Saving Seafood

ALASKA: Report: Half of vessels in federally managed Alaska fisheries had observer coverage in 2023

June 5, 2024 — In fishing vessels harvesting seafood from federal waters off Alaska, key information about performance and rule compliance comes from employees who observe the catches or from electronic equipment that monitors the amount and types of marine life that are brought aboard.

Because of concerns about salmon bycatch and the fishery-related deaths of marine mammals, there have been calls to increase observer coverage in the federally managed fisheries off Alaska.

About half the 463 vessels engaged in those federally managed fisheries last year had either human observers or electronic monitoring systems on board, said an annual report presented to fishery managers meeting this week in Kodiak. About 44% of the vessel trips were covered by such observations, the report said. Those percentages were a bit higher than those recorded in 2022, when about 44% of vessels had human observers or electronic monitoring, and about 40% of trips were covered.

The 2023 annual report for the North Pacific Observer Program was presented on Monday to the Scientific and Statistical Committee of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council and on Tuesday to the council’s Advisory Panel. It is also to be presented in the coming days to the full council.

Read the full article at the Alaska Beacon

ALASKA: Yukon River Fishery Update says chum salmon will be available for harvest

June 5, 2024 –No chinooks, but chum salmon will be available for subsistence harvest in the Yukon River this year.

Each year the salmon runs are meant to bring much needed food for folks that rely on subsistence fishing along the Yukon River. These runs have struggled to do just that in recent years as the chinook salmon runs have been well below average and smaller than the minimum escapement goals for the Yukon River Fishery. Such being the case, there will be no chinook salmon harvest once more.

There is work underway to better understand the decreasing runs.

Read the full article at Newscenter Fairbanks

Commercial fishing groups bring new legal action over Cook Inlet’s federal waters

June 5, 2025 —  Two commercial fishing advocacy groups based on the Kenai Peninsula are again taking the federal government to court over its proposed management strategy for fishing in Cook Inlet’s federal waters.

The United Cook Inlet Drift Association and the Cook Inlet Fishermen’s Fund filed a complaint Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for Alaska. They allege that an amendment approved in April to the fishery plan for the inlet’s federal waters defers the federal government’s management responsibilities, in violation of the federal Magnuson-Stevens Act.

The affected waters, called the Exclusive Economic Zone, run from Kalgin Island south to about Anchor Point.

Read the full article at KDLL

ALASKA: Alaska’s seafood industry is in trouble. Processors and policymakers blame Russia.

June 4, 2024 — Alaska waters produce the most seafood in the country, and many of the state’s coastal communities depend on commercial fisheries to sustain their economy.

But Alaska’s fisheries are facing a massive economic slump right now, and policymakers are increasingly blaming flooded global markets. The private sector and federal policymakers are teaming up to try to stop the bleeding.

Last year was brutal for the seafood industry. Processing companies and fishermen alike suffered amid cratering prices, and they blamed Russia for flooding markets. Republican U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, from Alaska, pointed his finger at the country at a news conference on May 23.

“Russians have essentially admitted they’re not just at war in Ukraine, they’re at war with the American fishing industry,” he said.

Alaska’s other federal delegates, Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Rep. Mary Peltola, shared similar sentiments at ComFish, a fisheries trade show in Kodiak.

The U.S. and Russia have been fighting over their seafood trade for years.

Recent highlights include a Russian ban on American goods in 2014.

The U.S. government didn’t put its own ban on Russian goods in place until Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.

Despite that embargo, there was a loophole in the U.S. restrictions, at least for seafood. Russian-caught fish processed in third-party countries, namely China, could still be sold in American markets.

That lasted until late last year. Then, amid intense lobbying from the U.S. seafood industry, President Joe Biden signed an executive order that finally closed the loophole and any chances for Russian fish getting to America.

The move could boost demand for Alaska fish in the U.S., but America is just one of three major markets for Alaska seafood — it’s sold all over the world.

Read the full article at Alaska Public Media

Environmental groups file new challenge to yet-unbuilt Alaska LNG export project

June 3, 2024 — Two environmental groups filed a new legal challenge to the Biden administration’s approval of a yet-to-be-built project that would send the Alaska North Slope’s vast reserves of natural gas to markets.

In a petition filed with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Sierra Club argued that federal agencies failed to properly consider harms that the massive natural gas project would cause to Endangered Species Act-listed animals living in the affected marine areas: polar bears, Cook Inlet beluga whales and Eastern North Pacific right whales.

The petition was filed against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service, along with the agencies’ parent departments, the Department of the Interior and Department of Commerce.

The Biden administration last year renewed an approval of exports from the project, which has been pursued in various forms since the 1970s but never built. The current plan is being promoted by the state-owned Alaska Gasline Development Corp. It proposes a 42-inch-diameter pipeline running about 800 miles from Prudhoe Bay on the North Slope to tidewater at Cook Inlet, where a new facility would convert the product to liquefied natural gas and load it onto tanker vessels for export to Asian markets.

Read the full article at the Alaska Beacon

Alaska’s Arctic rivers turn rusty orange as permafrost thaws

June 3, 2024 — Dozens of once-pristine rivers and streams in Alaska’s Brooks Range are turning an alarming shade of orange. The discoloration, according to a new study published in the journal Communications Earth and Environment, is likely caused by the thawing of permafrost, which is exposing previously frozen minerals that are now leaching into the waterways.

The research team, led by ecologist Jon O’Donnell from the U.S. National Park Service, documented 75 locations across a vast area of northern Alaska where the crystal-clear waters now appear heavily stained. Using satellite imagery and field observations, the scientists determined that the onset of this discoloration coincided with a period of warming and increased snowfall in the region over the past decade.

Permafrost, which is ground that remains frozen year-round, acts as a storage vault for various minerals. As rising temperatures cause this frozen layer to thaw, these minerals are exposed to water and oxygen, triggering chemical reactions that release iron and other metals into the groundwater. This metal-rich water then makes its way into rivers and streams.

“Our recent study highlights an unforeseen consequence of climate change on Arctic rivers,” study co-author Brett Poulin, an environmental toxicologist from the University of California, Davis, told Mongabay. “Arctic environments are warming up to four times faster than the globe as a whole, and this is resulting in deterioration of water quality in the most pristine rivers in North America.”

Read the full article at Mongabay

Environmentalists sue feds over Alaskan pipeline threats to protected species

June 2, 2024 — Environmental groups sued the federal government on Thursday for concluding that an 807-mile pipeline project across Alaska would not harm imperiled polar bears and Arctic whale species.

The Ninth Circuit complaint filed by the Center for Biological Diversity and Sierra Club challenges two biological opinions by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service for a new liquified natural gas project called the Alaska LNG Project.

“The project is a massive, massive fossil fuel project in Alaska that will wreak havoc on everything from polar bears to Cook Inlet beluga whales, and our planet,” Kristen Monsell, an attorney for the center, said in an interview.

The Alaska Gasline Development Corporation’s $38.7 billion project will extend an 807-mile pipeline from a gas treatment plant on the North Slope down to a liquefaction facility in Nikiski within the state’s southern Kenai Peninsula. By doing so, the company expects to produce an average of 3.5 billion cubic feet of gas per day and with the majority of gas going to international markets.

The environmental groups claim that burning this amount of gas could result in over 50 million tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent emissions per year — a number they compare to building 13 coal-fired power plants.

Read the full article at the Courthouse News Service

Peter Pan faces USD 750,000 Clean Water Act fine, USD 348,000 lien from F/V Arctic Lady owner

May 30, 2024 — Peter Pan Seafoods is facing a fine from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and another lien from a vendor claiming it hasn’t been paid.

As part of a consent decree filed 24 May in the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska, Peter Pan faces USD 750,000 (EUR 694,000) in fines for violations of the U.S. Clean Water Act at its processing facilities in Valdez and King Cove, Alaska. The company agreed to pay the fines without admitting any wrongdoing, and also agreed to institute source control procedures and monitor seafood waste outflows at the Valdez facility, to cease using a decommissioned outflow at its King Cove facility, and to conduct annual seafloor surveys until the decree is withdrawn. The company also promised to conduct an audit of each of its Alaska plants and file annual status reports on its waste management systems.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Bristol Bay salmon would benefit from added protection in federal law

May 29, 2024 — As we write, tens of millions of salmon are swimming their way back to Bristol Bay. And for the second year running, those who work the 15,000 jobs the salmon provide each year can celebrate that the proposed Pebble mine no longer threatens to contaminate the headwaters of the greatest wild sockeye salmon fishery in the world.

At least for now.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued Clean Water Act protections for this amazing fishery in January 2023. That news was welcomed by residents of the region and scores of businesses that are reliant upon the Bristol Bay fishery, along with its $2.2 billion annual economic impact. Since then, Pebble and the state of Alaska have filed four lawsuits in an attempt to keep this ill-conceived, acid-producing mine on life support. Math and science aren’t on their side — not only would the mine irreversibly harm a fishery that could, if not contaminated, continue to produce and provide jobs for centuries to come, but the state of Alaska made a basic math error in one of its lawsuits, leading it to inflate the amount they’re suing American taxpayers for by $630 billion. Clearly, those seeking to exploit Bristol Bay at the risk of its sustainable fishery aren’t taking “no” for an answer.

Read the full article at the Alaska Beacon

Peltola introduces bills to address salmon bycatch battle

May 29, 2024 — Alaska Native groups and others hope two new bills by Rep. Mary Peltola, D, will go where present fishery management plans haven’t gone before and cut down on salmon bycatch in the Bering Sea. The announcements of “The Bottom Trawl Clarity Act” and the “Bycatch Reduction and Mitigation Act” will reduce the incidental harvest of chinooks, chums, and other salmon destined for western Alaska watersheds.

The region has experienced abysmal salmon returns in recent years and wants trawlers to improve their bycatch reduction efforts.

“Subsistence and commercial fisheries throughout Western Alaska have been shuttered in recent years,” said Kevin Whitworth, executive director of the Kuskokwim Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, in a press release put out by SalmonState. “With record-low escapements and few (if any) opportunities for Indigenous and rural fishing families to harvest salmon, there is nothing more that our communities can sacrifice to protect salmon.”

The Bottom Trawl Clarity Act strives to define how trawl gear touches the ocean floor. Though pollock trawls have been hallowed as midwater nets, some studies show that they are towed along the bottom-most of the time. This act would distinguish “substantial” and “limited” times that the trawls hug bottom, then designate “Bottom Trawl Zones” where it would be allowed.

Read the full article at National Fisherman