Saving Seafood

EPA opts not to delay controversial Alaska mine for now

June 1, 2020 — A top official at the Environmental Protection Agency informed the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Alaska late Thursday that the EPA would not formally object at this point to the proposed Pebble Mine, a massive gold and copper deposit where mining could damage the world’s largest sockeye salmon fishery.

Christopher Hladick, the EPA’s regional administrator for Alaska and the Pacific Northwest, wrote to the Alaska district engineer, Col. David Hibner, that the agency still has serious concerns about the plan, including that dredging for the open-pit mine “may well contribute to the permanent loss of 2,292 acres of wetlands and … 105.4 miles of streams.”

But Hladick said the EPA would not elevate the matter to the leadership of the two agencies, which could delay necessary approvals for the project to advance. The EPA “appreciates the Corps’ recent commitment to continue this coordination into the future,” he wrote.

Read the full story at The Washington Post

New Modeling Approach Provides Valuable Insights into the Important and Complex Role of Environmental Variables in Juvenile Fish Survival

May 29, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Variation in the productivity and sustainability of fish resources is determined, in part, by large changes in juvenile fish production from year to year. This is defined as “recruitment.” Fisheries oceanographers and fish stock assessment scientists have been trying to better understand and predict this variation for more than 100 years.

“We are seeing a lot of changes in the Bering Sea ecosystem. With analytical tools like this, we should be able to quickly identify factors affecting juvenile fish survival in a given year to generate reliable estimates of future productivity. This may help resource managers to more effectively target their management efforts,” said Jim Thorson, Habitat Ecological Processes Research Program Lead, Alaska Fisheries Science Center and lead author for the paper.

For the first time, scientists glimpsed how ocean temperature in different parts of Alaska’s Bering Sea may have influenced juvenile fish survival over the past three decades. They also gained valuable insights into how it may be affected under warmer ocean conditions in the future.

This unique approach combines oceanographic data collected from research surveys (1982-2018) with recruitment data into a single model. It also incorporated end-of-century projections of bottom and sea surface temperatures for the eastern Bering Sea. Scientists then used global climate models to develop regional-scale projections.

The authors see this an important step to understand the complex relationship between fish stock production and long-term climate processes. The ongoing collection of biological and environmental data will help to further improve these predictions.

Read the full release here

Ocean Beauty Seafoods and Icicle Seafoods Announce Merger

May 29, 2020 — The following was released by Ocean Beauty Seafoods and Icicle Seafoods:

Two of Alaska’s oldest and largest seafood companies, Ocean Beauty Seafoods LLC and Icicle Seafoods, Inc., announced today that they are merging their wild salmon and Gulf of Alaska groundfish operations. The new company will be named OBI Seafoods LLC.

“The Alaska salmon business is experiencing significant market and resource fluctuations. In order to flourish in this rapidly changing environment, we need to develop flexible and efficient business models and form innovative partnerships,” said Mark Palmer, President and CEO of Ocean Beauty Seafoods, who will serve as CEO of the newly merged company. “The merger will enable more focus on selling seafood products in the global marketplace by leveraging both strong sales teams. Increased sales will bring additional investment to support growth and jobs,” he added.

The agreement will allow the new partnership to make strategic investments to enhance its ability to compete in the world seafood market. Initial plans include modernizing processing facilities and combining marketing and value-added product expertise. The changes are designed to grow the value of the Alaska seafood resource in a way that benefits the company’s customers, employees, and fisherman partners.

Included in the merger are all five Icicle shoreside plants and all five Ocean Beauty shoreside plants in Alaska. Ocean Beauty Seafoods’ smoked salmon and distribution operations will remain under its current ownership and will operate under the name OBS Smoked & Distribution, LLC. The Ocean Beauty and Icicle Seafoods Gulf of Alaska groundfish operations and all salmon operations will operate under the newly formed OBI. Icicle Seafoods’ processing operations on the P/V Gordon Jensen and the permanently moored craft Northern Victor in Dutch Harbor are not included in the merger. These plants will continue to operate in the Bering Sea, Aleutian Islands, and Western Gulf of Alaska groundfish fisheries, and will operate under Icicle Seafoods, Inc.

“The two companies’ cultures will blend well,” Palmer said. “We will be combining two very talented workforces that are highly motivated to compete successfully in today’s challenging market. This merger also presents the best opportunity for the new company to optimize our branded value-added seafood and make strategic long-term investments.”

John Woodruff, Chief Operating Officer of Icicle Seafoods, will become Executive Vice President of Alaska Operations for the new company. A respected Alaska fishing industry leader, he has built deep relationships across the state.

According to Mr. Woodruff, “Partnerships can provide employees with additional career growth opportunities in a wider variety of positions and locations.  As a unified team, we are confident we can make improvements to benefit employees, fishermen, customers and vendors. To be more competitive globally, operational efficiencies in processing must be realized, along with continuing strong fleet relationships and placing an added focus on sales, marketing and distribution.”

Founded in 1910, Ocean Beauty Seafoods LLC is owned by the Bristol Bay Economic Development Corporation and a group of individual owners with experience in the seafood industry. Founded in 1965, Icicle Seafoods, Inc. has been owned by the Cooke family since 2016. Upon close of the merger transaction, Icicle Seafoods, Inc. and Ocean Beauty Seafoods Inc. will each own a 50% stake in the new company. The merger will take effect on June 1, 2020, in line with the 2020 wild Alaska salmon season.

Alaska’s Controversial Pebble Mine Was Dead. Not Anymore.

May 28, 2020 — The Bristol Bay region in southwest Alaska is home to the world’s largest sockeye salmon run, a resource that brings in $1.5 billion annually and provides a vital food source for thousands of Alaska Native residents who live there.

It’s also home to a vast copper and gold deposit worth an estimated $500 billion, known as the Pebble Deposit. A plan to extract that wealth by building a massive open pit mine at the heart of the environmentally sensitive Bristol Bay watershed has become the environmental fight of the century for Alaska.

FRONTLINE told that story in Alaska Gold, broadcast in 2012, when the mine’s opponents seemed to have won the day.

But the Pebble mine got a new lease on life under the Trump administration, and in late 2017, the Pebble Partnership, the company behind the mine, filed for a permit with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Read the full story at Frontline

In survey, Alaska fishermen offer guidance for use of pandemic relief funds

May 27, 2020 — A rapid survey response by nearly 800 Alaska fishermen will provide a guideline for giving them a hand up as the coronavirus swamps their operations.

The online survey from April 14 to May 3 by Juneau-based nonprofit SalmonState asked fishermen about their primary concerns both before the COVID-19 outbreak and in the midst of the pandemic in April. It also asked what elected officials at local, state and federal levels can do to help them directly.

Over half of the 817 responses came in over four days, said Tyson Fick, SalmonState communications adviser.

“Clearly, people were interested to have their stories heard and to weigh in. In several ways we feel like we had a very broad swath of regions and gear types and fishermen,” he said.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

NOAA Cancels Five Large-Scale Fishery Surveys Due to COVID-19

May 26, 2020 — NOAA Fisheries announced Friday that it will cancel five out of its six large-scale research surveys in Alaskan waters this year due to COVID-19. The canceled surveys include the Aleutian Islands bottom trawl survey, the eastern Bering Sea bottom trawl survey, the northern Bering Sea bottom trawl survey, the Bering Sea pollock acoustics survey, and the Fall Ecosystem Survey. The Alaska Longline Survey is not affected.

“We determined that there is no way to move forward with a survey plan that effectively minimizes risks to staff, crew, and the communities associated with the surveys. For instance, conducting the key groundfish and crab surveys in a limited timeframe would require extraordinarily long surveys, well beyond standard survey operations,” wrote NOAA Fisheries in a statement. “Extended quarantines for the survey team prior to and following surveys would also be necessary to ensure survey team and public health and safety.”

Read the full story at The Maritime Executive

NOAA cancels Alaskan research surveys citing COVID-19

May 26, 2020 — The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has canceled five of the six large-scale research surveys scheduled to take place in the waters off Alaska this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to an NOAA press release.

The release cited the unique challenges and uncertainties posed by the coronavirus crisis, which have resulted in the cancellation of the Aleutian Islands bottom-trawl survey, the eastern Bering Sea bottom-trawl survey, the northern Bering Sea bottom-trawl survey, the Bering Sea pollock acoustics survey, and the fall ecosystem survey. The Alaska longline survey will go ahead as planned.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Trident Seafoods’ Boss Charts Safer Course for Alaska Fishing Season

May 21, 2020 — Joe Bundrant runs one of the world’s largest seafood companies. He knows that without healthy fishermen there will be no catch in the bountiful waters off Alaska’s coast.

Mr. Bundrant, the 54-year-old chief executive of Trident Seafoods, has enforced a strict quarantine to protect people and keep business going during the critical summer fishing season. The pandemic could wreak havoc on the Last Frontier, and Mr. Bundrant wants to avoid a repeat of the 1918 pandemic that decimated Alaska’s remote communities.

“If I’m going to put 145 people on a ship, including my son, and ask them not to get off the ship for six months, this is my only choice,” Mr. Bundrant said.

The $10 million effort includes isolating hundreds of workers for two weeks before sending them to sea and remote fishing villages, their rooms monitored by quarantined guards. On day 15, if they have tested negative for the virus, they are ushered by quarantined drivers to ships or private airplanes to begin a six-month fishing season in some of the world’s most remote waters.

There are consequences for those who refuse to play along. The six workers who tried to leave quarantine were fired.

Trident is the largest U.S. seafood company, employing 5,000 during the peak fishing season in Alaska. The state’s fishing industry catches 60% of the seafood in the U.S., including salmon, cod, halibut, rock fish and herring.

The fishing industry is seasonal, presenting a challenge for a company trying to prevent the spread of a virus in an industry considered among the most hazardous in the U.S.

Read the full story at The Wall Street Journal

Alaskan Salmon Industry Faces Off Against COVID-19

May 20, 2020 — Rich in omega-3 fatty acids, Vitamin D, and antioxidants, sockeye is health food for your heart, brain, eyes, and skin. And given the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s careful management of the fishery, it’s a sustainable resource. In 2018, according to the ADFG, 63 million sockeye returned, and a record 41.9 million of them were netted. Bristol Bay is, by far, the world’s largest sockeye fishery, and the biggest salmon fishery in Alaska. It is a well-tended natural bounty valued at more than $1 billion. Along with the other salmon fisheries in Bristol Bay, it returns an annual $14.7 million to local governments and employs a third of the residents in the largely indigenous communities. Norman Van Vactor, President and CEO of the Bristol Bay Economic Development Corporation (BBEDC), estimates that, all totaled, salmon fishing brings up to $200 million into the region each year.

There are many reasons to feel good about eating Bristol Bay sockeye, but this is 2020, a year that has complicated everything in food. While subsistence salmon fishing is essential to the region’s 6,700 residents, the commercial fishery is operated primarily by outsiders. As of now, there are less than 400 confirmed cases of COVID-19 across Alaska. But as 13,000 fishermen, processors, and other workers from around the world arrive in May for Bristol Bay’s season, which begins in early June, they bring the danger of spreading the virus to isolated communities with few medical resources.

For the locals of Bristol Bay, the possibility of an outbreak engenders a horrifying dèjá vu. “Our people keep saying that we went through this already,” says Alannah Hurley, executive director of United Tribes of Bristol Bay, a consortium of 15 Yup’ik, Den’ina, and Alutiiq tribes representing 80 percent of the region’s inhabitants. She’s referring to the Spanish flu, which arrived in Bristol Bay in 1919, possibly on a cannery ship, and decimated the native population. “A lot of us are descendents. So for native people, the devastation of a pandemic is not an obscure concept,” she said. “We are the people raised by the orphans who survived.”

Read the full story at Food & Wine

NPFMC May Special Meeting Newsletter

May 19, 2020 — The following was released by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council:

The Council met via web-conference on May 15th for a special Council meeting. The digital newsletter is published. For those interested, all the articles on one page to print is available here, and you can listen to the recording on box.net, or through the Adobeconnect app.  As always, you can access all other meeting information through the Agenda.

The Council will also hold its June meeting virtually through Adobeconnect, with the added component of the public able to provide public comment over the phone during the meeting. The intent is also to use web cameras for Council members and presenters during discussion and deliberation. The SSC and the AP will also be using the same platform and format. The meeting link will be the same throughout all of the June meetings. Detailed instructions for the public for joining and how to give public comments will be posted on the Council’s eAgenda and website.