Saving Seafood

Contentious Pike Place Fish Market trademark infringement case set for trial

February 3, 2024 — A U.S. federal judge set a trial date of 24 March 2024 for the contentious trademark infringement lawsuit brought against Pike Place Fish Market (PPFM) – the iconic fresh seafood market inside Pike Place Market in Seattle, Washington, U.S.A. – by the Pike Place Market Preservation and Development Authority (PDA).

In a lawsuit filed in September 2023 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, PDA, which manages the market, alleged PPFM breached its lease agreement by illegally using the market’s name to market smoked salmon products across the country.

Read the full article SeafoodSource

WASHINGTON: Fire at Washington seafood facility destroys hundreds of crab pots before season opener

January 24, 2024 — A fire at a port building along the coast in Washington state destroyed more than 1,000 crab pots just ahead of the state’s commercial Dungeness crab season, which opens Feb. 1.

The blaze began around noon on Monday at the Port of Ilwaco, which is near the mouth of the Columbia River and north of Astoria, Oregon, KING-TV reported.

The remote area of the fire made it difficult to get enough water supply to fight the blaze, the Ilwaco Fire Department said in a Tuesday statement. About 8,500 crab pots on the deck surrounding the building made fighting the fire even more difficult, officials said. No injuries were reported.

Read the full article at the Associated Press

Salmon, rivers hit hard by recent Washington floods

December 17, 2023 — The atmospheric river that hit the Pacific Northwest in early December took a heavy toll on salmon, biologists working with Puget Sound tribes say.

You might think all the rain that comes with the storm systems known as atmospheric rivers or Pineapple Expresses would be good for fish.

But tribal biologists say major floods have hit salmon-bearing rivers hard two out of the past three autumns, at a time when freshly laid Chinook salmon eggs are incubating in their underwater nests.

“We’ve had two flooding events that, over three years, have hit during this time that we know all the Chinook eggs are in the gravels,” said fisheries researcher Mike LeMoine with the Skagit River System Cooperative, a project of the Swinomish and Sauk-Suiattle Tribes. “It’s right after Chinook complete their spawning.”

Extreme flows can kill salmon eggs in two ways: scouring eggs and their shallow nests out of a riverbed or entombing them in mud.

“A big event will deposit a bunch of sediment over the top of the eggs and smother them, and they call that entombment,” said Jason Griffith, a Stillaguamish Tribe of Indians biologist.

Griffith said a spawning salmon will bury her eggs beneath a few inches of river gravel, enough to protect the next generation from predators but not from the forces unleashed when rivers rage.

“The river will cut down several inches to several feet during one event and could displace those eggs, and that kills them,” Griffith said.

Based on studies of past years’ floods, Griffith said he expected only 2% to 4% of Chinook eggs in the Stillaguamish River to survive this winter, less than a third of the 15% survival rate in a good year.

“High flows basically cause poor survival, especially for Stillaguamish Chinook. So three to five years from now, we will see lower returns of Stillaguamish Chinook,” Griffith said

Read the full article at KUOW

WASHINGTON: The decline of Pacific salmon is ‘death by a thousand cuts,’ expert says

December 14, 2023 — For all the impacts of other endangered species on the human communities they coexist with — owls and timber harvesting, wolves and ranching — there are few species that have affected more people than the decline of Pacific salmon.

And the people who have arguably been hit the hardest: the tribes of the Pacific Northwest.

“Salmon is really the heart of our culture. We’re salmon people,” said Donella Miller, a citizen of Yakama Nation. “When we’re born, we drink our mother’s milk, but salmon was always our first food. That was the first solid food that I ate.”

Miller is also the fisheries science manager for the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission. She helps evaluate hatchery programs, oversees the commission’s genetics lab in Idaho and manages their river ecology projects.

The threats facing salmon aren’t any one thing — and that’s what makes them so vexing.

“It’s a complex issue and you can’t pinpoint one specific thing,” Miller said. “I refer to it as death by a thousand cuts.”

Read the full article at WITX

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