1. Unimak
Pass rescue vessels far in future (7/18). SPILLS: First comes a study
of ways to cut risks. Ship traffic through the
Aleutian Islands is growing significantly and, along with it, the risk of
accidents, according to a scientific report published Thursday.
Carrying cargo from Toyotas to sneakers, thousands of ships pass through
the remote, stormy archipelago each year, transiting the Great Circle shipping
route between Asian and U.S. ports.
The traffic through Unimak Pass, a 28-mile-long corridor through the Aleutian
chain, is roughly double the amount of vessel traffic to all Alaska ports
combined, according to the 185-page report, published by the Washington,
D.C.-based Transportation Research Board, an arm of the National Research
Council.
Unlike the boats that arrive in Alaska ports, many of the ships traveling
through the Aleutians are minimally regulated. In recent years, thousands of
gallons of fuel have spilled near Unalaska Island, one of the country's top
seafood ports, the report said.
In 20 years of Aleutian spills, almost no oil has been recovered, and in many
cases, bad weather and other problems have prevented any response at all,
according to the report.
Federal and state decisions about big steps that might be taken to reduce harm
from a shipping accident or spill in the Aleutians are some years off. The
report published Thursday is a precursor to a two-year, joint state and federal
study of how to reduce those risks. More
Aleutians accident
risk assessment plan in works (KIAL Audio)
(7/17)
2. Tax Relief For Commercial Fisherman Stalls in Senate (KDLG Audio)(7/16). Alaska's
commercial fishermen, and fishermen through out the nation, are suffering from
record high fuel prices. Legislation proposed by Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski
in June failed to make it to the senate floor as an amendment to an agriculture
bill, but Senator Ted Stevens says it may get a second chance with the energy
bill.
3. Coast
Guard Orders Fishing Vessel (SEAFREEZE ALASKA) To Dutch Harbor For Inspection
(7/17). Coast Guard Sector Anchorage issued a Captain of the Port
Order for the Seafreeze Alaska, which lost engine propulsion 100 miles
southwest of Dutch Harbor 1 p.m. Monday, to proceed to Dutch Harbor.
The Seafreeze Alaska slowly drifted toward Samalga Island, an island
approximately 100 miles southwest of the Alaskan fishing port of Dutch Harbor.
When the Seafreeze Alaska eventually drifted to shallow enough water,
the vessel dropped anchor, maintaining position approximately one mile from
shore.
The Seafreeze Alaska was able to restore propulsion at 7 p.m. Monday and
is currently enroute to Dutch Harbor for repairs. The Seafreeze Alaska
is scheduled to arrive in Dutch Harbor at 10:45 a.m today.
Coast Guard District Seventeen Command Center maintained a communications
schedule with the vessel and mobilized a response effort to help prevent the
vessel from grounding last night.
The Seafreeze Alaska must pass inspection by the Coast Guard Marine
Safety Detachment in Dutch Harbor before it departs. More
4. Coast
Guard Cutter Hickory Terminates Deeternan Voyage For Safety Violations
(7/17). The crew of the Coast Guard Cutter Hickory terminated
the voyage of the 35-foot fishing vessel, Deeternan, for several
safety violations Wednesday in Kachemak Bay near Homer.
The Hickory boarding team found discrepancies with the vessel's
safety measures during random boardings of vessels. There were not enough
immersion suits on board for the number of crew on board. The bilge alarm
was not functional. The vessel had no survival craft/life raft and no
visual distress signal. The crew had not been conducting safety drills required
by the Coast Guard and had no safety orientation.
In response to these discrepancies the Hickory's boarding team immediately
terminated the voyage of the Deeternan and escorted the vessel to Homer.
The Deeternan's crew was engaged in long-lining for halibut. According
to the State of Alaska Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission the vessel is
homeported in Kenai. Link
5. Exxon
maintains it doesn't owe interest (7/15). JUNEAU
-- Exxon Mobil Corp. is fighting to avoid paying interest on the $507.5 million
judgment the U.S. Supreme Court ordered it to pay for the Exxon Valdez oil
spill. Lawyers for the Texas-based energy giant on Tuesday
submitted a nine-page brief to the high court opposing the application of
interest, which could bring the total punitive damages Exxon owes for the 1989
spill to nearly $1 billion.
Exxon argues "there is no good reason" for the court to add interest.
"Exxon does not agree that there is any sound basis to award plaintiffs
what they seek -- approximately $488 million over and above the $507.5 million
that this Court determined was the legally proper amount to punish and
deter," according to Exxon's filing.
Lawyers for commercial fishermen and other plaintiffs last week asked the
Supreme Court to clarify whether interest would apply. The question came up
after the court decided the long-running case on June 25, cutting the amount of
damages from $2.5 billion to $507.5 million without mentioning interest. More
6.
IPHC Workshop on Biomass Apportionment –
September 4th, 2008. The International Pacific Halibut Commission
adopted a coastwide stock assessment methodology at its 2008
Annual Meeting. This methodology accommodates movement of halibut at all
ages and determines a single coastwide estimate of exploitable biomass. This
single coastwide estimate is then apportioned into IPHC regulatory area
estimates using data from the fishery-independent IPHC setline stock assessment
survey and estimates of bottom area from each regulatory area. This
apportionment resulted in a different distribution of the exploitable biomass
than had been estimated with the previous closed-area stock assessments.
At the 2008 Annual Meeting, the IPHC Commissioners and industry endorsed the
coastwide stock assessment methodology but wished to have further investigation
of methods for apportioning the coastwide exploitable biomass estimate into
IPHC regulatory area estimates of biomass and catch limits. In addition, the
Commission requested that the staff update industry on the most recent results
and understanding of halibut movements arising from Commission tagging
programs, particularly the PIT-tag experiment. This workshop will address both
of these issues. The workshop will be held at the Red
Lion Hotel Bellevue on September 4th, 2008. A registration form
for the workshop and details on the venue follows. Registration forms must
be received by August 15, 2008. More
STATE
7. Salmon
offers commercial fishermen feast and famine (7/13). Sockeye salmon
returning to Bristol Bay are running a little late this year, but you'd never
know it from the glut of reds now overwhelming processors in Bristol Bay.
Harvesters, who were initially getting a reported 60 cents to 70 cents a pound,
were livid and complaining to the office of Gov. Sarah Palin. Fishermen had
requested before the season began that the state allow additional processors
into Bristol Bay, but the state concluded from an industry survey that
processors would be able to handle the run.
Matt Jones, a state Department of Fish and Game biologist in Dillingham, said
they're sticking with a preseason harvest forecast of 29.6 million sockeyes and
then some.
Through July 6, some 1,353 fishing vessels in Bristol Bay had harvested 15.8
million pounds of reds, compared to 13.6 million reds for the same period a
year ago. A strong pulse of fish overwhelmed processing capacity, and
processors were buying only limited harvests or suspending buying altogether
for a short period of time.
“They're still restricting us and it sucks,” said veteran Bristol
Bay fisherman Robin Samuelsen, speaking from a cell phone on his boat in the
Nushagak River July 7. More
8. Palin
considers foreign processors (7/12). BRISTOL BAY: Canneries couldn't
handle glut of salmon and imposed limits. JUNEAU --
Gov. Sarah Palin said she'll look at ways to bring more fish processors to
Bristol Bay, where many commercial salmon gillnetters are upset that
overwhelmed processors have imposed catch limits.
Palin's husband, Todd, is among the angry fishermen. He fishes from
shore sites near Dillingham, and his processing company has placed him on tight
limits this season, Gov. Palin said.
She questioned whether processors were honest in a capacity survey the state
conducted over the winter to see if the companies could handle the full sockeye
run, which is large this season.
"Despite what they told the state -- that they could handle it, that they
had the capacity -- they do not," Palin said.
When commercial fishermen are idled because processors are glutted, they see
potential money swimming upstream as the red salmon head for their spawning
grounds.
One possible solution is to allow foreign processing ships to come into the bay
next year to buy excess fish. More
9. Slow
run of pinks in Southeast turns attention to chum salmon (KFSK
Audio) (7/17). Southeast Alaska’s
commercial purse seine fleet has not caught many pink salmon so far this
summer. Instead, the fleet is focusing on hatchery chum salmon returns in the
early season.
10. Processor Limits Get Fishermen Down (KDLG
Audio) (7/16). Our summer intern Jonathan Reiser took
to the docks, to ask fishermen how processor limits effect their season.
11. Chum
meets chum on the Yukon (KYUK Audio)
(7/17). The Yukon River’s two chum runs
are meeting up this week. The summer chum run is winding down and the fall chum
run is just beginning. The state’s monitoring programs near the Yukon
coast began reporting all chum as fall chum salmon as of Wednesday, which means
the commercial fisheries have also gone to fall chum.
12. Homer
News Opinion. Fish, politics don't mix (7/16). It was a
particularly telling statement from Rep. Mike Doogan, D-Anchorage, following a
meeting of the Joint Cook Inlet Salmon Task Force late last month: "The
more I learn about salmon in the upper inlet, the less I know."
Legislators shouldn't have to be experts on Cook Inlet salmon, or salmon
anywhere else in Alaska. That's why the state has biologists, who should be
given the freedom to do their job. One indication that the biologists are doing
their job correctly is that over the course of a fishing season they're very
likely to make every user group angry. That means they're not playing favorites
except with the fish.
That legislators saw a need to convene the task force means one thing: They're
trying to make certain groups happy.
It's been said before and it bears repeating as fishing season hits high gear:
Lawmakers aren't elected to do the job of fish management. If they really are
concerned with fish issues, lawmakers need to make sure the Alaska Department
of Fish and Game is adequately funded and state biologists have all the tools
they need to do their jobs well.
The last thing biologists need to worry about is legislators applying political
leverage to fish allocation issues.
For the sake of the fish, let's leave politics out of fish
management. Link
MARKETING
13. Dutch
Harbor-Unalaska, Alaska, and New Bedford, Mass. Remain Top Fishing Ports
(7/17). Commercial fishermen unloaded 777.2 million pounds of
fish, primarily Alaskan pollock, at the port of Dutch Harbor-Unalaska, Alaska,
making it the country’s top port for landings in 2007, NOAA’s
Fisheries Service announced today. The port of New Bedford, Mass., claimed the
top spot for value of landings, primarily due to sea scallops, bringing in $268
million in 2007. The total domestic commercial landings for 2007 were 9.2
billion pounds, valued at $4.1 billion.
Dutch Harbor-Unalaska netted the top landings slot for the 19th consecutive
year, according to NOAA's Fisheries Service. Reedville, Va., ranked as the
number two port for quantity of landings in 2007 with 421.0 million pounds.
Empire-Venice, La., was third at 323.1million. The major fish product landed in
both Reedville and Empire-Venice was menhaden. More
14. Washington
Post. Grocers' Rules Follow Wave Of Sustainably Farmed Fish (7/16). There
is organic milk. Free-range chicken. Grass-fed beef. Now make room in the
fridge for sustainably farmed Arctic char.
Aquaculture is becoming the next big issue at the dinner table. Supermarkets
are introducing new standards for the farmed fish and shrimp that make up
roughly half of U.S. seafood consumption, riding a wave of consumer demand for
environmentally friendly products.
Whole Foods plans to announce today the first
comprehensive set of aquaculture guidelines by a major retailer. Wal-Mart has established standards for farmed
shrimp and certified its factories with the Aquaculture Certification Council.
And Wegmans worked with Environmental Defense Fund on its farmed-shrimp policy
to ban antibiotics, avoid damaging sensitive habitats, treat waste water and
reduce the use of wild fish to feed shrimp. More
15. NY
Times. Americans eating less fish (7/17). WASHINGTON (AP) -- Americans are eating
slightly less seafood, despite continuing reports of its health benefits.
Seafood consumption totaled 4.908 billion pounds in 2007, down from 4.944
billion a year earlier, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
reported Thursday.
That translates to 16.3 pounds of fish and shellfish per person, down from 16.5
pounds, the agency said.
Americans' favorite seafood remains shrimp at 4.1 pounds per person, down 0.3
pounds from 2006. Canned seafood, mainly tuna, held steady at 3.9 pounds per person.
Overall the United States imports about 84 percent of its seafood, a steadily
increasing proportion. Imports accounted for only 63 percent of U.S. seafood
just a decade ago.
Other findings reported by the agency:
-- Dutch Harbor-Unalaska, Alaska, remains the nation's top fishing port for the
19th year with landings of 777.2 million pounds of fish. The total was down
from 911.3 million in 2006. More
MISC
16. Todd
Shipyards Corporation Announces Contract to Rebuild Fish Processor F/V Pacific
Glacier (7/17). Todd Shipyards Corporation (NYSE:TOD) announced that its wholly owned
subsidiary, Todd Pacific Shipyards Corporation ("Todd" or the
"Company"), was awarded a contract from Glacier Fish Company of
Seattle, Washington for the rebuild of the fish processor, F/V Pacific Glacier
which suffered significant damage in an onboard fire in February 2008. Glacier
Fish Company selected Todd based on a best value determination and their
assessment of Todd's ability to help them meet their requirements for the 2009
Schedule A fishing season.
The contract will commence immediately and will include work on all areas
damaged by the fire. This includes deck coverings, linings, furniture,
equipment, piping, ventilation, electrical and electronic navigation,
communication, and control systems. The completion schedule will be determined
as design is completed and work scope is detailed. Removal of all fire damaged
material and debris, and repair of structural steel damage caused by the fire
has been accomplished by Todd under separate previously awarded contracts. The
final contract price is expected to be in excess of $10 million. More