Saving Seafood

ALASKA: Trident Seafoods reports 266 total virus cases at Aleutian plant plus small outbreak on vessel in Dutch Harbor

January 29, 2021 — Trident Seafoods is reporting COVID-19 cases among more than a third of the roughly 705 workers at the company’s remote Akutan processing plant, which is North America’s largest.

The company on Thursday reported 266 workers tested positive for the virus this week with nearly all testing complete.

Trident also reported a separate, smaller outbreak aboard one of its three large catcher processor vessels, the 312-foot Island Enterprise.

That vessel arrived in Dutch Harbor on Thursday with two workers exhibiting COVID-19 symptoms, Trident said in a statement. Rapid testing through the night of all 125 people onboard revealed five confirmed cases and two non-positive workers reporting minor symptoms.

Trident officials say they don’t know how either of the outbreaks started. On Monday, Trident temporarily shut down the Akutan plant for at least three weeks. They plan to “re-quarantine” everyone on the Island Enterprise for at least 14 days.

This week, Trident officials said they took the unusual step of stockpiling medical supplies including ventilators in case weather grounds air ambulances. The nearest hospital is hundreds of miles away.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

COVID-19 closes a third Aleutian plant, stranding Bering Sea fishermen at the dock

January 25, 2021 — A third seafood processing plant has shut down in the Aleutian Islands amid a COVID-19 outbreak, threatening to further derail lucrative winter fisheries in the region.

In the Aleutian port town of Unalaska, at least five local boats are stuck at the dock with nowhere to deliver their cod after the shutdown of the Alyeska Seafoods processing plant, according to a crew member on one of them, Tacho Camacho Castillo.

Alyeska closed its plant Friday “based on a cluster of positive cases” identified through “surveillance testing,” the City of Unalaska said in a prepared statement.

“There’s two days and this fish starts to spoil,” Camacho Castillo, a crew member on the 58-foot Lucky Island, said in an interview Friday. “Am I going to be throwing out fish into the ocean? It’s going break my heart, for real, if I throw all this fish away.”

The plant closures are setting off a scramble among fishermen, industry leaders and political officials involved in the Bering Sea cod, crab and pollock fisheries, which are worth more than $1 billion and support thousands of jobs.

Read the full story at KTOO

America’s Fishing Industry Appeals for Help During COVID-19 Shutdown

March 26, 2020 — The leaders of America’s domestic fishing industry have appealed to the Trump administration for help with the severe economic hardship created by the coronavirus epidemic. With consumers stuck at home and restaurants closed, the $100 billion-per-year demand for U.S. fishery products has evaporated overnight, according to the coalition – putting tens of thousands of well-paid jobs at risk. The coalition is calling for about $4 billion in federal assistance to maintain the fishery supply chain until the economy is back on its feet.

“Supply chains cannot be turned on and off like a light switch. Once lost, a supply chain and the infrastructure that supports it can be exceptionally difficult and costly to restart. Failure to act boldly now to preserve our country’s domestic seafood infrastructure will impose far greater costs on our economy and cause permanent damage to our nation’s ability to harvest, farm, process, and distribute seafood products,” the group wrote.

Their request includes:

  • Sustained USDA Section 32 funding at current levels, plus $2 billion for additional Section 32 activity supporting the domestically-produced seafood supply chain. The group asks for normal federal contracting rules to be lifted for these expenditures in order to accelerate disbursement. (Section 32 supports the purchase of food commodities, including fish, using customs tariff receipts.)

Read the full story at The Maritime Executive