Saving Seafood

JOELLE HALL: Alaskans need answers on Copper River Seafoods investigation

March 11, 2021 — As the president of the Alaska AFL-CIO, Alaska’s largest labor organization, my responsibility is to fight for workers’ rights, whether they belong to a union or not.

Protecting workers’ health and safety has been at the forefront of our work during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Recent media reports have uncovered that Commissioner of Labor Tamika Ledbetter blocked nearly $450,000 in proposed fines against a seafood plant that willfully violated COVID-19 workplace safety standards and was hostile with public health officials from the State of Alaska and the Municipality of Anchorage.

The question is, why?

Were the violations mild and isolated, causing them to fall through the cracks of an overburdened department?

Read the full opinion piece at the Anchorage Daily News

ALASKA: New grant helps fund cold-storage facility at Anchorage airport

September 22, 2020 — Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport will be the recipient of a USD 21 million (EUR 17.9 million) federal transportation grant that will help fund a large cold-storage facility at the site, the U.S. congressional delegation from Alaska announced last Monday.

Plans for the site itself had already been announced, but the grant, which was awarded to the Alaska Energy Authority, was made public last week.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

‘I thought it was going to be much worse’: Travelers landing in Anchorage navigate Alaska’s new COVID-19 testing rules

June 12, 2020 — Omar Jackson’s COVID-19 testing swab occurred just a few minutes after waiting in line near the Alaska Airlines baggage claim on Thursday at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport.

“My boys and I were pretty spooked about it,” Jackson said. “We thought it would be a big Q-tip, like, all the way up to the brain,” he said. “But it went pretty smooth.”

The 28-year-old from Portland, Oregon, had come to Alaska for a summer job as a seafood processor. He’s one of hundreds of new travelers to Alaska who are now having to navigate the state’s updated health mandate addressing interstate and international travel during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Under the revised mandate, which went into effect on Saturday, out-of-state travelers who test negative for COVID-19 within 72 hours of boarding a plane to Alaska will be able to avoid the state’s 14-day quarantine requirement. Travelers can also get tested when they land and quarantine until they get a negative result.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

ALASKA: Anchorage ‘hunker down’ order likely to be extended as frustration with distancing rises

April 14, 2020 — On the eve of the expiration of the city’s “hunker down” order, Mayor Ethan Berkowitz on Monday laid out a list of criteria for what must happen before Anchorage can go back to normal. That included a slower transmission rate, more testing and more access to personal protective equipment for health workers.

Alaska’s urban hub is not on the verge of meeting all of those criteria. While the “hunker down” order would expire Tuesday if left untouched, it’s almost certain that won’t happen. Berkowitz has repeatedly said he will extend the order, which requires many Anchorage businesses to remain closed, but he has not said until when.

“For the economy, we are not flipping this switch on a set date,” Berkowitz said Monday during a community briefing. “We are going to ease off on what the restrictions are. We are going to be very mindful, because the lessons of history are absolutely clear.”

On Tuesday, the Anchorage Assembly will vote on extending the emergency declaration period, which would allow Berkowitz to extend the “hunker down” order. Berkowitz on Friday asked to have the city’s emergency declaration period extended to Nov. 15, although that does not mean the “hunker down” order will be extended for the same amount of time.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

NPFMC is Moving

December 5, 2019 — The following was released by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council:

After the December 2019 Council meeting, the NPFMC office will be moving three blocks west and one block north to 1007 W. 3rd Ave, Suite 400, Anchorage AK, 99501, still in downtown Anchorage.  While the office will be closed to the public from December 16-27 to allow workers to accomplish tasks safely, you may still reach us via email. Our website, phone numbers, and email addresses will all remain the same.

The Council offices are all on the 4th floor of the building. We are excited that consolidating staff offices to be on the same floor will encourage collaboration and efficiency.  We also expect to hold committee meetings on site in our newly-equipped conference room, with upgraded video and teleconferencing capabilities.

Currently, the first floor of this building houses the North Pacific Research Board, the Alaska Ocean Observing System and Alaska Sea Grant offices.  We’re looking forward to being closer to our marine partners, and hope to be able to host an open house during the April Council meeting!

Thank you for your patience during this exciting endeavor.

Read the full release here

Can crab and fish in Alaska adapt to more acidic oceans? Scientists aim to find out.

November 1, 2019 — Researchers are looking for ways that crab and fish in Alaska may be able to adapt to more acidic ocean water.

With carbon dioxide levels rising on the planet, ocean water absorbs some of that CO2 and water becomes more acidic. That change is already impacting a variety of sea creatures.

Members of the Alaska Ocean Acidification Network gave an update to Alaska’s Board of Fisheries and a public presentation on the topic in Anchorage in October. The network is a group of researchers, managers, and stakeholders interested in the looming problem.

“It’s not that there hasn’t been variability in the amount of carbon dioxide. It’s not that this hasn’t happened before,” said Robert Foy, director of NOAA Fisheries Alaska Fisheries Science Center. “It’s the speed at which it is happening during our lifetime and whether or not the animals and plants in the ocean are able to adapt fast enough given the speed at which it’s occurring.”

Read the full story Alaska Public Media

ALASKA: Patagonia, Whole Foods, and others speak out against Pebble Mine in Bristol Bay

April 26, 2019 — A coalition of more than 200 businesses that includes Patagonia, Hy-Vee, Whole Foods, and PCC Markets drafted a letter this week to speak out against Pebble Mine, a proposed open-pit copper, gold, and molybdenum mine at the headwaters of the world’s largest sockeye salmon fishery in Bristol Bay, Alaska.

The letter from the group, known as Businesses for Bristol Bay, was addressed to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Anchorage and requested that the Corps suspend its review of the permit application from the mining group, the Canada-based Pebble Limited Partnership.

Echoing the concerns of many, the Businesses for Bristol Bay said the process is incomplete and that officials are trying to rush the permit through.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

ALASKA: Sullivan restates concern that Pebble comment period may be too short

April 19, 2019 — As a series of public hearings on the controversial Pebble mine came to a close in Anchorage on Tuesday, Sen. Dan Sullivan reiterated support for extending the period during which Alaskans can comment on the federal government’s draft report of the mine’s impacts.

Sullivan met with senior officials with the U.S. Army Corps recently, his staff said Tuesday.

“At that meeting, Senator Sullivan reiterated his view that the Corps should extend the comment period if necessary to ensure that the viewpoints of all Alaskans are taken into consideration on a project of this size and complexity. This is a general legal requirement of the federal permitting process,” Michael Soukup, an aide, said in a statement.

Sullivan raised the same concern in February, telling reporters the agency’s 90-day comment period is inadequate.

Read the full story at Anchorage Daily News

ALASKA: Final Pebble hearing draws mix of views

April 17, 2019 — People who oppose the Pebble Mine – and quite a few who support it – came out in force Tuesday for the final Corps of Engineers hearing on the proposed mine.

Dozens were in line when the doors opened on the hearing at the Dena’ina Center in Anchorage. Speakers criticized the adequacy of the Corps’ draft environmental impact statement. Many highlighted the importance of the salmon runs in Bristol Bay, downstream from the proposed mine.

“I’m a fifth-generation commercial fisherman,” said 15-year-old Emily Taylor, a freshman at Dimond High who fishes in the Naknek-Kvichak district every summer. “And the permit I now hold once belonged to my great, great grandmother, Anna Chukan.”

Read the full story at Alaska Public Media 

ALASKA: Bristol Bay: Back to the Pebble grind

February 28, 2019 — Alaska’s Bristol Bay salmon fishermen are once again rallying the troops to help check a juggernaut that threatens the world’s single-most productive salmon fishery.

Mining the copper and gold deposit at the headwaters of Bristol Bay’s natal sockeye streams might not be an inherently risky proposition were it not for the toxic byproduct. Based on our current best technology, toxic runoff from the mining process would be diverted to tailings ponds, which are essentially pools with dams built around them. Historically, these containment fields leak eventually.

The geography and topography of Bristol Bay complicates this plan. Any Anchorage area resident will tell you that Southwest Alaska is part of the ring of fire. After the 7.0 earthquake on Nov. 30, Anchorage area residents felt more than 6,000 aftershocks in just 30 days. That’s an average of 200 per day, or about 8 aftershocks per hour. And now, three months later, the aftershocks have not stopped.

What might the outcome be if a similar scenario hit Bristol Bay, about 250 miles from Anchorage, and thousands of aftershocks rippled through the water-laden soil containing manmade ponds of toxic sludge? Would they remain intact? Or would they twist and crumble like so many of the paved roads around Anchorage?

As long as Pebble Mine’s tailings ponds are to be built into Bristol Bay’s permeable soil in an earthquake zone, the plan may as well include a ticking clock on the health of the region’s renewable salmon resource.

Read the full story at National Fisherman