Saving Seafood

ALASKA: Bristol Bay Bracing for a Season Like None Other

June 4, 2020 — For millions of wild sockeye salmon returning to Bristol Bay in 2020 it will be the traditional journey, but for thousands of people coming to harvest and process the world’s largest run of red salmon it will be a fishing season like none other.

Veteran harvesters like Robert Heyano of Dillingham, said he plans to fish the Nushagak area of Bristol Bay, just as he has since he was a boy on board his dad’s drift gillnetter. “I’m not looking forward to it this year, not with this virus,” he said. “I’d like to see the fishery conducted in a safe manner.”

Heyano said he had not heard fishermen say outright that they would not fish this year because of COVID-19. “It all depends how safe they feel,” he said. “If we could focus our energy on the safest practices that would go a long way,” he said.

Read the full story at Fishermen’s News

EPA opts not to delay controversial Alaska mine for now

June 1, 2020 — A top official at the Environmental Protection Agency informed the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Alaska late Thursday that the EPA would not formally object at this point to the proposed Pebble Mine, a massive gold and copper deposit where mining could damage the world’s largest sockeye salmon fishery.

Christopher Hladick, the EPA’s regional administrator for Alaska and the Pacific Northwest, wrote to the Alaska district engineer, Col. David Hibner, that the agency still has serious concerns about the plan, including that dredging for the open-pit mine “may well contribute to the permanent loss of 2,292 acres of wetlands and … 105.4 miles of streams.”

But Hladick said the EPA would not elevate the matter to the leadership of the two agencies, which could delay necessary approvals for the project to advance. The EPA “appreciates the Corps’ recent commitment to continue this coordination into the future,” he wrote.

Read the full story at The Washington Post

Alaska’s Controversial Pebble Mine Was Dead. Not Anymore.

May 28, 2020 — The Bristol Bay region in southwest Alaska is home to the world’s largest sockeye salmon run, a resource that brings in $1.5 billion annually and provides a vital food source for thousands of Alaska Native residents who live there.

It’s also home to a vast copper and gold deposit worth an estimated $500 billion, known as the Pebble Deposit. A plan to extract that wealth by building a massive open pit mine at the heart of the environmentally sensitive Bristol Bay watershed has become the environmental fight of the century for Alaska.

FRONTLINE told that story in Alaska Gold, broadcast in 2012, when the mine’s opponents seemed to have won the day.

But the Pebble mine got a new lease on life under the Trump administration, and in late 2017, the Pebble Partnership, the company behind the mine, filed for a permit with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Read the full story at Frontline

Alaskan Salmon Industry Faces Off Against COVID-19

May 20, 2020 — Rich in omega-3 fatty acids, Vitamin D, and antioxidants, sockeye is health food for your heart, brain, eyes, and skin. And given the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s careful management of the fishery, it’s a sustainable resource. In 2018, according to the ADFG, 63 million sockeye returned, and a record 41.9 million of them were netted. Bristol Bay is, by far, the world’s largest sockeye fishery, and the biggest salmon fishery in Alaska. It is a well-tended natural bounty valued at more than $1 billion. Along with the other salmon fisheries in Bristol Bay, it returns an annual $14.7 million to local governments and employs a third of the residents in the largely indigenous communities. Norman Van Vactor, President and CEO of the Bristol Bay Economic Development Corporation (BBEDC), estimates that, all totaled, salmon fishing brings up to $200 million into the region each year.

There are many reasons to feel good about eating Bristol Bay sockeye, but this is 2020, a year that has complicated everything in food. While subsistence salmon fishing is essential to the region’s 6,700 residents, the commercial fishery is operated primarily by outsiders. As of now, there are less than 400 confirmed cases of COVID-19 across Alaska. But as 13,000 fishermen, processors, and other workers from around the world arrive in May for Bristol Bay’s season, which begins in early June, they bring the danger of spreading the virus to isolated communities with few medical resources.

For the locals of Bristol Bay, the possibility of an outbreak engenders a horrifying dèjá vu. “Our people keep saying that we went through this already,” says Alannah Hurley, executive director of United Tribes of Bristol Bay, a consortium of 15 Yup’ik, Den’ina, and Alutiiq tribes representing 80 percent of the region’s inhabitants. She’s referring to the Spanish flu, which arrived in Bristol Bay in 1919, possibly on a cannery ship, and decimated the native population. “A lot of us are descendents. So for native people, the devastation of a pandemic is not an obscure concept,” she said. “We are the people raised by the orphans who survived.”

Read the full story at Food & Wine

Merger of Cooke’s, Ocean Beauty’s Alaskan operations moves forward with BBEDC vote

May 15, 2020 — Talks between Cooke Inc. and Ocean Beauty Seafoods to consolidate their operations in Alaska have advanced with the vote by the board of directors of the Bristol Bay Economic Development Corp. to approve the outline of a deal.

The BBEDC, owns 50 percent of Seattle, Washington-based Ocean Beauty, which operates five processing facilities in Naknek, Alitak, Kodiak, Cordova, and Excursion Inlet.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

In Alaska town, calls to shut down fishing season amid coronavirus fears

May 4, 2020 — Robin Samuelson grew up hearing stories about mass death in his Alaska community, victims of a pandemic so brutal that dogs were found feeding on human bodies.

The 68-year-old’s father-in-law was among the hundreds of children orphaned by the 1918 flu epidemic, which some scholars estimate killed at least 30 percent of the population in Alaska’s Bristol Bay region.

Some locals fear that history could repeat itself unless Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy (R) shuts down the upcoming salmon fishery, which attracts more than 12,000 workers from across the country for a frenetic, two-month season that begins next month.

Dunleavy’s administration has pledged to implement safety measures to prevent the importation of the novel coronavirus, including a mandated two-week quarantine for arriving fishers. But some local officials say they’re not convinced the state can enforce those rules.

“Our streets, they start looking like Fifth Avenue in New York during the summer,” Samuelson said. “It puts you in a real funny mood listening to the stories [about the 1918 pandemic] and what our people had to go through.”

There have been no confirmed infections of the coronavirus in the region, and Alaska has one of the lowest infection rates of any state. It has recorded just 368 cases and nine deaths from covid-19, the disease caused by the virus.

Read the full story at The Washington Post

Fever pitch: Alaska implements new covid-19 mandates for the fishing industry

April 29, 2020 — Strict new rules are now in place for Alaska fishermen and their vessels to protect against and prevent the spread of covid-19 during the 2020 salmon season.

Effective April 24, Gov. Mike Dunleavy provided 11 pages of mandates that specifically apply to those who have not “agreed to operate under a fleet-wide plan submitted by a company, association or entity” representing them.

Developing Vessel Procedures and Performing Symptomatic Crew Assessment in the Midst of COVID-19.

Among other things, each independent skipper must sign a Health Mandate Acknowledgement Form prior to going fishing. They are required to maintain a written or time-stamped electronic log acknowledging that they will comply with the mandates, along with a clear description of which protective plan they are enforcing on their vessel. Skippers also must certify that crew members have been screened upon arrival and that they have completed self-quarantines.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Alaska steps up COVID-19 safety measures ahead of summer salmon season

April 29, 2020 — Governor Mike Dunleavy’s administration released an extensive new health mandate laying out the latest guidelines for Alaska’s upcoming fishing seasons last week, amidst concerns of the spread of COVID-19 in rural areas of the state.

Health Mandate 17 – which went into effect on Friday, 24 April, and which will be reevaluated on 20 May – is designed “to ensure a safe, productive fishing season this year, while still protecting Alaskan communities to the maximum extent possible from the spread of the virus,” according to the document.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

ALASKA: Sole Bristol Bay Health Care Provider Says 2020 Fishing Season Should Remain Closed

April 27, 2020 — With no promises from the State of Alaska or the City of Dillingham to strengthen the health care response to a COVID-19 outbreak this season, the Bristol Bay Area Health Corporation opposes opening the world’s largest salmon fishery “in order to protect the 28 villages [we] serve in the area.”

BBAHC’s statement came just hours before Alaska’s Govenor Mike Dunleavy issued his now nearly daily update on COVID-19 in Alaska. When asked to comment on the statement, Dunleavey reiterated the administrations ongoing discussions with health experts in coastal communities.

Read the full story at Seafood News