Saving Seafood

ALASKA: Trident’s Sand Point plant closed for the winter due to low cod stocks

December 23, 2019 — The precipitous drop in Gulf of Alaska cod recently closed the federal fishery for the upcoming season. Its effects are also being felt by processors who rely on the fish for their winter workload. The Trident Seafoods plant in Sand Point closed last month for the winter, leaving a gaping hole in the city’s budget, and sowing uncertainty about the future.

The city of Sand Point was founded on cod. Settled less than 150 years ago, it’s had a processing plant in some form for nearly a century. This year is the first that the plant, now owned by Trident Seafoods, won’t be processing cod — and that’s because of climate change.

“It’s no fault of the plant at Sand Point, however, there’s not enough fish to process. So for the first time in my life, it’s closed,” Paul Gronholdt, an Aleutians East Borough assembly member testified at the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council meeting earlier this month. “That’s going to be pretty devastating to Sand Point and it’ll hurt the other communities in our region too.”

Read the full story at Alaska Public Media

ALASKA: North Pacific Council Takes Up Amendment 113; Adak Cod Fishery Still Uncertain

October 29, 2019 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Earlier this month, the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council asked for more information on ways Pacific cod could be managed for the community of Adak and its seafood processing plant, which represents about half of the town’s economy.

Amendment 113 to the Magnuson-Stevens Act was rescinded by a federal judge as a result of a lawsuit brought on by representatives of the largely Seattle-based trawl fleet. The judge agreed with the plaintiffs that the Amendment was poorly worded and encouraged the Council to make changes to comply with the Magnuson-Stevens Act and several of its National Standards.

The unanimous motion began the process by calling for a discussion paper “on management options available to promote conservation of [Aleutian Islands] AI Pacific cod and the sustained participation of AI fishing communities.”

The Council wants “an update to the June 2019 discussion paper, including changes to BSAI Amendment 113 to include the modifications approved by the Council in December 2018” as well as an update on the status of the Amendment 113 litigation, and a discussion of how Amendment 113 addresses the MSA’s National Standards, a point in the judges decision that has been contested by the government. The council also directed staff to submit “a thorough examination of options available under MSA 303A for Limited Access Privilege Programs and outside of 303A to meet these objectives.”

Steven Minor, a spokesperson for the Adak plant Golden Harvest Alaska, said the day after the vote, “Yesterday the Council took action to begin the process of restoring Amendment 113.

“We expect the Discussion Paper outlined in the Motion to be brought back at the December Council meeting. If the Council continues to give Amendment 113 priority, we believe that the Discussion Paper will lead to an expedited process similar to the current Mothership package, which could result in A113 being reimplemented by the 2021 season.”

The Mothership package is one of now two issues the Council is currently addressing about cod in the Bering Sea. The other is the BSAI Pacific cod trawl catcher vessel cooperative style-limited access privilege program. The stranded cod in the Gulf of Alaska and Bering Sea was dropped from further discussion.

Opposition to providing the same protections to Adak as the rescinded AM113 does has changed, with two former plaintiffs now dropping their objections. But opposition remains on at least one front: there is less Pacific cod in the eastern Bering Sea than before, and any apportionment from any management program, regardless of who for or where they are located, should reflect that. AM113 set aside 5,000 mt of Pacific cod for Adak when certain conditions were met.

The current owners of the Adak plant have invested millions of dollars in the facility, equipment, and community infrastructure. It was sorely needed over the years when the plant went through a list of owners that included major seafood companies and cooperative entities created by fishermen themselves.

Now they are facing an uncertain future with the fishery starting early next year.  The Council meets next December 2-10, 2019 in Anchorage.

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

ALASKA: Biomass of snow crab in Bering Sea grew slower than expected

September 24, 2019 — Last week’s Crab Plan Team, an advisory group to the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council, heard some good news about increased biomass of mature male snow crab in the US state of Alaska’s Bering Sea, but the survey showed less than what was predicted earlier this year.

The quota for the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands crab fisheries will be set by Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) in mid-October. Alaska’s crab resources are jointly managed by the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and the ADF&G.

There was a “smaller increase in mature male biomass (MMB) of snow crab than projected, but it is still increasing”, noted stock assessment author Cody Szuwalski of NMFS. He and other scientists recommended one of eight assessment models that would result in a preferred MMB of 111.4 metric tons, with an OFL of 54,900t, 85% higher than last year, to the plan team.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

ALASKA: North Pacific Council Restricts Motherships in Bering Sea Trawl Cod Fishery

April 8, 2019 — SEAFOOD NEWS — In a final action that was described as “too fast” and “incomplete” by critics and “difficult and very tough” by members of the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council, the panel reduced the number of vessels that can act as motherships in the Bering Sea trawl cod fishery to only two: the Seafreeze Alaska owned by United States Seafood and the Katie Ann owned by American Seafoods.

The move left several vessels locked out of providing mothership services, including at least four that have established histories of taking trawl cod deliveries for several years in both the Bering Sea and the Aleutian Islands.

The final action, expected to be implemented next year, was in response to a shift from shoreside to offshore deliveries of trawl-caught cod in recent years. In 2016, about three percent of the target cod fishery was delivered to offshore motherships. In 2017, that percentage grew to almost 13%, then last year was over 18%. In this year’s A season, the shortest season on record, about 29% of the BSAI trawl cod TAC was delivered offshore. The increased offshore deliveries at the expense of the shore-based plant deliveries was done during a time of decreasing catches.

This week’s action on restricting mothership operations for trawl cod was done in possibly record time for the council. From their first action on this issue in December of 2017 to yesterday’s final action was ten days short of just 16 months.

There is more on the Council’s plate for Bering Sea and Aleutian Island trawl cod. The ‘race for fish’ that has compressed season lengths for both the A season and B season to record periods — this year’s B season lasted one day — is prompting a restructuring that will be addressed at the Council’s meeting in Homer, AK in October. The Council will review a scoping paper at that meeting that will look at options for rationalizing the fishery.

Another critical issue is Amendment 113, recently vacated by court order, which created a 5,000 mt cod set aside for the Adak shoreplant. The rule is no longer in place and the Department of Commerce says they will not appeal. NOAA Fisheries will need to address the issues noted in the judge’s decision before Golden Harvest, the plant in Adak, will have the protection of a set aside.

The Council’s recent action was welcomed by Golden Harvest spokesman Steve Minor.

“In Adak, Golden Harvest has invested millions of dollars rebuilding and updating the plant, rehabilitated more than 40 community housing units, and as recently as December, committed to the State of Alaska to rebuild the outfall and build a new $6 million fish meal plant, not as a profitable investment but to address serious issues inherited form previous operators.

“All of these investments are now at risk because of the Groundfish Forum members’ efforts through the courts and this process to use the money, excess capacity, and leverage they gained under Amendment 80 to take Pacific cod away from Alaska’s coastal communities.

“We believe there are two mothership operations — and only two — which have participated both pre-2008 and on a continued, sustained basis in the Aleutian Islands, and we therefore support Alternative 2, Option 1, suboption 1.3 and Option 2.”

The motion was made by the state of Alaska’s council member Rachel Baker, Deputy Commissioner of Alaska Department of Fish and Game, and was passed by a 10-1 vote.

This story was originally published on Seafood News.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

‘Weaponized’ McDowell Report on Value of Shore Processing Opening Gun in Fight Over Cod Allocations

June 15, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — The newly released McDowell Report on the economic impacts of shore-based processing was requested by the processors to support their position on the cod issue at the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council.

The results of the analysis demonstrate the inshore seafood sector is the primary source of economic activity in the BSAI region and a critical source of income for the region’s communities and residents. It further illustrates the importance of a diverse portfolio of species and products in sustaining the industry’s important regional and statewide economic impacts,” according to the study.

In 2016, inshore processing paid $41 million in wages to 1,230 of the region’s residents, and over $22 million in fish and property taxes to six communities, including Unalaska, Akutan, Adak, Atka, King Cove, Saint Paul, and the Aleutians East Borough, according to the report.

Although the report has just been released, a 7-page executive summary of the weaponized document was published in February,  and distributed at an Unalaska City Council meeting by Trident Seafoods’ Chief Legal Officer Joe Plesha.  That meeting has been called a ‘side show’, with the main show now being the council meetings themselves.

The NPFMC took its first formal look at various proposals last week and is expected to spend the next two years considering a range of alternatives from the various sectors of the groundfish industry, according to Unalaska Mayor Frank Kelty, who attended the meeting in Kodiak.

The issue is based around whether the increased use of motherships to purchase cod at sea is destabilizing to the shore-side sector.  The shore-side sector wants to retain their traditional share of the cod quota in the Bering Sea.  However, in the past two years the volume of cod purchased directly from vessels by catcher-processors in the Amendment 80 fleet has increased.

The issue came to a head when the Pacific Seafood Processors blocked a congressional waiver for F/V America’s Finest owner, Fishermen’s Finest.  America’s Finest was determined by the Coast Guard to be in violation of the Jones Act because it used more than the allowable amount of foreign steel. The processors wanted any waiver to come with a prohibition on catcher processors purchasing cod as motherships.

Representatives of the Amendment 80 fleet said such a prohibition would cripple their business plans.

As a result of this opposition, Congress has twice failed to grant a waiver to America’s Finest, and the vessel is now up for sale, at a substantial loss.

The current controversy harkens back to the inshore/offshore fights over pollock between shore plants and factory trawlers in the 1990s. Those bitter allocation battles were ended by the U.S. Congress with the passage of the American Fisheries Act, which permanently divided the resource.

An acrimonious debate is again taking shape.

Frank Kelty, mayor of Unalaska and a vocal supporter of the shore-plants, was upset when Fishermen’s Finest expressed opposition to state sanctioned local fish taxes.  Kelty also faced a recall election in Unalaska, which he survived.  Now Kelty has called remarks about him by Fisherman’s Finest’s Seattle publicist, Paul Queary, “threatening”.

Although tempers can get hot, the arduous council decision making process has just started.  Like recreational halibut, bycatch management in the Gulf of Alaska trawl fishery, bycatch affecting halibut and salmon, and the proverbial inshore / offshore fight, these issues all have real economic consequences on both sides.

The job before the council will also be one of maintaining the status quo while working out the options to resolve the conflict.  Toward that end, the one decision the council made was to separate the issue of Adak’s set aside cod quota from the broader issue of mothership purchases.  The council will treat the two independently.

This year processing in Adak was sufficient to reach the threshold to use most of the set aside quota, but still there was controversy when other vessels steamed out to legitimately fish cod trips in the Western Aleutians and deliver back to Dutch Harbor.

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

NOAA law enforcement researches sexual harassment, assault among fisheries observers

June 13, 2018 — National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration’s office of law enforcement officials presented a report about sexual harassment of observers to a meeting of the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council in Kodiak.

The report shared preliminary data from an ongoing survey and although the sample size is small, just 21 women and 31 men responded from the 2016 cohort and 21 females and 26 males from the 2017 cohort, the survey reveals stark differences between the experiences of female and male observers.

Jaclyn Smith, a special agent for the NOAA office of law enforcement in Anchorage, presented some of the data compiled through an anonymous survey sent out to observers deployed in Alaska in 2016 and 2017.

About 400 observers are employed in Alaska in any given year.

“There were 20 questions that were asked about either safety or harassment. I phrased it in ways that didn’t come up with conclusions,” Smith said. “I didn’t ask them if they were sexually harassed rather I asked them  if they ever received unwanted, unwelcome comments of a sexual nature or I asked them if they ever feared for their physical safety.”

North Pacific Groundfish and Halibut Fisheries observers are expected to accurately record sampling data, write reports, make observations of violations and report suspected violations.

Read the full story at Alaska Public Media

Alaska: One month into the season, Bristol Bay halibut fishermen harvest a quarter of the quota

May 30, 2018 — Bristol Bay fishermen have landed 8,700 pounds of halibut so far. This year’s quota for area 4-E is 33,900 pounds, significantly less than last year’s quota of 58,800 pounds.

“It is a reduction,” said Gary Cline, the regional fisheries director at BBEDC. “It’s basically because there appears to be less halibut abundance in the Pacific, not just in area 4-E, but stretching down to southeast and throughout the Bering Sea. And, because of this concern, the regulatory agencies have adopted a more restrictive catch limits for 2018.”

Those regulatory agencies include the National Marine Fisheries Service, the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council, and the International Pacific Halibut Commission.

The decrease in halibut could stem from a variety of factors, including fishing efforts, competition for the same prey by other species such as the Arrowtooth flounder, and water temperature.

Read the full story at KDLG

 

Alaska: Management impact on fishing families studied

May 9, 2018 — In a series of workshops in five Alaska communities, National Marine Fisheries Service hopes to learn more about the impact of fisheries management on Alaska’s fishing families.

Perspectives on fishing family dynamics that emerge from the workshops will inform the next phase of this research, according to Marysia Szymkowiak, a social scientist with the Alaska Fisheries Science Center in Juneau, and Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission.

Workshops have already been held in Juneau, Homer, Sitka and Anchorage, and a fifth workshop is slated for June 4 at Kodiak.

During the Anchorage workshop on May 7, several participants spoke about the value of family fisheries as a source of nutritional food, income and family dynamics, particularly in a multi-generational setting, for teaching the next generation a strong work ethic.

Read the full story at the Cordova Times

 

North Pacific Fisheries Management Council names new executive director

June 28, 2017 — The North Pacific Fisheries Management Council announced it has a new executive director last week. Former Deputy Director David Witherell will be taking over for Chris Oliver, who was appointed to manage fisheries for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The council manages halibut and ground fish in the Gulf of Alaska, along the Aleutian Islands and the Bering Sea. Witherell said he’s prepared to take over the position.

“Fortunately my predecessor Chris Oliver spent quite a bit of time training me to take over the reins, and he gave me a deep understanding of the type of work and gave me the experience to understand what I was getting into as executive director someday,” Witherell explained.

Read the full story at KBBI

NEW BEDFORD STANDARD-TIMES: New leader of NOAA Fisheries knows his mission

June 25, 2017 — Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross has appointed Chris Oliver as the new Assistant Administrator for NOAA Fisheries, with blessings from the White House, a broad swath of fisheries stakeholders, and an enthusiastic group of local stakeholders.

Some five dozen fishing organizations, companies and advocates have been pleased with the outcome of the process that selected Mr. Oliver from among three candidates.

Mr. Oliver’s explicit responsibility will be oversight of management and conservation of the nation’s fisheries — commercial and recreational — inside the coastal fisheries habitat found within the 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone established by the United Nations.

According to NOAA, while executive director of the Alaska-based North Pacific Fisheries Management Council, he “led the way on several cutting edge management initiatives,” including developing the programs that regulate fishery quota, fishing cooperatives and catch share programs such as we see in the Northeast, the Alaska fishery’s onboard observer program, bycatch reduction programs, habitat protection, allocation programs, and community development programs. This familiarity will leaves us more certain that the progress made in management of the challenging multispecies fishery can continue. It is far from perfect, but the moves toward fleet collaboration and consideration of fishing communities could stand to continue in the Northeast.

“I understand how important stakeholder involvement, transparency, and best available science are to making the right policy decisions and I plan to ensure those tenets of the Magnuson-Stevens Act are applied across the board while I am leading the agency,” he was quoted as saying by the NOAA press release that announced his appointment last Monday. “I intend to rely heavily upon the regional expertise of the eight fishery management Councils and the associated NOAA Fisheries Regions and Science Centers, and to ensure they have the resources necessary to effectively tackle region-specific issues.”

A federal budget has yet to be passed, and the Trump administration has already signaled it wants to see cuts at NOAA, particularly on weather and climate research, but not necessarily on fisheries (perhaps ignorant of the return on investment climate data delivers for fisheries industry and management alike). Mr. Oliver, as he was quoted above, wants to see the resources available to remedy “region-specific issues.” The list for the Northeast council and the Greater Atlantic Region includes untangling the influence of Carlos Rafael upon the groundfish fishery, besides trying to manage a multi-species fishery in a dynamic ecosystem in some of the fastest rising ocean temperatures on Earth.

Read the full opinion piece at the New Bedford Standard-Times