Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on the icy Beaufort and Chukchi seas, resulting in major discoveries — including the existence of commercial fish species such as Pacific cod and walleye pollock in places never before documented.
A team's find of commercial fish species more typically caught in the Bering and North Pacific informed federal fishery regulators' 2009 decision to ban commercial fishing in U.S. Arctic waters, to buy time before seafood companies could even think about moving boats there. The biggest fishery in Alaska targets Bering Sea pollock.
A larger concern is the potential for environmental disruption, either from increased shipping traffic as Arctic ice recedes amid global warming, or from catastrophic spills of future oil production or exploratory drilling. Scientists say it is difficult to calculate the damage if you don't know even know what is in the environment.
Also, scientists are watching commercially valuable fish and shellfish species expand their range northward because of warming ocean temperatures. In addition to the discovery of pollock and cod, Logerwell's survey was the first to find commercial-sized snow crab in the U.S. Arctic.
Read the complete story from Anchorage Daily News.