Saving Seafood

Feds might allow fishermen to catch more skates

July 10, 2018 — The federal government is looking to allow fishermen to catch more Northeastern skates, which are caught for use as food and bait.

Skates are bottom-dwelling fish that are often sold in fish markets as “skate wing.” The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is proposing to increase the annual catch limit for skates by about 8 percent, to nearly 70 million pounds.

The proposed rule changes would apply to a management plan for Northeastern skate fishery.

The biggest skate producing states are Alaska, Rhode Island and Massachusetts, though the fish are brought to land as far south as California on the West Coast and North Carolina on the East Coast.

The full proposed rule may found at https://bit.ly/2NDexjm

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Gloucester Daily Times

For Alaska sockeye salmon, record highs in Bristol Bay, record lows nearly everywhere else

July 10, 2018 — Sockeye salmon catches often add up to half of the value of Alaska’s total salmon fishery, and the so-called reds dominate the season’s early fisheries starting in mid-May.

But sockeye catches so far range from record-setting highs at Bristol Bay to record lows nearly everywhere else.

For example, the Copper River sockeye harvest of just 26,000 is the lowest in 50 years. At Kodiak, just 212,000 sockeyes were taken through July 6, making it the weakest harvest in 38 years. Sockeye fishing at Yakutat has been closed due to the lowest returns in 50 years; likewise, fishermen at Chignik also have yet to see an opener.

Sockeye harvest levels at Cook Inlet and the Alaska Peninsula also are running well below average.

Fishery scientists suspect the downturns are due to the warmest sea-surface temperatures ever recorded running from 2014-2016, which likely depleted food sources before the sockeyes returned from the ocean this year as adults.

Read the full story at Anchorage Daily News

ALASKA: Working out details on salmon disaster funds

July 9, 2018 — The following was released by Rep. Louise Stutes:

Dear Friends and Neighbors,

I wanted to provide you with a short update regarding the 2016 pink salmon disaster relief funding distribution.

It was recently announced that over $56 million of the $200 million appropriated for fisheries disasters will be allocated to Alaska. Naturally, I am pleased that out of the nine West Coast disasters and three hurricanes, we received such a large proportion of the funding.

Cordova has been awaiting the arrival of this funding for almost two years and it is critical that the distribution is executed correctly with as little delay as possible.

What types of entities will be eligible and how much each category will receive remains unknown. Currently, the governor’s office, the Department of Fish and Game (DFG), and the Department of Commerce are working with NOAA to make those determinations through a spending plan.

One of my main concerns is who will be eligible. NOAA identified shoreside infrastructure as a potential recipient category and I am working with the State to ensure that, along with our hard-working fishermen, processing workers and direct-support businesses are afforded the relief that they are entitled to. I am in daily communication with the Governor’s Office and DFG to offer input and stay as up-to-date as possible about the timeline and details.

Read the full letter at the Cordova Times

ALASKA: Stand for Salmon ballot initiative has big implications for Donlin mine

July 6, 2018 — In the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, the stakes are especially high for the controversial Stand for Salmon ballot initiative because it could kill one of the biggest proposed gold mines in the world — the Donlin Mine.

Backers of Stand For Salmon visited Bethel a month ago. This is when Bethel resident Danielle Craven first heard of it.

“After learning about it, I realized that this was a coalition of people who are really interested that we as Alaskans and rural Alaskans have a voice in the decisions that are impacting salmon and our waters,” Craven said.

Craven is a member of the Orutsaramiut Native Council. The tribe held their first public demonstration against the proposed Donlin gold mine last week and is the first one to do so in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta. Craven sees Stand For Salmon as a way to protect the region’s subsistence way of life.

Craven is also one of the leaders of a new local working group called the Yukon-Kuskokwim River Alliance; its goals align with the ballot initiative.

Read the full story at Alaska Public Media

Alaskans fret as Chinese, US tariffs go into effect

July 6, 2018 — The next phase of the Chinese-U.S. trade war kicked into effect on Friday, 6 July, as each country imposed USD 34 billion (EUR 28.9 billion) worth of tariffs on a range of goods that, on the Chinese side, include a variety of seafood products.

According to a list issued from the Ministry of Finance of the People’s Republic of China, more than 170 seafood products are subject to the new tariffs, which went into effect at 12:01 a.m. on 6 July. However, confusion remains as to exactly which products are subject to the tariffs – especially amongst those engaged in sending seafood to China for reprocessing and re-export.

That’s a big question for many involved in the seafood industry in Alaska, which relies heavily on Chinese labor to complete the difficult task of removing pinbones from much of its catch. In fact, in large part due to the seafood industry, China is Alaska’s largest trading partner, with hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of salmon, flatfish, and cod heading to China for reprocessing and re-export.

Glenn Reed, president of the Pacific Seafood Processors Association, which represents companies operating onshore processing plants for Alaska salmon, crab, and pollock, as well as Pacific cod, said there is still uncertainty on the issue.

“We’re watching the situation closely. We know we this could affect us all from fishermen, processors, support business, communities, the state, etc. We just don’t have good info at this point,” he told SeafoodSource via email. “We may not know the impact until after 6 July.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source

ALASKA: How ‘pickers’ and ‘lickers’ help Bristol Bay’s fleet

July 5, 2018 — Preschool teacher Hannah Hendrickson said there are two distinct duties for catch samplers working at salmon processing plants around Bristol Bay.

“People oftentimes nickname this job as the pickers and the lickers, so I said, ‘I’m not a licker. I’m only a picker!’ ” she said.

Should a community’s population be a factor to set fish quotas in western Alaska?

July 5, 2018 — Rep. Don Young is trying again to renew the Magnuson-Stevens Act.

The nation’s fundamental federal fisheries law hasn’t been reauthorized since 2006. Young’s bill would allow more flexibility for regional fisheries management councils, but for villages near the mouth of the Kuskokwim River it is notable for what’s not included.

Since the 1990s, towns and villages along the western Alaska coast, from Norton Sound to the Aleutians, have had a stake in the lucrative Bering Sea fisheries, through the Community Development Quota program. The communities, divided into six CDQ groups, are allocated a portion of the fishing quota, which they can fish themselves or lease to the fishing industry.

By most measures, the program has been a success. In total, the six CDQ groups have amassed more than a billion dollars in cash and assets. The larger groups spend more than $30 million a year to help their regions, with service programs, job training, scholarships and local employment.

But the largest group, called Coastal Villages Region Fund, says it’s getting a raw deal. The group is known as CVRF and serves the Kuskokwim Delta, including villages from Scammon Bay to Platinum. More than 9,000 people live in that area, amounting to 35 percent of the total CDQ beneficiary population. However, they say they are allocated just 15 percent of the fish in the CDQ program.

Art Severance, corporate counsel for CVRF, said other groups have far fewer people and get the same or even more fish.

Read the full story at KTOO

‘This is worrisome,’ Murkowski on Chinese sanctions to Alaska seafood

July 3, 2018 — China is slated to impose a 25 percent tariff on U.S. seafood — including Alaska’s — by the end of this week, as part of increasingly heated trade negotiations between the two nations.

According to a recent report by the McDowell Group, seafood is Alaska’s second largest employer — with 41,200 jobs created by the $2.1 billion industry. China is the state’s largest trading partner.

“This is worrisome, we’ll work this through with the administration,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski said of the sanctions, set to take effect on Friday, July 6.

Murkowski was in Anchorage Monday with U.S. Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta, as part of his tour around the state.

While worried about seafood, Murkowski said she is encouraged that China isn’t going after natural gas. In April, Gov. Bill Walker’s administration hoped the state’s potential partnership with China on a natural gas pipeline project could protect the state in a national trade war. But this latest threat to seafood indicates that may not be the case.

“It does raise a question about how they view what Alaska has available in terms of trade,” Murkowski said.

While in Alaska this weekend, Acosta visited a fishery in King Salmon.

Read the full story at KTVA

ALASKA: Gov. Walker urges Army Corps to suspend environmental review process for Pebble

July 2, 2018 — Gov. Bill Walker and Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott on Friday asked the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to suspend the environmental review process for the proposed Pebble mine project, citing the “unique” environment of the Bristol Bay region.

Pebble Limited Partnership has proposed the copper and gold prospect for a site that straddles the Bristol Bay salmon fishery headwaters.

Bristol Bay is the largest sockeye salmon fishery in the world. Without at least a preliminary economic assessment, Walker and Mallott said in the letter, the Army Corps would be “unable to take a hard look at all reasonable alternatives” in the draft environmental review.

“Given the unique characteristics of the region, the mine proposed by Pebble Limited Partnership (PLP) must be held to an extraordinarily high standard,” the letter said.

There are “too many unanswered questions” for the review to advance further, a statement from the governor’s office said Saturday afternoon.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

Alaska won’t support Pebble Mine, unless it can prove ‘zero impact’

July 2, 2018 — Gov. Bill Walker wants to press pause on the controversial Pebble Mine project in Southwest, Alaska. Pebble is seeking federal permits on a smaller mine proposal, about half the size of the one it began pursuing more than a decade ago.

But in a letter to the Army Corps of Engineers on Friday, Walker urged suspension of a critical piece of that process — the environmental impact statement — calling for proof of a “feasible and realistic” project first.

“This is something that we’ve looked at very carefully, and we feel like even the project proponents are unsure of the size of this project,” said Andy Mack, Commissioner of the Alaska Dept. of Natural Resources. “It’s impossible at this point I think for an agency, we believe to really credibly understand what’s going on when just a month ago, the size of the project was actually changed. And it was made larger within the parameters of the scoping period which is designed to start talking about what the parameters of a project might be.”

Mack said the project would have to prove “zero impact” on the Bristol Bay Watershed in order to earn the administration’s support. The region is home to the most valuable wild salmon fishery in the world.

Read the full story at KTVA