Saving Seafood

ALASKA: Alaska task force’s final report calls for new rules and more research to address seafood bycatch

December 12, 2022 — New controls on how fish are commercially harvested and more research to understand the effects of climate change in the ocean and in freshwater spawning grounds are some of the key recommendations of an Alaska task force examining ways to address bycatch, the term for capture of untargeted species in commercial seafood harvests.

Gov. Mike Dunleavy, who created the task force a year ago, released the group’s final report late Thursday.

“I look forward to working with task force members and stakeholders to do everything we can to get more fish to return to Alaska’s waters,” Dunleavy said in a statement.

Read the full article at Alaska Beacon

ALASKA: Pacific Halibut Fishery Closes; Commercial Catches Come Up Short

December 10, 2022 — The Pacific halibut fishery closed Wednesday (Dec. 7) after nine months of fishing.

The overall halibut removals came up just 7% short of the 2022 catch limit of  42.4 million pounds, an increase of 5% over the previous year.

That includes takes by commercial, sport, subsistence users and as bycatch in British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, California and Alaska.

Alaska’s commercial halibut fishery produced nearly 19.3 million pounds, 10% under the Alaska catch limit.

Read the full article at Seafoodnews.com

Northline Seafoods CEO Ben Blakey floats new business model for Alaska seafood processing

December 5, 2022 — Ben Blakey is the CEO of Sitka, Alaska, U.S.A.-based Northline Seafoods, which announced on 30 November, 2022, it is planning to build a floating salmon-processing platform to operate in Alaska’s Bristol Bay.

SeafoodSource: What is your background in the seafood industry and why did you pursue this project?

Blakey: I grew up working in Bristol Bay. My family had a processor, Snowpack Products, that operated from the early 1980s until it was sold to Icicle [Seafoods] in 2012. So basically, since I could walk, I’ve been involved in Alaska’s fishing industry. I grew up from mending nets to buying and operating fishing boats. I’ve worked in fleet management. Then I did some work in processing. My life’s work has been in Bristol Bay’s fishing industry.

SeafoodSource: How does Northine Seafoods’ new vessel, the Hannah, fit into Bristol Bay’s salmon supply chain?

Blakey: It’s a floating fish-processing platform, primarily focused on quickly freezing the fish. We won’t do any value-added processing in Bristol Bay, we will just buy fish from fishermen and take fish from tenders and then we’ll freeze them immediately in whole, round form. We’re not heading or gutting them, we’re just trying to stabilize them as quickly as possible, so that when they are thawed out that they’re in as fresh of a state as possible. What that means is we’re going to have a smaller labor footprint. We will be able to do 750,000 to a million pounds of fish a day with 23 people working on the floor. So it will be extremely efficient from a labor perspective. In addition, we won’t use standardized container transport. Currently, the vast majority of frozen salmon leaving Alaska end up in 40-foot frozen containers. We will instead just store them inside of our barge, which can carry north of 14 million pounds of frozen product. So those will be shipping costs that we don’t have to pay. Instead, we will just haul the entire barge south back to the Pacific Northwest after the salmon season, meaning the barge will act as a consolidated or integrated shipping option. We will store the fish on the vessel until we plan to have them processed or they go to market. With the barge acting effectively as a cold storage facility, that will mean there’s far less movement of the product – we won’t have to transport it on trucks through ports, forklift them around or tuck them into cold storage.

SeafoodSource: Are you going to be contracting with tenders or local fishermen?

Blakey: No, we will have our own dedicated fleet. And we will hire and utilize our own tenders to help serve the fleet and provide buying access.

SeafoodSource: With the uptick in fish being caught in Bristol Bay in recent years, is this additional storage and processing capacity necessary there?

Blakey: There is a need for it. Last year was an extremely large run, which saw an excess of capacity and an excess of what existing processors could freeze. But aside from the run size, there were issues with other parts of the supply chain, including a shortage of containers, and there’s been a shortage of cold storage nationwide, and trucking fees have gone up substantially since the start of the [Covid-19] pandemic.

Beyond there being a need for it, we are simplifying and making the supply chain more efficient. One major part of that will be our use of integrated ultra-low temperature facilities, freezing and story all of our products at negative 25 degrees Fahrenheit, which allows it to be extremely fresh when it’s thawed out and reprocessed in the lower 48 [U.S. states]

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Alaska governor threatens to sue Biden EPA over state land development halt

December 6, 2022 — Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy says he’s prepared to sue the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency if it blocks the development of over 300 miles of Alaska-owned land.

EPA Region 10, which covers Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and hundreds of Tribal Nations, recommended the agency finalize its decision to prohibit development of the Pebble deposit in the Bristol Bay area, the governor said. The EPA has 60 days to make a final determination.

The governor said he was concerned it could set a “dangerous” precedent by laying the foundation that unelected officials could stop the state from doing development projects in areas with wetlands and fish-bearing streams.

Read the full article at The Center Square

The EPA is now one step away from a veto that would ban Pebble mine

December 6, 2022 — Federal regulators are one step away from action that would protect the Bristol Bay watershed and crush the dreams of those who want to see a mine developed to extract ore from the massive Pebble deposit in Southwest Alaska.

Casey Sixkiller, the Region 10 administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency, on Thursday announced he sent a recommendation to EPA headquarters to protect the area by vetoing the proposed mine.

“If affirmed by EPA’s Office of Water during the fourth and final step, this action would help protect salmon fishery areas that support world-class commercial and recreational fisheries, and that have sustained Alaska Native communities for thousands of years, supporting a subsistence-based way of life for one of the last intact wild salmon-based cultures in the world,” he said in a written statement announcing the action.

The announcement is the latest in a long string of setbacks for the Canadian-owned company that wants to mine gold and copper from the Pebble deposit.

Read the full article at KTOO

EPA proposes restrictions to block proposed Alaska mine

December 3, 2022 — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday proposed restrictions that would block plans for a copper and gold mine in Alaska’s Bristol Bay region that is home to the world’s largest sockeye salmon run.

A statement from the regional EPA office said discharges of dredged or fill material into the waters of the U.S. within the proposed Pebble Mine footprint in southwest Alaska would “result in unacceptable adverse effects on salmon fishery areas.”

“This action would help protect salmon fishery areas that support world-class commercial and recreational fisheries, and that have sustained Alaska Native communities for thousands of years, supporting a subsistence-based way of life for one of the last intact wild salmon-based cultures in the world,” regional EPA administrator Casey Sixkiller said in a statement.

Read the full at the Associated Press

EPA takes next step on Bristol Bay protection

December 3, 2022 — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency made a key move Dec. 1 toward prohibiting development of the proposed Pebble Mine in Alaska’s Bristol Bay watershed – one more step toward a “final determination” by the agency that would block the mine.

“If affirmed by EPA’s Office of Water, this action would help protect salmon fishery areas that support world-class commercial and recreational fisheries and that have sustained Alaska Native communities for thousands of years, supporting a subsistence-based way of life for one of the last intact wild salmon-based cultures in the world,” said Casey Sixkiller, EPA’s Region 10 administrator, in a statement announcing his recommendation to agency leadership.

Sixkiller transmitted a recommended determination “to prohibit and restrict the use of certain waters in Alaska’s Bristol Bay watershed as disposal sites for certain discharges of dredged or fill material associated with developing the Pebble Deposit.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

The bottom of the Bering and Chukchi seas could become too warm for some important species

December 1, 2022 — There is danger lurking on the floor of the Bering and Chukchi seas for mussels, snails, clams, worms and other cold-water invertebrates, according to a new study led by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists.

If climate change continues its current trajectory, the Bering and Chukchi seafloor areas will be too warm for those creatures by the end of the century.

In turn, that means trouble for walruses and other marine species. Snails and mussels are particularly important to commercially harvested fish like halibut and yellowfin sole, along with being prey for the Pacific walruses that gather in the summer in the northern Bering and southern Chukchi seas. The Bering Sea is part of the North Pacific Ocean south of the Bering Strait that separates Alaska from Russia, while the Chukchi Sea is part of the Arctic Ocean just north of the strait.

Read the full article at Anchorage Daily News

ALASKA: Board of Fisheries to consider 15 options to protect Bristol Bay’s Nushagak king salmon runs

December 1, 2022 — The Alaska Department of Fish and Game published a draft plan last week to address the struggling Nushagak king salmon run.

At the statewide Bristol Bay finfish meeting this week, the Board of Fisheries will decide which of those tools to put into an action plan. There could be significant restrictions to fishing in the Nushagak District, and that could have widespread impacts on the entire fishery.

The Nushagak River is on the west side of the commercial fishery. It’s the last place in Bristol Bay where the state still counts king salmon. In recent years, sockeye runs have boomed while king runs have dropped. That’s created a problem for managers, who are tasked with providing fishing opportunity for sockeye and controlling that escapement while also preserving the kings.

The plan organizes potential actions into three sections: commercial, sport and subsistence.

The actions range from continuing management under the status quo to closing the fishery until a certain date. The department lists the benefits and downsides of each action. The commercial fishing division says several of its recommendations could protect kings but that fishermen would lose out economically. It also says some actions could push fishermen into other districts in the fishery.

In October, the state designated Nushagak king salmon as a stock of concern because it has failed to meet the in-river goal of 95,000 fish for five of the last six years. This action plan is the result of that listing. If the king salmon run meets its minimum escapement goal for three years in a row and is expected to continue, the department can remove the designation.

The public will have the chance to weigh in on the plan during the Board of Fish meeting, which started Tuesday at the Dena’ina Center in Anchorage. The meeting is also livestreamed.

Read the full article at Alaska Public Media

Alaska commercial fishing industry goes 1 year without a fatality

November 30, 2022 — For the second time ever, Alaska went a year with zero fatalities in its commercial fishing industry.

The U.S. Coast Guard reported that there were no operational fatalities from Oct. 1, 2021 to Sept. 30, 2022 in Alaska’s commercial fishing industry. An operational fatality is when someone dies during the operation of a vessel at sea, including from causes like drowning, lost vessels or accidents, among other causes. This is only the second time Alaska recorded a year without a death in the commercial fishing sector; the first year was in 2015. However, the fatality rate in the industry has been on a steep downward trend for the last few decades.

Scott Wilwert, the commercial fishing vessel safety coordinator for the U.S. Coast Guard’s 17th District, which covers Alaska, said it seems to be uncommon for an entire Coast Guard district to clock zero fatalities. Some of the other districts, which cover all the coastal waters of the U.S. including the Great Lakes and some inland navigable waterways, may fluctuate, but given the size of Alaska’s fishing industry, going a whole year with no deaths is especially impressive.

“I’m almost 100% sure that nationally we’ve never had a zero year,” he said. “For (the 17th district) to have a zero-fatality year, it’s significant given the number of (full-time fishermen) we have going out there on the water.”

Commercial fishing was historically one of the most dangerous industries in Alaska. As recently as the 1990s, dozens of fishermen would die every year from causes including drowning, machinery accidents or vessel sinkings. From 1980-1988, an average of 31 fishermen died every year. From 1990-1999, there were 210 operational fatalities among Alaska’s commercial fishermen.

Since then, efforts to improve safety procedures, education and fisheries management have helped bring that number down significantly. From 2000-2010, 108 fishermen died, about half the number in the previous decade. From 2011–2020, that figure dropped again to 63. In the last two years, the Coast Guard has recorded only three operational fatalities.

Read the full article at Anchorage Daily News