Saving Seafood

Are You Prepared: Coronavirus and the Alaska Economy

March 9, 2020 — Alaska’s major economic sectors are trying to find the best way to monitor and respond to the impact of the global spread of COVID-19, the novel coronavirus first documented in Wuhan, China, in December.

While China is a significant trade partner with Alaska, regardless of whether the virus shows up in Alaska, it could disrupt the state’s most significant financial drivers. With billions of dollars at stake, Alaska’s fishing, tourism, and oil and gas industries are in an awkward position between knowns and unknowns as they prep for how the virus will impact their businesses.

The Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport is staying ready with round-the-clock mopping, wiping, and scrubbing.

“Our materials and our methods that we use here are designed to stop the spread of communicable disease in the airport. Whether it’s coronavirus or influenza or rotavirus or norovirus — all of those — we are always trying to keep the airport clean and safe,” airport manager Jim Szczesniak told KTUU.

The cleaning work is an investment in keeping goods and people moving through the airport, a global hub. Eighty percent of all air cargo from Asia to North America stops at the airport, and just under six million people pass through its terminals each year, many over the summer.

Vacationers bring about $4.5 billion into Alaska each year.

Among them: 1.4 million cruise ship passengers.

Read the full story at KTUU

Pebble pulse: Bristol Bay leaders testify in federal court, say EPA went rogue

March 4, 2020 — Bristol Bay fishermen, tribal leaders and fisheries advocates once again offered their testimony on the value of protections for the world’s most productive sockeye salmon habitat.

On Monday, March 2, members of the Bristol Bay Defense Alliance testified in federal district court in support of a lawsuit the group filed against the Environmental Protection Agency in October.

The suit asserts the EPA’s withdrawal of proposed Clean Water Act protections was arbitrary and unlawful, and runs counter to the scientific and public record. The plaintiffs now await a ruling from Judge Sharon Gleason on whether the suit will move forward.

“Although we are now waiting for the judge’s ruling in this case, our primary goal is unchanged: protecting and promoting the Bristol Bay fishery,” said Andy Wink, executive director of the Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association. “The science still supports 404 protections in Bristol Bay, and we will continue working to secure them.”

In 2010, six Bristol Bay Tribes requested the protections and soon were supported in the effort by commercial and sport fishing groups.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

The China problem: Coronavirus creates a bottleneck for Alaska seafood

March 3, 2020 — Seafood coming from and going to China is piling up in freezer vans and cold storages indefinitely as the coronavirus continues to cause commerce chaos around the world.

Virus precautions mean that many ships can’t get into Chinese ports, others are stuck at docks waiting for workers to return, and still more are idling in “floating quarantined zones,” as countries refuse to allow crews of ships that have docked at Chinese ports to leave the boat until they have been declared virus-free.

Alaska seafood exports to China of nearly $1 billion include products for their own markets, but the bulk goes there for reprocessing and shipment back to the United States and other countries.

“If you have plants that have product coming in and no workers to fill it, you’re going to get that overflowing cold storage situation. So it’s definitely a problem on the reprocessing side. On the consumption side, if people aren’t going out to eat and going out to the market to buy seafood, that’s going to take consumption down as well. So there’s a couple different ways that it’s working against moving seafood through the supply chain,” said Andy Wink, director of the Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association and an economist who has tracked world salmon markets for more than a decade.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

US Commerce Department allocates $35 million for Alaska fisheries disasters

March 2, 2020 — Fishermen affected by the 2018 Pacific cod and Chignik sockeye disasters will soon have access to about $35 million in relief funding.

Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross allocated about $65 million to fisheries disaster relief, about $35 million of which is for Alaska, according to a Feb. 27 announcement from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Within Alaska, about $24.4 million will go to the Pacific cod fishery disaster and about $10.3 million to the Chignik sockeye fishery. The funding was appropriated when Congress passed the 2019 Consolidated and Supplemental Appropriations Act.

Fisheries disasters can be declared under the Magnuson-Stevens Fisheries Management and Conservation Act when natural disasters or management actions significantly negatively impact stakeholders’ ability to participate in a fishery.

In the case of the Pacific cod fishery in the Gulf of Alaska, scientists are linking the decline in stock abundance to environmental causes; in Chignik, the salmon decline seemed to be linked to poor environmental conditions for sockeye that summer.

Both disaster requests had already been granted, but the amount of funding that the fisheries would have allocated to them was yet to be determined. The National Marine Fisheries Service determines how much funding to allocate to fisheries based on commercial revenue loss information.

Affected fishermen will be able to apply for funding to help with infrastructure projects, habitat restoration, state-run vessel and fishing permit buybacks, and job retraining, according to the announcement from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

NOAA grants Alaskan Fisheries $24.4 million in disaster relief funding

February 28, 2020 — Thursday the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), approved a $24.4 million dollar disaster relief package to help restore the loss of fisheries impacted by the 2018 pacific cod fishery disaster and sockeye salmon failure in Chignik.

The money will be administered by the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission who will distribute the relief payments to fishermen and their deckhands, processors, and fishery research in the affected regions.

Read the full story at KTUU

NOAA investing in Alaska’s mariculture development

February 27, 2020 — The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is investing resources in Alaska, a move seen helping move the state’s mariculture development forward.

The agency has appointed a Regional Office Mariculture Coordinator for the Alaska region for the first time.

Alaska’s Mariculture Initiative has a goal of building a $100-million industry in 20 years. Among Alicia Bishop’s many tasks as regional coordinator is to bring together stakeholders that will help lay the foundation for achieving that goal.

The head of the Task Force that developed the Initiative said the creation of the coordinator position for Alaska signals NOAA’s commitment to the state.

Read the full story at Aquaculture North America

Abnormally Warm Years Caused a Sea Change in Coastal Alaska Ecosystems

February 27, 2020 — Rapidly warming Alaska is already a poster child for climate change, from its vanishing sea ice to its thawing permafrost. But over the last three years, the state’s northwestern coast has experienced a series of unusual climate-related changes—remarkable even for the long-altered Pacific Arctic.

Beginning in 2017, a combination of abnormally high temperatures and unusually strong, southerly winds swept the Bering and Chukchi seas. An alarming cascade of ecological consequences ensued—record-low sea ice, shifting algae blooms, migrating fish populations and sudden seabird die-offs were just a few.

“Most of my own research is with people living in the coastal communities, so talking to them and hearing about what they’re seeing,” said Henry Huntington, an independent Alaskan researcher and consultant. “And they saw some very unusual things, and things that struck them.”

“Ridiculous” water temperatures and unstable sea ice were among the most common complaints raised in interviews with coastal residents, Huntington noted.

“Adding to that, what we’re hearing from folks on the research cruises, it just became apparent that things were really a lot different from what any of us expected,” he said.

Read the full story at Scientific American

ALASKA: Dutch Harbor stays on top among U.S. fishing ports

February 26, 2020 — Dutch Harbor remained the top fishing port in the U.S. for the 22nd year in a row with 763 million pounds crossing the docks in 2018 valued at $182 million. And Naknek ranked as the nation’s second most valuable port for fishermen with landings worth $195 million. (Naknek also ranked No. 8 for landings at 191 million pounds.)

Empire-Venice, Louisiana, held the second spot for fish volume (569 million). The “Aleutians” was close behind (539 million), thanks to Trident’s plant at Akutan, the largest processing facility in North America. Kodiak fell to fourth place with landings dropping from 530 million pounds to 391 million in 2018.

Those are just a few of the gems in the annual Fisheries of the U.S. Report, described as “a yearbook of fishery statistics on commercial landings and values, recreational fishing, aquaculture production, imports and exports and per capita consumption” by Cisco Werner, chief scientist at NOAA Fisheries, who gave highlights to reporters Friday.

“U.S. fishermen landed 9.4 billion pounds valued at about $5.6 billion, an increase of $150 million, or 2.8% from 2017. That’s on par with recent years with economic benefits both up and down depending on the seafood supply chain,” Werner added.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News