Saving Seafood

Alaska’s seafood processors expect to spend more this year than last on the pandemic; seafood market looks promising in some areas

May 17, 2021 — Alaska’s seafood industry has a lot of moving parts. There are the fishermen, the processors, the market, as well as the fish themselves.

By all accounts, the pandemic has been hard on the processors. Last year, they spent about $70 million in mitigation measures and responding to the pandemic. But this year it’s expected to be even more…over $100 million.

In fact, a lot of it has already been spent this year.

“There were challenges and some plant closures that happened despite all these protocols,” Lesh said.

Dan Lesh is with McKinley Research Group that surveyed processors and others in March about the effects of COVID on Alaska’s seafood industry. He says the flat fish industry was hit hard with outbreaks in January causing expensive plant closures. Those costs are in addition to the ongoing price for pandemic mitigation.

“A lot of these costs are already baked and my understanding is that most the mitigation measures will be continued.”

So, basically there are more months this calendar year dealing with the pandemic.

Read the full story at KFSK

By plane, boat and man basket, COVID-19 vaccines flow to Alaska’s Aleutian seafood workers

March 30, 2021 — Thousands of Alaska seafood workers are getting vaccinated for COVID-19 three months after outbreaks swept through Aleutian plants, shuttering some just as the lucrative Bering Sea fishing season began.

The effort is taking different forms, ranging from clinics in Sand Point to a one-day mass event in the Unalaska gym and aboard Dutch Harbor boats that vaccinated about 1,500 plant workers and deep-sea fishermen.

Probably the most only-in-Alaska method involved Eastern Aleutian Tribes community health aide Joe McMillan, who on Thursday clambered into a small man basket suspended in the air to swing aboard two large processing vessels and vaccinate more than a hundred people on each.

The doses now going into seafood worker arms are coming from a federal allocation provided to Eastern Aleutian Tribes rather than from state supplies of vaccine.

They came via a Biden administration plan to expand vaccine availability to community health centers in underserved communities. The Eastern Aleutian Tribes is one of just two tribal entities in Alaska participating in that program as of March 22.

The tribal health organization has probably given out 2,500 shots in the past week and 4,000 since January, according to CEO Paul Mueller, who described one chartered flight Wednesday to deliver food and vaccine that skipped from Nelson Lagoon to Cold Bay, False Pass, Sand Point, Dutch Harbor and King Cove.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

Trident Seafoods resumes operations at Aleutian plant in Alaska after monthlong COVID-19 shutdown

February 23, 2021 — The massive and remote Trident Seafoods plant at Akutan resumed some processing Friday, nearly a month after a fast-spreading coronavirus outbreak forced the company to halt operations.

The Alaska plant, perched at the edge of the Bering Sea near the tiny village of about 100 people, is the largest seafood processing facility in North America. Four COVID-19 cases first reported by the company in mid-January quickly expanded in close quarters. Ultimately, more than 40% of 706 workers tested positive.

Now there are two positive cases at the plant, a company spokesman said Monday. Those workers are isolated on site.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

WASHINGTON: Trident Seafoods declares ship ‘total loss’ after fire at Port of Tacoma

February 19, 2021 — Trident Seafoods lost one of its fleet overnight after a massive fire broke out while the ship was docked at the Port of Tacoma on Wednesday night.

Tacoma firefighters battled the fire into Thursday.

The vessel, the 233-foot Alaskan fish processor Aleutian Falcon, was moored at Trident Seafoods on Pier 12 near the mouth of the Hylebos Waterway.

On Thursday, Trident Seafoods told The News Tribune in an emailed statement: “The Aleutian Falcon, the company’s smallest seasonal processing vessel, was a total loss to the fire.”

The company said no one was injured.

“We are grateful to the Tacoma Fire Department for their swift response and watch on scene, and that no one was injured,” said Trident CEO Joe Bundrant in Thursday’s statement. “We will conduct a full investigation of cause.”

The Aleutian Falcon is moored at Trident’s Tacoma facility between its time in Alaska supporting summer salmon fisheries. When operating, the vessel with a crew of 120 supplemented Trident’s shore-based and larger processing vessel operations throughout Alaska, according to the company.

Read the full story at The News Tribune

ALASKA: Trident Seafoods reports 266 total virus cases at Aleutian plant plus small outbreak on vessel in Dutch Harbor

January 29, 2021 — Trident Seafoods is reporting COVID-19 cases among more than a third of the roughly 705 workers at the company’s remote Akutan processing plant, which is North America’s largest.

The company on Thursday reported 266 workers tested positive for the virus this week with nearly all testing complete.

Trident also reported a separate, smaller outbreak aboard one of its three large catcher processor vessels, the 312-foot Island Enterprise.

That vessel arrived in Dutch Harbor on Thursday with two workers exhibiting COVID-19 symptoms, Trident said in a statement. Rapid testing through the night of all 125 people onboard revealed five confirmed cases and two non-positive workers reporting minor symptoms.

Trident officials say they don’t know how either of the outbreaks started. On Monday, Trident temporarily shut down the Akutan plant for at least three weeks. They plan to “re-quarantine” everyone on the Island Enterprise for at least 14 days.

This week, Trident officials said they took the unusual step of stockpiling medical supplies including ventilators in case weather grounds air ambulances. The nearest hospital is hundreds of miles away.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

COVID-19 outbreaks force seafood processing shutdowns in Alaska, Chile

January 28, 2021 — COVID-19 outbreaks in seafood processing plants in Alaska and Chile have highlighted how the virus is still wreaking havoc on the global seafood industry, more than a year after the first cases were reported outside of China.

Despite hopes that the start of vaccination efforts in the U.S. and elsewhere might eventually bring an end to the problems the virus has caused, the seafood industry is still treading carefully, trying to thread the needle between worker safety and maintaining profitability – or at least solvency.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

COVID-19 Outbreak At Aleutian Processing Plant Grows To 135

January 28, 2021 — A COVID-19 outbreak at one of Alaska’s largest fish processing plants has infected nearly 20 percent of workers, with testing only partially finished, officials said Tuesday.

At Trident Seafoods’ huge plant on the remote Aleutian island of Akutan, 135 of 700 workers have tested positive for the virus, state officials reported Tuesday.

The company has only tested about half of its workforce, and Dr. Joe McLaughlin, the state epidemiologist, said at a news conference that the outbreak is still on an “upward trajectory.”

“I don’t think this outbreak is going to end in the next several days,” McLaughlin said. “I think it’s going to go on for a while.”

Trident officials announced a three-week closure last week after a handful of workers tested positive for COVID-19, just as the billion-dollar pollock fishing season kicked off.

Read the full story at KUCB

ALASKA: Coronavirus outbreak at Trident seafood plant in Akutan now includes 135 workers

January 27, 2021 — A COVID-19 outbreak at the Trident Seafoods plant in the tiny, remote community of Akutan now encompasses 135 workers including several sick enough to require medevacs to Anchorage.

The plant, North America’s largest, right now has about 700 workers quarantined on an island in the Bering Sea with the nearest hospital hundreds of miles away. Trident is taking the unusual step of stockpiling medical supplies including ventilators in case weather grounds air ambulances.

Two COVID-positive workers were sick enough to get flown Monday to Anchorage for hospitalization, according to state health officials. Another worker with breathing problems was medevaced earlier.

“We arranged Coast Guard-assisted evacuations yesterday for two employees whose condition was quickly worsening,” Trident spokeswoman Stefanie Moreland said in a statement Tuesday. “We now have more private-sector resources lined up in case further emergency evacuations are needed and weather permits.”

Read the full story at Anchorage Daily News

ALASKA: ‘Everybody’s worst nightmare’: Bering Sea fishermen on edge after COVID-19 closes second plant

January 25, 2021 — One of North America’s largest fish processing plants is shutting down as a COVID-19 outbreak grows and owner Trident Seafoods struggles to test its 700-person workforce.

The plant, on the isolated island of Akutan, is the second in the Aleutians to shut down this year, just as the billion-dollar Bering Sea pollock fishery was set to kick off.

Now, fishermen and industry leaders are anxious that they might not have places to offload their catch and that their plants might be the next to close down, said Dan Martin, who manages a fleet of nine pollock trawlers for a company called Evening Star Fisheries.

“Any hiccups like this, you really have to reshuffle the deck and try to figure out, ‘Okay, what’s the next step?’” said Martin, a retired skipper. He called the shutdowns “everybody’s worst nightmare.”

The winter fishery for Bering Sea pollock, which goes into products like McDonald’s fish sandwiches, officially opened Wednesday. But two of the region’s largest processors are both shut down: the Trident plant in Akutan, and the UniSea plant located 35 miles to the southwest in the Aleutian port town of Unalaska.

Read the full story at KTOO