Saving Seafood

EPA to review chemical in car tires known to kill salmon

December 12, 2023 — The ancestral land of the Puyallup tribe, located outside of Tacoma, Washington, is one of America’s most urban reservations.

Their land is crisscrossed by heavy, interstate traffic that has a direct correlation to the dwindling of their most precious resource: salmon.

“All of the pollutants that are discharged along the freeway can end up in this water body, which then flows into Commencement Bay, and this is why it’s a big issue for the tribe, as well as fisheries and fisheries restoration,” said Russ Ladley, the director of fisheries for the tribe.

His team raises and monitors fish populations across the reservation — a resource which its importance is hard to put into words.

For decades, tribal Vice Chair Sylvia Miller says the Puyallup people have watched wild populations of coho and other salmon decrease to a mere percentage of what they have been historically.

“We used to be able to provide for our whole families, for all of our families, be it smoking, canning, and, and providing daily fish to our families, and that’s not so anymore,” said Miller.

Read the full article at KOAA

WASHINGTON: ‘Sustainable Blue’s entry into Washington state far from slam dunk’

December 11, 2023 —  Sustainable Blue, a Nova Scotia land-based aquaculture company, recently
suffered a large die-off at one of its Canadian facilities, with Undercurrent News reporting
100,000 fish killed on November 4. According to Undercurrent, the die-off is one of several
technical problems facing the company, which recently signed a high-profile letter of intent to
operate in Washington state, and the relatively untested field of land-based aquaculture.

Reviewing email correspondence between Sustainable Blue and Washington Department of
Natural Resources (DNR) Undercurrent found several potential technical issues with the plans in
the letter of intent, which would raise up to 10,000 metric tons of salmon per year. Most
notably, there are concerns over the amount of water the project would require, which would
be 264,000 gallons initially, with an additional 8,600 per day once the facilities are operational.

According to Undercurrent, “This high water consumption has been flagged in the DNR emails
as a ‘potential limiting factor.’ This is because the farm would need year- round consumptive
water rights or to be situated within city limits where traditional utilities could be utilized.”

There are also concerns over claims made by Sustainable Blue about its claims to have zero
environmental discharge in its operations. Emails reviewed by Undercurrent found that,
instead, “outgoing effluent contained 25% solid waste and 75% water.

A final concern raised by Undercurrent is the proposed sites for the land-based facilities,
especially given water use requirements. Several of the sites are in Whatcom County,which is
facing a drought.

“This past July, the county was placed under a full drought emergency. One of these sites is also
identified as a forested or wooded wetland, which adds to the concerns,” said Undercurrent.

The Undercurrent report notes that, despite these mounting environmental concerns and
technical issues, the Washington DNR fully supports the project. Undercurrent’s analysis of
available emails concludes that the “correspondence underscores the DNR's concerted efforts
to advocate for Sustainable Blue's arrival and to endorse the concept of land-based salmon
farming, as evident in the allocated staff resources and promotional strategies for the project.”

Read the full article at Under Current News

Senators Collins and Reed Introduce Bill to Preserve Vital Working Waterfronts

November 23, 2023 — On November 13, Senators Susan Collins and Jack Reed (D-RI) introduced the Working Waterfront Preservation Act. The bipartisan bill would help preserve access for the nation’s fishermen and maritime workers to the waterfronts in coastal communities, supporting the commercial fishing, aquaculture, boatbuilding, and for-hire recreational fishing industries that are vital to culture, heritage, and economies of coastal towns and cities.

Senator Collins has held her seat since 1997 and is Maine’s longest-serving senator. She has advocated and secured funding for numerous fisheries in the state for over two decades. She has worked on many acts with Maine’s Senator King, who has also actively supported Maine fisheries with bipartisan legislation such as the Fishing Industry Credit Enhancement Act. Senators King and Collins have worked to help keep the fishing industry alive from coast to coast.

“The hardworking men and women of Maine’s maritime industries continue to lose access to the waterfronts that sustain them. Recent demand for coastal property has only intensified the problem in Maine and nationwide,” said Senator Collins in the news release.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

US lawmakers look to reinstate tax break for seafood processors

November 20, 2023 — Lawmakers from the U.S. state of Washington want to fully reinstate a tax break that allows the seafood sector to deduct meals they are required to provide employees at remote seafood processing facilities and on vessels.

The Remote Seafood Employee Meals Tax Parity Act is the latest effort by Pacific Northwest lawmakers to restore the tax deduction, which was limited by Congress in 2017. Seafood processors claim that the loss of the full deduction is a significant cost for their business.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

WASHINGTON: Sovereign One – Shellfish Monitoring Catamaran Delivered to Washington’s Puyallup Tribe

November 7, 2023 — The Puyallup Tribe of Washington State has obtained a new boat that will aid in the monitoring of shellfish.

Named Sovereign One, the custom-built aluminium catamaran is better equipped to navigate rough waters than the previous monitor boat, according to Big Bean Flores, a senior shellfish monitor who has been working in the Puyallup Tribe’s shellfish department for more than 10 years. The boat’s main purpose is to keep the shellfish monitors safe, allowing them to perform their duties more effectively to ensure the safety of shellfish harvesters as well as of the shellfish themselves.

Read the full article at Seafoodnews.com

Millions pegged for salmon, steelhead recovery

September 25, 2023 — The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is recommending sending $106 million to 16 salmon and steelhead recovery efforts in five Western states.

NOAA and the Department of Commerce recommended grants to state agencies with salmon protection missions, tribes and tribal partnerships in Idaho, Alaska, Oregon, Washington and California.

The funding “provides an important opportunity to bolster salmon and steelhead recovery and invest in the communities that rely on them,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said in a statement.

Read the full article at The Challis Messenger

Lawsuit alleges iconic Pike Place Fish Market guilty of trademark infringement

September 12, 2023 — Pike Place Fish Market (PPFM), the iconic fresh seafood market inside Pike Place Market in Seattle, Washington, U.S.A., is facing a trademark infringement lawsuit.

The Pike Place Market Preservation and Development Authority (PDA), which manages the market, claims PPFM it is illicitly using its name to advertise products nationwide without PDA’s permission.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

The scales of justice: Salmon fisheries in federal court, fighting to keep their lines in the water

August 21, 2023 — More than 90% of wild salmon are caught in Alaskan waters, where the fish travel from the coasts of California, the Pacific Northwest, and British Columbia. As the total number of fish have declined, limits of a catch have naturally decreased. The Wild Fish Conservancy, based in Washington, sued over technicalities in the Endangered Species Act. The salmon have been deeply compromised by dams and pollution, says third-generation Alaskan and journalist Julia O’Malley. Because the fish swimming up from the Lower 48 may be potentially endangered, Alaskan fisheries must come up with a mitigation plan. A judge was compelled by the Conservancy’s complaint of how to enact such a plan. Alaskan fisheries recently won a last minute reprieve in a lawsuit that would have kept lines out of the water this fishing season.

A pod of 73 endangered orcas in the region near Puget Sound feed on Chinook, also known as king salmon — the largest of the species, and whose populations are at historic lows. The orcas are in turn under threat of starvation,  not only because the salmon are less abundant, but because they are considerably smaller, dropping from a typical size of 60-100 pounds down to 30 pounds. As a result, the whales need to catch more of them to get the same amount of protein. Noise pollution and industrial runoff further compound the problem, interfering with the echolocation orcas use to locate salmon.

Alaska has a 100-year-old fishing tradition, according to O’Malley. For better or worse, communities around the state operate on an extraction economy, whether it’s oil, timber, or fishing.

Read the full story at KCRW

Collaboration between pollock industry and Seattle sports franchises boosts seafood awareness

August 18, 2023 — At entertainment and sports venues across the United States, where fans often enjoy pizza, hot dogs, nachos, and other stadium cuisine staples, seafood is typically absent from arena menus.

A newly minted partnership is on a mission to change that, however, and has picked a seafood-loving city to launch its innovative campaign: Seattle, Washington.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Science is a strategy

July 13, 2023 — A first-in-the-U.S. pilot research project to develop sustainable practices for farming sablefish has now progressed to the point that a full-color sales sheet can boast to wholesalers about the “pearly white flesh, large velvety flakes, and sweet, rich flavor” of this native deep-sea fish, long a traditional food of the indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest.

The sablefish comes from the experimental net pens at the Manchester Research Station on Puget Sound in Washington, the result of a research collaboration and partnership among NOAA Fisheries’ Northwest Fisheries Science Center, the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe, and the University of Washington.  

While scientists have overcome many daunting challenges during the pilot project, social and political pushback against aquaculture cloud the future of exactly how and where commercial rollout will occur in the U.S. The precedent already exists in Canada at Golden Eagle Sablefish in British Columbia, which is producing sablefish in partnership with the Kyuquot-Checleseht First Nations.

Read the full article at Aquaculture North America