January 7, 2021 — Washington’s Department of Ecology has revised four water quality permits to Cooke Aquaculture to farm steelhead in net-pens it formerly used to raise Atlantic salmon.
Cooke had already received approval from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, though conservation groups have sued to block their issuance. The facilities are located near Bainbridge Island and La Conner, and are now permitted for steelhead, also known as rainbow trout.
December 17, 2020 — If you’re eating seafood in the US, there is a good chance it came through Seattle. Data from 2017 show more than 150 million pounds of seafood worth nearly $500 million came through the city on the sound. But COVID-19 is changing everything.
A new study published in the Journal of Fish and Fisheries found that seafood imports, exports, and catches were all down around 40% compared to 2019. A colossal decline.
“We were scared, just like everybody. Not only with the health concerns and people getting sick, and then financially we just bought the business a couple years ago from our boss and it was pretty quiet, pretty sleepy down here,” said Ryan Reese, one of the owners of Pike Place Fish Market.
Just like everyone else, they’ve had to adjust during the pandemic.
“We’ve converted our whole operation like a little shipping factory and so we’ve really changed our focus from over the counter service to trying really hard to drive our online presence,” said Reese.
December 11, 2020 — The following was released by The Office of Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA):
U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) authored and helped secure key Coast Guard and environmental priorities in the Coast Guard Reauthorization Act, which passed the Senate today by a vote of 84-13 as part of the final National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2021. The Coast Guard Reauthorization Act includes provisions to promote the recruitment and retention of women in the Coast Guard, formally authorize six polar icebreakers, strengthen oil spill prevention measures, and establish new protections for Southern resident orcas. The legislation was passed by the Senate Commerce Committee last July and included in this year’s NDAA. The NDAA passed the House of Representatives earlier this week by a vote of 335-78.
Provisions Cantwell helped secure as part of the Coast Guard Reauthorization Act will:
Support Coast Guard women and families
In a speech on the Senate floor on Tuesday, Cantwell highlighted the impact these reforms could have on women serving in the Coast Guard: “[We are] Instituting new reforms within the Coast Guard to really help and empower women… and to make sure that they have what they need, [including] vital child care opportunities for Coast Guard families. And to make sure there is zero tolerance in the approach to any kind of sexual assault or sexual harassment.”
Authorize six icebreakers and advance U.S. Arctic leadership
December 10, 2020 — The state announced this week that it has submitted a draft plan for how to distribute $50 million in federal relief funding to members of Washington’s commercial seafood, shellfish and charter industries to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration-Fisheries (NOAA-Fisheries) for review and approval.
Under Section 12005 of the CARES Act, Congress provided $300 million to states to distribute to fisheries participants with Washington and Alaska receiving the highest allocation of $50 million each.
“The pandemic had early and dramatic impacts to shellfish and commercial fishing businesses. These activities play an outsized role in our state, especially in our tribal and natural resources dependent economies,” Gov. Jay Inslee said. “I am pleased that we will soon have more assistance available to help these hurting businesses recover.”
“Submitting this plan for federal review brings us one step closer to getting this funding into the hands of commercial fishing and shellfish industry members who need it most,” said Ron Warren, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) fish policy director. “We applaud Washington’s congressional delegation for securing this relief for members of Washington’s commercial seafood, shellfish and charter industries.”
December 9, 2020 — The state said Tuesday that it submitted a draft plan to federal officials for how to distribute $50 million in federal COVID-19 relief to members of Washington’s commercial seafood, shellfish and charter industries.
The CARES Act provides $300 million to states to distribute to fisheries participants with Washington and Alaska receiving the highest allocation of $50 million each.
“The pandemic had early and dramatic impacts to shellfish and commercial fishing businesses. These activities play an outsized role in our state, especially in our tribal and natural resources dependent economies,” Gov. Jay Inslee said. “I am pleased that we will soon have more assistance available to help these hurting businesses recover.”
“Submitting this plan for federal review brings us one step closer to getting this funding into the hands of commercial fishing and shellfish industry members who need it most,” said Ron Warren, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) fish policy director. “We applaud Washington’s congressional delegation for securing this relief for members of Washington’s commercial seafood, shellfish and charter industries.”
The draft plan goes to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration-Fisheries for review and approval.
December 7, 2020 — United States Seafoods had navigated the coronavirus pandemic with no cases on their vessels until last Thursday, 3 December, its last day of the season. The Seattle, Washington, U.S.A.-based company’s Legacy trawler pulled into Unalaska to wrap up perch fishing for the season when two people on board tested positive. Further testing by a local clinic found that 24 of the 25 people on the vessel had COVID-19.
A news release from the City of Unalaska said that all the crew members remained on board the 132-foot factory trawler, with the one person who tested negative separated from the rest.
December 2, 2020 — After the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ decision last week to reject a key permit for Alaska’s proposed Pebble Mine, it’s clear that federal protection is now needed to permanently preserve this uniquely valuable resource. The project threatened too much destruction to the immense salmon runs of Bristol Bay.
The list of reasons to protect the bay’s watershed is long. Its annual chinook and sockeye salmon runs are the largest on Earth. All five species of Pacific salmon live in Bristol Bay, and its watershed produces about half the world’s annual sockeye harvest. The commercial and recreational fisheries support large portions of the region’s economy, and Bristol Bay’s salmon have sustained Alaska natives for many generations. Thousands of Washingtonians fish those salmon each year, for work and recreation.
The bay’s diverse salmon runs feed other populations, too — from orcas to the thousands of brown bears on the Alaska peninsula. The mine was predicted to disrupt this food chain mightily in the name of extracting rich veins of copper and gold, and potentially molybdenum and rhenium.
November 27, 2020 — Battered by trade wars and COVID-19, the U.S. Northwest maritime industry is applying lessons learned from both crises, according to leaders who spoke at Pacific Marine Expo’s virtual Maritime Economic Forecast.
With China as its number-one trading partner, the Northwest Seaport Alliance of Seattle and Tacoma saw immense change as a result of U.S.-China trade disputes, followed by a steep falloff in vessel traffic as COVID-19 reverberated in the world economy.
November 27, 2020 — Earlier this month, conservation groups lost a lawsuit to block Cooke Aquaculture from raising domesticated steelhead in net-pens in Washington’s Puget Sound, but the groups announced on 23 November they will file a second appeal to the state’s Supreme Court.
In January, authorities from Washington’s Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) granted Cooke a five-year permit to farm steelhead in Puget Sound, and received water quality permits from the state’s Department of Ecology in September. A month later, a coalition of environmental groups, led by the Wild Fish Conservancy (WFC), filed a lawsuit claiming the permitting process was incomplete.
November 11, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:
No habitat in Puget Sound is more valuable to threatened Chinook salmon than nearshore habitat. No habitat is more degraded, either.
Nearshore habitat is shorthand for tidal marsh, wetlands, and river estuaries where land and water combine to support life of all kinds, from shorebirds to juvenile salmon and steelhead. Juvenile Puget Sound Chinook salmon spend their first critical months in saltwater feeding and growing in the sheltered water of nearshore habitat.
Their growth in that pivotal window determines in large part whether they will make it back to rivers as adults to spawn. With nearshore habitat dwindling, most do not.
When reviewing projects, NOAA Fisheries is updating its efforts to avoid further losses of nearshore habitat.
“It is important for projects to have a path forward, while we also need to stem the losses of this habitat that we have already lost so much of,” said Kim Kratz, Assistant Regional Administrator in NOAA Fisheries West Coast Region.
More than 95 percent of the most valuable nearshore habitat in Puget Sound is gone and is especially scarce in the south Sound, according to an analysis by the Puget Sound Nearshore Ecosystem Restoration Project. Scientists described it as a “dramatic change in the historic occurrence [of] these once-prominent nearshore ecosystems.”
Fewer than one percent of Puget Sound Chinook salmon juveniles that migrate to the ocean each year survive to return as adults. That means that already imperiled populations continue to decline. There are also repercussions for other species such as en