Saving Seafood

ALASKA: Contamination safeguards of transboundary mining questioned

December 4, 2025 — Reports of mine tailings dams leaching toxicants into salmon-rich transboundary waterways flowing into Southeast Alaska are raising concerns of fishermen, tribes, First Nations, and communities on both sides of the Alaska-British Columbia border.

According to Salmon Beyond Borders and the Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association (ALFA) the administration of Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy has put the risk of transboundary mining contamination of shared rivers at greater risk a decade after the Alaska and government of British Columbia signed a Memorandum of Understanding about Canadian mining on these transboundary rivers flowing into Alaska.

“For eight years the Dunleavy administration has allowed ongoing and new pollution from B.C. transboundary mines to go unaddressed and for B.C. to skirt accountability for commitments outlined in state-provincial agreements,” said Breanna Walker, director of Salmon Beyond Borders, in a statement issued on Nov. 25.

“Alaska’s fisheries are increasingly at risk from British Columbia’s transboundary mines,” said Linda Behnken, executive director of ALFA. “We rely on both state and federal governments to negotiate meaningful protection for Alaska waterways and fisheries.  In the absence of meaningful action our fish, fisheries and fishing communities are vulnerable.”

State of Alaska officials say they are in fact very engaged with British Columbia through the Transboundary Bilateral Working Group. Sam Dapcevich, special assistant to the DEC commissioner, said in an email on Nov. 26 that “Alaska also continues to advocate for cleanup of the Tulsequah Chief mine.  DEC is fully engaged and working with our B.C. counterparts on activity awareness and status of projects,” he said.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

ALASKA: Pebble Mine, halted by EPA order, gets support from national development groups

December 2, 2025 — Developers’ efforts to overturn the cancellation of a vast gold and copper mine planned for southwest Alaska are getting a boost from national mining and pro-business groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

On Nov. 24 and Nov. 25, the Chamber and the National Mining Association filed separate friend-of-the-court briefs in the lawsuit brought by the developers of the proposed Pebble Mine against the Environmental Protection Agency, which vetoed the mine.

Neither group has intervened in the case against the EPA, but the briefs represent the groups’ support for the proposed mine and offer legal arguments that Judge Sharon Gleason could consider as she debates whether to move the project forward.

In 2023, the EPA invoked a rarely used “veto” clause of the Clean Water Act to say that there was no way that the proposed Pebble Mine could be developed without significant harm to the environment. The large mineral deposit is located at the headwaters of Bristol Bay, the most abundant sockeye salmon fishery in the world.

The administration of Gov. Mike Dunleavy, which supports the project, and the proposed mine’s developers, filed separate lawsuits in federal court to overturn the rejection, as did two Native corporations that work as contractors for the developers. Those cases have since been combined.

Read the full article at Alaska Public Media

ALASKA: Alaska governor vetoes legislation providing funding for low-interest commercial fishing loans

July 23, 2025 — Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy vetoed a bill that would help provide lower interest loans to commercial fishers, claiming the state could not afford to pay for the investment amidst what he called a revenue crisis.

Alaska Senate Bill 156 would have provided USD 3.7 million (EUR 3.1 million) to the Commercial Fishing and Agriculture Bank (CFAB) to offer low interest rates on commercial fishing loans. The legislation was recommended by the Joint Legislative Taskforce Evaluating Alaska’s Seafood Industry, which claimed that the CFAB had lost loan volume due to low interest commercial fishing loans created by the state government in 2024. SB 156 would fix that by providing funding to help CFAB match those low interest rates and then pay back the investment at a later date.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

ALASKA: Alaska legislators oppose Governor’s fish farming proposal

February 26, 2025 — Two prominent members of the Alaska House of Representatives have announced their opposition to Governor Mike Dunleavy’s proposal to lift the state’s 35-year old ban on fish farming.

Speaker of the House Bryce Edgmon, I-Dillingham, and House Rules Committee Chair Louise Stutes, R-Kodiak, issued a joint statement on Monday, voicing their concerns that the bill would not benefit the state’s commercial fishing industry. Without their support, House Bill 111, which seeks to permit the farming of certain types of fish is unlikely to progress through the legislature, according to Alaska Beacon.

“Alaska’s commercial fishing industry, our coastal communities, and fishing families across the state are suffering through historically poor market conditions, inconsistent returns, and unfair trade practices,” the legislators wrote in their statement. “Make no mistake, the industry will recover; however, lifting a ban on freshwater finfish farming sends the wrong signal, at the wrong time. It also erodes the spirit of the current ban and provides a foot in the door for possible salmon farming in Alaska.”

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

ALASKA: Alaska requests federal relief for 2024 fisheries disasters

February 26, 2025 — The U.S. state of Alaska has requested millions of dollars in financial relief from the federal government to compensate fishers and related businesses for lost revenue from the state’s struggling salmon fisheries.

In his request for a fishery disaster determination from the U.S. Department of Commerce, Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy said the low salmon runs across the state could be devastating for local fishers and communities who depend on revenue from the fisheries.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

ALASKA: Speaker Edgmon, Rep. Stutes issue statement against Dunleavy’s fish farm bill

February 26, 2025 — Speaker Bryce Edgmon and Rep. Louise Stutes have come out strongly against Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s bill that would allow a limited amount of fish farming in Alaska.

Last Friday, Governor Mike Dunleavy introduced House Bill 111, legislation aimed at reversing Alaska’s absolute ban on fish farms. The bill has sparked immediate debate among lawmakers and stakeholders in the state’s fishing industry.

Under current law, Alaska prohibits fin fish farming, except for some nonprofit salmon hatcheries. HB 111 seeks to change that by granting the commissioner of the Department of Fish and Game, in consultation with the Commissioner of the Department of Conservation, the authority to permit the cultivation and sale of certain fin fish in inland, closed-system bodies of water.

Read the full article at Must Read Alaska

ALASKA: Dunleavy’s bill to legalize fish farms seen as flaky by many lawmakers, interest groups

February 25, 2025 — A bill by Gov. Mike Dunleavy allowing fish farms in Alaska, which has banned them for the past 35 years, is getting a little bit of misunderstanding and a whole lot of opposition from legislators and interest groups, including some of his closest political allies.

House Bill 111 would allow inland farms for species such as tilapia, catfish and carp — but not for salmon, although some opponents of the bill are focusing on that species in their comments. In response, Dunleavy released a six-minute video on his YouTube channel Monday night defending his proposal.

“This bill does not allow the farming of salmon,” he said at the start of the video. “That is an iconic Alaskan species of fish, the five species of salmon. It also won’t allow Atlantic salmon to be grown in Alaska.”

“It allows mom-and-pop operations, families — whether you’re you’re in a city, you’re in a you’re in on the Kenai Fairbanks Matsu, or remotely — it allows you to legally be able to grow, for example, rainbow trout or Dolly Varden which, right now, there is no commercial fishery on that. There is no competition in terms of competing with our wild-caught salmon. But it will allow people to grow these, these, these fish in livestock tanks in their garage or livestock tanks out back.”

Read the full article at Juneau Empire

ALASKA: Alaska governor proposes lifting state’s longtime ban on fish farms

February 24, 2025 — Gov. Mike Dunleavy on Friday introduced a bill that would partially reverse Alaska’s 35-year-old ban on fish farms. House Bill 111 was referred to the House Fisheries Committee for consideration.

If signed into law, HB 111 wouldn’t allow salmon farming, but it would allow the farming of “any bony fish belonging to the osteichthyes class.”

That includes things like tilapia, catfish or carp — the world’s most widely farmed fish. Any farmed fish would have to be sterile, unable to reproduce if they escape into the wild. They would also have to be contained by an escape-proof barrier.

Fish farms would be subject to regulation by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and subject to oversight by the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation.

Alaska already has a significant and growing number of shellfish farms.

Read the full article at the Alaska Beacon

ALASKA: Bycatch task force works to refine mission ahead of November deadline

February 17, 2022 — The governor’s task force to review the effect of bycatch in Alaska fisheries is working to organize against its tight timeline for submitting recommendations to state and federal policymakers. It also has to balance commercial and subsistence interests.

Bycatch is when fishing vessels catch something they’re not targeting. It could be tanner crab caught in a black cod pot, or halibut scooped up in a pollock trawl net. It’s been an incendiary issue in Alaska’s fisheries for decades. Now, as stocks of crab, salmon and halibut decline, trawl fisheries have come under fire for their role, which represents the vast majority of incidental catch in and around Alaska.

The governor’s office took notice. Gov. Mike Dunleavy established a task force to review bycatch late last year with a deadline of November to submit its recommendations.

But during that time, the Alaska Bycatch Review Task Force also has to establish its own priorities, break into subcommittees, and decide what it’s going to focus on before its mandate expires in just nine months. And there’s a lot of information to sort through already as it plays catch-up.

Read the full story at KSTK