April 6, 2021 — It’s a big year for Alaska roe herring fisheries – but lackluster interest by both harvesters and processors is an ongoing issue.
The fishery at Sitka Sound opened on 27 March after a stall last year and a limited fishery in 2019, resulting from small fish and a weak market. The seine fleet this year has a harvest of 33,304 metric tons (MT) – nearly 67 million pounds – but managers predict low participation and limited processing capacity.
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.
January 29, 2018 — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Friday halted plans to withdraw proposed restrictions on mining activity near a major Alaska salmon fishery, drawing praise from opponents of the Pebble Mine project.
Last year, in settling a legal dispute with the Pebble Limited Partnership, which wants to build a copper and gold mine in Alaska’s Bristol Bay region, the EPA agreed to initiate a process to withdraw restrictions proposed during the Obama administration.
But in a release Friday, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said based on comments the agency has received, “it is my judgment at this time that any mining projects in the region likely pose a risk to the abundant natural resources that exist there.”
“Until we know the full extent of that risk, those natural resources and world-class fisheries deserve the utmost protection,” he said.
About half of the world’s sockeye salmon is produced by Bristol Bay, the EPA has said.
Tom Collier, CEO of the Pebble partnership, said the EPA’s announcement does not deter the project. Pebble recently filed a permit application with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which will trigger an environmental review of the project.
“We believe we can demonstrate that we can responsibly construct and operate a mine at the Pebble deposit that meets Alaska’s high environmental standards,” he said in a release. “We will also demonstrate that we can successfully operate a mine without compromising the fish and water resources around the project.”
The restrictions on development proposed under President Barack Obama were never finalized; a judge had ordered the agency to stop work related to that process while the litigation between Pebble and the EPA played out.
The EPA said Friday’s announcement doesn’t derail the permit application process but said the application “must clear a high bar, because EPA believes the risk to Bristol Bay may be unacceptable.”
The agency said it plans to solicit additional public comment.
U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a Republican, said Pruitt is taking a balanced approach that lets Pebble enter the permitting process but also acknowledges EPA’s duty to protect the region’s fisheries.
Read the full story from the Associated Press at the New Jersey Herald