Saving Seafood

Trump signs Coast Guard bill into law, includes Jones Act waiver for America’s Finest

December 6, 2018 — When Dakota Creek Industries took America’s Finest out for its first sea trial on Tuesday 4 December, it looked like the 264-foot vessel was taking a victory lap.

The Anacortes, Washington-based shipbuilder held an event that day to celebrate the Jones Act waiver elected officials were able to get for the processor-trawler. Later in the day, U.S. President Donald Trump signed the Coast Guard Authorization Act, which contained the labor provision, into law.

The process itself is not quite finished. The Coast Guard will get 30 days to review information to make sure neither Dakota Creek nor Fishermen’s Finest – the company that commissioned construction of the USD 75 million (EUR 65.9 million) vessel – committed a deliberate violation of the Jones Act in building the ship.

Coast Guard officials did not return a request for comment.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

House passes US Coast Guard bill with Jones Act exemption for America’s Finest

November 29, 2018 — The US House of Representatives has passed a US Coast Guard reauthorization bill that includes provisions allowing Alaska’s Amendment 80 fleet to finally gain the use of one of its newest vessels while also protecting shrimpers in the Gulf of Mexico from being fined by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for cleaning off their decks.

The Frank LoBiondo Coast Guard Authorization Act of 2018, S. 140, was passed by a unanimous voice vote late Tuesday, moving the two-year, $10 billion bill named after a retiring New Jersey congressman to president Donald Trump’s desk for a signature. The action happened with just a few weeks to spare in the 115th Congress.

The legislation passed the US Senate back on Nov. 14 by a 94-6 tally, as reported by Undercurrent News.

Included in S. 140 is a long-anticipated Jones Act waiver for America’s Finest, a 264-foot catcher-processor built by Dakota Creek Industries in Anacortes, Washington, for Kirkland, Washington-based Fishermen’s Finest at a cost of about $75 million. More than 7% of the ship’s hull contains steel from the Netherlands, which violates the Jones Act requirement that US fishing vessels be made of no more than 1.5% foreign steel.

The provision, which allows Fishermen’s Finest to use the vessel to replace American No. 1, a 39-year-old, 160-foot vessel, was fought for by senator Maria Cantwell and representative Rick Larsen, both Washington state Democrats, with cooperation from senator Dan Sullivan and representative Don Young, both Alaska Republicans

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

US Senate votes to free Fishermen’s Finest from Jones Act purgatory

November 15, 2018 — It’s been years since Kirkland, Washington-based commercial harvester Fishermen’s Finest commissioned Dakota Creek Industries, in nearby Anacortes, at a cost of $74 million, to build it a new, 264-foot catcher processor to work the seas of Alaska. To both companies’ misfortunes, the vessel was constructed with more than 7% of its steel coming from the Netherlands, a violation of the 1920 Jones Act, which allows vessels to contain no more than 1.5% foreign steel.

After Wednesday’s vote by the US Senate, however, that vessel – America’s Finest – is just one step away from being freed from its moors and able to do its job.

The upper chamber voted 94-6 to pass S. 140, a bill used as a vehicle to reauthorize the US Coast Guard. Most importantly, tucked deep inside the bill, in section 835, is a provision fought for by senator Maria Cantwell, a state of Washington Democrat, that would provide an exemption to the Jones Act for Fishermen’s Finest.

“I’m a very strong supporter of the Jones Act and believe it is important that we continue to have the Jones Act in the future,” Cantwell said after the vote. “I also believe that we were able to work with a solution to save good family-wage jobs at the Dakota Creek Shipyard and appreciate my colleagues working on the incorporation of that language.”

Five of the six senators to vote against the bill were Democrats: Ben Cardin (Maryland), Kirstin Gillibrand (New York), Kamala Harris (California), Chuck Schumer (New York) and Chris Van Hollen (Maryland), Independent Bernie Sanders was also a “nay” vote.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Dakota Creek Industries trying to make things right in eyes of Congress

June 27, 2017 — Dakota Creek Industries owner Mike Nelson and his staff have been looking for ways to appease federal lawmakers following the mistake the company made in building the $75 million fishing vessel America’s Finest.

The mistake — using too much foreign-formed steel in the vessel’s hull — requires a waiver from the U.S. Congress in order for the ship to fish domestically. The waiver would be for the Jones Act, which requires domestic fishing vessels be built in the U.S.

These days, Nelson glances frequently at his cell phone hoping for good news concerning his company’s lobbying efforts in Washington, D.C.

“There could be something new at any moment,” Nelson said.

Dakota Creek has proposed buying a $700,000 cold-forming press machine as one way to make amends for its mistake. That type of machine, which can bend unheated steel, was used overseas to form part of the hull of America’s Finest.

That overseas forming process was what disqualified the vessel from Jones Act certification.

Dakota Creek would give the cold-forming machine to Seattle-based Seaport Steel so that boat builders throughout the region could have access to it, enabling them to build more advanced and more fuel-efficient hulls.

The purchase of the machine could help the embattled shipyard and Fishermen’s Finest, which contracted to have the ship built, get on the good side of lawmakers and the American Maritime Partnership (AMP), a powerful coalition that represents the U.S. maritime industry.

Read the full story at the Skagit Valley Herald

F/V America’s Finest, Largest Catcher Processor Built in US in 30 Years, May Need Jones Act Waiver

May 24, 2017 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Fishermen’s Finest Inc. and the Dakota Creek Shipyard in Anacortes, WA, have run into a Jones Act issue with the construction of F/V America’s Finest, which is the largest catcher processor to be constructed in the US in nearly 30 years.

Fishermen’s Finest operates F/V Amerca No. 1 and the F/V Interprid.  These two catcher-processors are part of the Amendment 80 fleet, focusing on flatfish in the Bering Sea.  Fishermen’s Finest recently celebrated their 30th anniversary, and with the America No. 1 they were the pioneer American company producing H&G flatfish from the Bering Sea.

The flatfish fleet, along with the cod longlining fleet, has seen a series of new vessel investments.  The O’Hara corporation, also fishing flatfish, took delivery of the new freezer trawler Araho in January of this year.  That vessel is 194 feet, and takes a crew of 54.  It was built by Eastern Shipbuilding in Panama City, Florida.

The F/V America’s Finest, scheduled for delivery in November 2017, is a larger version of similar design, being a Skipsteknisk AS (ST-116) vs the 115 model which was built for O’Hara.  The America’s Finest is 261 ft vs. the 194 feet of the F/V ArahoA, and is being built by the Dakota Creek shipyard. It is about 86% complete, and is scheduled for delivery in November 2017.  It has 49 births.

The issue involves some very complex rules under the Jones Act for what constitutes American built vessels. The Jones Act prohibits vessels not built in the US from participating in either US fisheries within the EEZ, or in the coastal trade between US ports.

Dakota Creek, according to documents circulated industry and congressional offices and provided to SeafoodNews, made an inadvertent mistake in interpreting the regulations.

The US Coast Guard allows the use of foreign steel in basic hull materials for US vessels.  However, they only allow steel sheets, plates, beams and bars that are not fabricated or worked on in any way abroad before being imported.  If a foreign worker so much as drills a hole in a plate, that disqualifies it, and it becomes a fabricated major component.

Foreign fabricated components are limited to 1.5% of the vessels total steel weight.  If they exceed this level, the vessel is disqualified as a US-built vessel.

Dakota Creek bought some hull shell plating that was subject to bending and cutting in Holland, which the company did to take advantage of new cold forming technology for those sections of the bow and stern that used precisely shaped designs to reduce drag and fuel consumption.  That technology is not yet available in the US.

Dakota Creek’s representatives say they thought this cold forming technology would be allowed because the bow and stern plates were subject to a great deal of additional cutting bending, fitting, beveling and other work all done in the US at Seaport Steel. It turns out that Dakota Creek’s understanding was not correct as per the Coast Guard.

The Coast Guard has calculated that the percentage of fabricated foreign steel to be greater than 1.5%, because of a small piece of work done on many separate plates.  This is the case even though the total weight of foreign steel is less than 7%, which is the total allowance by the Coast Guard.

If the vessel cannot get a waiver, it cannot be used in a US fishery.  Such an outcome would force a sale of the vessel to foreign interests, most likely Russia, at a very steep discount, and would likely bankrupt both Fishermen’s Finest which has already paid most of the cost of the vessel, estimated to be between $60 and $80 million, and the Dakota Creek Shipyard.

Both companies are major employers and vital to the economy of Washington State.

The waiver is something that must be granted by Congress through a legislative fix.  Draft language is already being circulated for insertion an a suitable bill that would allow the vessel to be completed and fish in the US fishery as planned.

The vessel meets all other requirements for US fishing vessels, having been built and assembled in Anacortes, Washington, with 375 people working on the vessel over the past three years, spawning  another 1200 indirect jobs.

Lawyers believe that the only two options are the grant of a Congressional waiver, or a sale of the vessel to a foreign buyer at a loss that would be catastrophic for Washington State and the US Fishing Industry.

Undoubtedly Dakota Creek will have questions to answer, although this might be simply an embarrassing mistake. It seems to us that granting a waiver is the correct and only suitable choice, and we expect that view will also be widely shared in the West Coast fishing industry and the Amendment 80 fleet, once the full details are known.

The waiver would also allow Dakota Creek to complete a commitment to Seaport Steel to bring the new cold forming technology to the US, where it will benefit future vessel construction.

Dakota Creek has requested industry and congressional support for this waiver.

This story originally appeared on SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

How Foreign Crews Are Able To Work Aboard US Fishing Boats

September 22, 2016 — Foreign crew members reportedly working in slave-like conditions for monthly wages as low as $350 would not have found their way onto Hawaii’s longline fishing boats without an exemption carved into the law almost 30 years ago, according to longtime industry leaders, federal officials and government records.

Today, almost all the vessels in the longline fleet have entirely foreign crews.

It wasn’t always that way.

As the Cold War was coming to an end in the late 1980s, there was a push to “Americanize” the country’s fishing fleets by instituting requirements similar to those imposed under the Jones Act on vessels engaged in coastwise trade — namely, that U.S.-flagged ships be built in the U.S. and crewed by U.S. citizens.

Congress passed a bipartisan bill to that effect, and President Ronald Reagan signed it in 1988 as the Commercial Fishing Industry Vessel Anti-Reflagging Act.

But the legislation exempted commercial fishermen fishing for highly migratory species, such as tuna and swordfish, from the law’s requirement that U.S. citizens comprise at least 75 percent of each crew.

At about the same time, the longline industry — then comprised of just a few dozen vessels — and more established purse seiners were leaving the West Coast to set up shop in Hawaii and Pacific Island territories. 

They left because of depleted stocks and, in the case of purse seiners, pressure to stop killing so many dolphins. 

The purse seiners were setting their huge nets, up to 500 yards deep, around schools of tuna near pods of dolphins. It created a national controversy that led to new restrictions and “dolphin-safe” tuna.

The longline boats, which catch fish by extending miles of line with thousands of hooks, initially remained strictly crewed by U.S. citizens. This changed as the fleet grew and it became harder to find local residents willing to work on the boats. Fuel prices also soared after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, adding to operational costs.

This spurred the longliners to take advantage of the foreign-crew exemption that had been pushed by members of Congress from the West Coast who were looking after the purse seiners’ interests, said Jim Cook, who co-owns several longline fishing vessels, a marine supply store and fish restaurant at Pier 38 in Honolulu. 

“It slowly infiltrated our fleet,” he said.

The longline industry now includes roughly 140 vessels, nearly all of which are ported in Honolulu, and most have entirely foreign crews, according to industry leaders and federal officials.

Read the full story at the Honolulu Civil Beat