Saving Seafood

Seafood companies kept COVID-19 from infecting Alaskans. Now they’re trying to keep the virus out of their plants.

July 27, 2020 — This spring, as Alaska hunkered down and kept COVID-19 rates low, residents of the state’s fishing towns raised strong objections to the arrival of thousands of fishermen and seasonal plant workers, fearful that the visitors could bring the virus with them.

Available state data appears to show that strict state and local mandates, plus tight restrictions imposed by seafood companies, ended up stopping those visitors from spreading the virus. The Bristol Bay Borough, Alaska’s salmon hub, had just one resident case of the virus through Monday.

And now, as infection rates rise among the Alaska public, the dynamic has flipped: It’s the seafood companies that have to protect their workers from Alaska residents.

Many of Alaska’s processing plants, particularly in Bristol Bay, are staffed exclusively by seasonal workers who live on company property. And this year, companies operating in the region have avoided major outbreaks by barring workers from leaving their property.

Read the full story at KTOO

Rapid Virus Tests Headed for Alaska’s Fishing Industry

July 24, 2020 — Alaska will receive rapid testing machines and kits to help test for Covid-19 the thousands of workers who travel to the state each summer to work in the fishing industry, according to the General Services Administration website.

The Department of Health and Human Services aAlaska will receive rapid testing machines and kits to help test for Covid-19 the thousands of workers who travel to the state each summer to work in the fishing industrywarded Cepheid Inc. a $1.68 million contract to provide these machines and kits. The Cepheid machines are used for point-of-care tests—typically done in hospitals and urgent care clinics at the bedside of patients—and provide results in 45 minutes. The tests don’t require samples to be sent to a lab.

There have been some fishing-related outbreaks in Alaska, with 85 crew members aboard a fishing ship testing positive, 96 workers at an OBI Seafoods processing plant, and 9 cases linked to an Alaska Glacier Seafoods processing plant, all in July. There were also outbreaks at two other OBI Seafoods plants with 12 and three workers testing positive.

Read the full story at Bloomberg Law

Connecticut Lawmakers Push For Expanded Assistance to Shellfish Farmers in Next COVID-19 Economic Relief Package

July 24, 2020 — The following was released by The Office of Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT):

U.S. Senators Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and U.S. Representatives John Larson (CT-01), Rosa DeLauro (CT-03), Jim Himes (CT-04), and Jahana Hayes (CT-05), joined a letter led by U.S. Congressman Joe Courtney (CT-02) to House and Senate leadership to urge them to provide support for shellfish and aquaculture farmers as they negotiate the next COVID-19 economic relief package. In a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Minority Leader Charles Schumer, the Connecticut delegation asked that $500 million be provided in fisheries assistance, which would include shellfish farmers.

The lawmakers asked that the new funding be specifically targeted towards producers who were ineligible, or did not receive sufficient assistance from the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program (CFAP), or from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Section 12005 funds. They note that many aquaculture businesses in Connecticut, including all molluscan shellfish and marine algae, were not made eligible by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for CFAP assistance, and that available assistance for this industry from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) amounts to only $450,000.

“In our State of Connecticut, fisheries and aquaculture producers will receive $1.8 million in total funds from NOAA, divided between commercial fishing, recreational fishing, and wholesale and shellfish aquaculture. After these resources have been distributed, the entire shellfish industry in Connecticut will receive approximately $450,00 in assistance, a woefully inadequate sum which will be spread thinly throughout our State’s $30 million industry.

“Providing $500 million in additional NOAA fisheries assistance targeted to the most affected industries – especially shellfish – will be a lifeline to our nation’s shellfish farmers during this economically challenging time.”

The delegation went on to urge the House and Senate leaders to provide additional funding for USDA’s Section 32 purchasing program, with a focus on aiding the shellfish aquaculture sector:

“[…] USDA’s Section 32 program to purchase surplus commodities has provided significant assistance to agricultural enterprises to prevent steep price declines. We believe that shellfish aquaculture are an appropriate candidate to this purchase program. USDA has failed to avail Section 32 purchases to the shellfish industry, and we request additional funds for Section 32 purchases, with an emphasis on sectors that did not receive a purchase thus far in 2020, including shellfish aquaculture.

“We urge you to support this targeted assistance in any future COVID-19 package.”

To read the delegation’s full letter, click here.

A shift in who’s involved in Alaska seafood industry outbreaks means virus may be harder to contain

July 24, 2020 — Alaska’s three largest coronavirus outbreaks involve workers in the seafood industry, a sector that prompted concern as the the summer’s fishing seasons started in June but for months seemed to be under control.

Now the outbreaks have changed.

The new outbreaks come with “high attack rates” and a harder-to-contain demographic: a mix of out-of-state workers and residents who go from working close together in processing plants to friends and family at home and the community at large, state epidemiologist Dr. Joe McLaughlin said Thursday.

As the season started, thousands of seafood workers flowed into the state. Seafood companies filed plans promising to test workers multiple times and quarantine them, given the potential that outbreaks on vessels and in processing plants could overwhelm fragile state and local health care systems.

Early on, halting transmission from infected seafood workers was “pretty easy,” McLaughlin said at a media briefing. Some workers were halted by positive COVID-19 tests before they even arrived. Others entered an immediate 14-day quarantine when they arrived in Alaska.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

Florida lobster fishermen hope for normal season

July 24, 2020 — Poor production, lingering effects from previous hurricanes, and the COVID-19 pandemic knocked Florida spiny lobster fishermen down, but not out during the 2019-20 harvest season. Many are gearing up and looking forward to August’s opening.

“All my fishermen are getting ready. We expect a normal year,” said Gary Graves, operator of Keys Fisheries in Marathon. “My fear this year is storms. The water temperature is so hot.” The Florida Keys stayed out of harm’s way during last year’s hurricane season, but Graves said lobster production was down about 35 percent, possibly because of lower production in the Caribbean basin, where most of Florida’s crustaceans are spawned.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

US Chamber of Commerce, other industry groups sue Trump administration over foreign worker limits

July 24, 2020 — The U.S. Chamber of Commerce was joined by three industry groups and a technology company in a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and State Department regarding the actions of the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump to curb foreign workers from entering the country, primarily via the H-1B visa program.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday, 21 July, in the U.S. District Court in San Francisco, California, comes a month after Trump announced he was temporarily suspending several work visa programs as high unemployment rates due to the coronavirus pandemic left millions of Americans out of work.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Massachusetts Lawmakers Pen Letter to NOAA Over Observer Waivers

July 24, 2020 — The following is an excerpt from a letter addressed to NOAA Administrators from Massachusetts Legislators. Lawmakers in Massachusetts have requested the extending of At-Sea Monitoring Waivers in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dear Under Secretary Jacobs, Mr. Oliver, Mr. Pentony, and Dr. Hare:

Thank you for extending the waiver for the requirement of At-Sea Monitoring (ASM) in the Northeast groundfishery through July 31, 2020. This action was critical to protecting the health and safety of the men and women in the Massachusetts commercial fishing industry,

While COVID-19 trends in the Northeast have been generally positive, many coastal areas continue to see cases rising, including Suffolk, Bristol, and Barnstable counties here in Massachusetts, all of Rhode Island, and Virginia Beach County, Virginia. As Senator Tarr’s June 30, 2020 letter to you, the commercial fishing industry remains among the most vulnerable to COVID-19 due to the inherent conditions of their working environment at sea. Furthermore, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have warned that this fall and winter will likely see a secondary outbreak of COVID-19.

Read the full letter here

Ørsted Establishes Virtual Port Access Hours for Mid-Atlantic Fishing Community

July 23, 2020 — With traditional face-to-face meetings and individual forms of contact reduced due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Ørsted U.S. Offshore Wind has been offering virtual port hours to answer questions and field comments from the recreational and commercial fishing community about the company’s offshore wind projects in the Mid-Atlantic region.

According to a release, interested parties may reach a member of the Ørsted marine affairs team by calling 1 (213) 458-8466 ID: 5690795#, on Monday, Wednesday, or Friday, between the hours of 8 a.m. and 12 p.m. 

Ørsted has assembled the largest and most proactive marine affairs team of any offshore wind developer in the U.S. The company seeks to minimize disruption of fishing activities during all phases of development while focusing on access and safe navigation for vessels during wind farm operations.

Read the full story at the Cape May County Herald

Alaska fishing communities feared getting COVID-19 from industry. They haven’t.

July 23, 2020 — As this year’s summer fishing season approached, local leaders across Alaska issued dire warnings about the thousands of plant workers and fishermen headed to their communities.

They feared the workers could bring COVID-19 in with them, quickly overwhelming small local hospitals and clinics. In Bristol Bay, home to the world’s largest sockeye salmon fishery, some residents called on Gov. Mike Dunleavy to cancel the season, citing the region’s traumatic experience with the 1918 pandemic flu, which killed at least 30% of its population.

In the month since the Bristol Bay season kicked off, some seafood companies have experienced isolated cases among workers in their processing plants. And other outbreaks have infected dozens of seafood workers elsewhere in the state — most recently, 85 crew members on board a Bering Sea factory trawler.

But midway through summer, with the Bristol Bay season winding down, seafood company executives and public health authorities can point to a remarkable fact: The industry has been almost completely successful in keeping its seasonal workers and fishermen from infecting Alaska residents.

“We haven’t seen any evidence of jumping the fence from the seafood industry to the community,” Bryan Fisher, a top state emergency response official, said in an interview earlier this month.

In the Bristol Bay Borough, home to the region’s largest concentration of fish processing plants, there have been dozens of cases of COVID-19 among nonresident seafood workers — but just one case among residents.

Read the full story at KTOO

Foodservice Associations, NFI Praise PLUS Act Aimed at COVID-19 Relief for Distributors

July 23, 2020 — Representatives Darin LaHood (R-IL) and Jimmy Panetta (D-CA) introduced the Providing Liquidity for Uncollectible Sales (PLUS) Act. The legislation, which provides a tax credit to offset uncollectable debt incurred due to COVID-19 shutdowns, received support from the United Fresh Produce Association, the International Food Distributors Association (IFDA), and National Fisheries Institute (NFI).

Shutdowns lead to significant losses in the foodservice distribution sector as restaurants and other entities were unable to pay distributors for products. According to the NFI, these losses piled up to over $12 billion, with seafood distributors noting that $2.2 billion in debt owed to them, produce noted a $5 billion tab and broadline distributors also saw a $5 billion number.

Read the full story at Seafood News