: a mix of out-of-state workers and residents who go from working close together in processing plants to friends and family at home and the community at large, state epidemiologist Dr. Joe McLaughlin said Thursday.

As the season started, thousands of seafood workers flowed into the state. Seafood companies filed plans promising to test workers multiple times and quarantine them, given the potential that outbreaks on vessels and in processing plants could overwhelm fragile state and local health care systems.

Early on, halting transmission from infected seafood workers was “pretty easy,” McLaughlin said at a media briefing. Some workers were halted by positive COVID-19 tests before they even arrived. Others entered an immediate 14-day quarantine when they arrived in Alaska.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

ALASKA: Controversial Pebble Mine gets approval from US Army Corps of Engineers

July 24, 2020 — The controversial Pebble Mine, proposed for a location near the headwaters that feed the Bristol Bay, Alaska, sockeye fishery, has received its final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

SalmonState, an advocate for salmon fisheries in Alaska, has called the new impact statement a “rubber stamp” that is largely the same as the initial draft of the EIS. Opposition to the Pebble Mine from fishermen, environmentalists, and tribal representatives has been ongoing for more than a decade, and was renewed in 2017 when mining conglomerate Pebble Limited Partnership applied for a permit for an open pit copper, gold, and molybdenum mine.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Sockeye ex-vessel prices in Bristol Bay, Alaska drop nearly 50 percent

July 24, 2020 — Major processors in Bristol Bay, Alaska, began posting base prices at USD 0.70 (EUR 0.60) per pound, just over half of last season’s price of USD 1.35 (EUR 1.16). Bristol Bay’s KDLG radio station reported that Peter Pan Seafoods, Trident Seafoods, Red Salmon/North Pacific Seafoods, and OBI Seafoods had all announced their price, with processing giant Silver Bay Seafoods yet to post.

Once one of the major processors in Bristol Bay announces the base price, the others typically follow suit. If a processor announces a lower price than a competitor, they risk angering their fleet and losing boats to other companies.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Gold vs. Salmon: An Alaska Mine Project Just Got a Boost

July 24, 2020 — From the air it looks like just another tract of Alaska’s endless, roadless tundra, pockmarked with lakes and ponds, with a scattering of some of the state’s craggy mountains.

But this swath of land, home to foraging bears and spawning salmon about 200 miles southwest of Anchorage, has been a battleground for years.

The fight is over what lies just below the surface: one of the richest deposits of copper, gold and other valuable metals in the world. It sets two of the state’s most important industries, mining and fishing, against each other.

A mining company plans to dig a pit, more than a mile square and a third of a mile deep, over two decades to obtain the metals, estimated to be worth at least $300 billion.

Supporters say the project, known as the Pebble Mine, would be an economic boost for a remote region that has missed out on the North Slope oil boom and other resource-extraction development in the state over the past half century. It would employ nearly 1,000 people, and the Canada-based company, Northern Dynasty Minerals, would pay for infrastructure improvements in some Native Alaskan villages and provide cash dividends totaling at least $3 million to people in the area.

Read the full story at The New York Times