Saving Seafood

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

ALASKA: Kodiak May See $11.5 Million in Salmon Disaster Relief

July 2, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — A National Marine Fisheries Service internal document sent to the Kodiak Island Borough on Monday details preliminary estimates for regional allocation of the federal relief funding for the 2016 pink salmon disaster. According to the document, of the $56 million in relief funding that was allocated to the Gulf of Alaska for those affected by the 2016 pink salmon disaster, $11,477,873 might be set aside for Kodiak.

NOAA spokesperson Julie Speegle said that the numbers in the document are simply an estimate and are not set in stone.

“The $56.3 million allocation across all impacted fishing districts and gear types has not been determined. That is being worked on over the next month by PSMFC in consultation with the State of Alaska and NOAA,” Speegle wrote in an email. “Finalization occurs when the spend plan has been completed and the grant award has been approved.”

According to Speegle, the estimate of the regional allocations is based on preliminary ex-vessel losses to commercial pink salmon harvesters in 2016 and it is “difficult to predict” the likelihood of final allocation.

With regards to the rest of the $56 million, preliminary estimates for regional allocation are as follows: Southeastern – $10,030,734; Yakutat – $46,712; Lower Cook Inlet – $310,352; Prince William Sound – $32,200,363; South Alaska Peninsula – $1,752,664; Chignik – $542,635.

Another $63 million will be allocated among seven other regions for various fishery disasters in Washington and California.

At a recent Kodiak Fisheries Workgroup meeting, the City of Kodiak and the Kodiak Island Borough’s D.C. lobbyist Brad Gilman explained that NMFS and the office of the Governor have to come to a spend plan that identifies the categories of entities which could receive funding and then quantifies how much each of the categories receive within the

available funds. Gilman said that once approved, the Pacific State Marine Fisheries Commission (the entity charged with administering the funds) will likely “start cutting checks immediately.”

A spokesperson for PSMFC said that a distribution method is still pending.

“We were notified that we’ll be administering the funds,” the spokesperson said. “Currently, we don’t have a distribution method figured out.”

Rep. Louise Stutes (R-Kodiak) once again expressed her delight that Kodiak will be receiving some relief funding. Stutes said she’s been pressing the governor’s office to ensure that the funds are distributed, not just to fishermen, but to all of those who were affected.

“I want to make sure that our processor workers receive some of those dollars,” she said.

This story originally appeared on SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

Early in the season, Alaska commercial salmon harvests are lagging

June 29, 2018 — Early in the season for most Alaska salmon fisheries, commercial harvest numbers are well below where they were at the same time in 2017, according to data put out on Thursday by Anchorage consulting firm the McDowell Group and the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute.

The sockeye harvest was 64 percent lower this year through June 23 than it was through the same time frame last year, according to the McDowell Group. The harvest of king salmon was 49 percent lower, as expected, and the pink salmon harvest was down 67 percent. Chum salmon harvest numbers were up 5 percent.

Slow sockeye harvests in Prince William Sound, Kodiak and Chignik are a main reason for the lagging numbers, McDowell Group economist Garrett Evridge said in an email.

Still, he cautioned, it’s early in the season and a couple good weeks of fishing can significantly change the harvest trajectory for many areas. A good week in Bristol Bay alone can double the statewide harvest, Evridge added.

“We’re still in the early weeks,” he said in an interview, “but early indications are definitely difficult. If you’re a Copper River fisherman or a Kodiak fisherman, it’s not reassuring to hear that overall it’s too early.”

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

ALASKA: Jellyfish Numbers Rising in Bering Sea; Scientists Studying Potential Impacts

June 29, 2018 –Jellyfish have been a natural part of the Bering Sea ecosystem for decades, but in recent years, their population numbers in the region have dramatically increased. Now, a research team funded by the National Science Foundation is in Nome to find out what the cause and implications might be.

“There are certainly fish that do feed on jellyfish: some of the salmon do, some other fish. But in this part of the world, not this many fish feed on jellyfish.”

That’s Mary Beth Decker, a research scientist from Yale University who is part of a three-person research team sailing to Slime Bank in the southern Bering Sea this week, north of the Alaska Peninsula. As she noted, there are minimal benefits from having jellyfish around. Not only do few types of fish eat them, but these species aren’t exactly edible for humans, either.

When it comes to potential consequences of having more jellyfish, though, Decker says that’s a different story.

“And we know that they have impacts on the ecosystem, because they feed on things that fish eat. For example, they’ll eat small crustaceans, zoo plankton, that are prey for other seabirds and marine mammals. And also fish, both young fish and some older fish, like herring, as well.”

According to Decker, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has been recording jellyfish numbers in the Bering Sea for the last 40 years using their trawls. The populations have fluctuated up and down throughout that period for multiple species of jellies, including larger ones like Pacific Sea Nettle, but Decker also points out there are smaller types that are harder to see or even catch in trawl nets.

That’s why Joanna Chierici, a teacher from New Jersey, is onboard this research voyage, to educate and reach out to groups about the types and numbers of jellyfish present in the Bering Sea.

Read the full story at KNOM

Pointing at Pebble, EPA leader looks to rein in agency’s veto power

June 28, 2018 — In a sweeping memo released today, EPA administrator Scott Pruitt asked the agency to propose changes to how it uses the Clean Water Act.

In the memo, Pruitt wrote that the action would fit in with his larger aim to “ensure predictability and regulatory certainty and take actions based upon a comprehensive understanding of the facts.”

The proposal would eliminate EPA’s ability to preemptively or retroactively veto permits for waste discharge in waterways, restricting the agency’s ability to step in and regulate large projects. However, the proposal is far from final.

Under the Obama administration, EPA used its authority under Section 404(c) of the Clean Water Act to propose restrictions on the Pebble Mine before the developer applied for a permit with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

That essentially halted the controversial project until last year, when EPA reached a settlement with Pebble under the Trump administration. Then in January, Pruitt suspended the agency’s move to reconsider the Obama-era proposal, saying Pebble may pose an “unacceptable” risk to Bristol Bay, home to one of the most valuable salmon fisheries in the world.

Read the full story at Alaska Public Media