Unalaska Archives - Saving Seafood

Alaska’s fishing industry sounds alarm over proposed NOAA cuts

April 22, 2025 — The commercial fishing industry relies on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for everything from marine weather forecasts to fisheries data. But NOAA — which lost hundreds of employees in February when the Trump administration fired probationary staff — is in the administration’s crosshairs again, according to a preliminary budget proposal from the White House Office of Management and Budget.

The budget calls for slashing NOAA’s funding by more than 27% for fiscal year 2026. It also restructures the agency’s fisheries division, shifting key responsibilities to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Frank Kelty, a fisheries consultant and former Unalaska mayor, said big changes like these could have major consequences for commercial fishing in Alaska.

Read the full story at the Bristol Bay Times

ALASKA: New owner to take over Unalaska fish processing plant

January 14, 2022 — An Unalaska fish processing plant will soon have a new owner, according to a city memo.

The Northern Victor – a 380-foot processing ship owned by Icicle Seafoods – spent decades splitting its seasons between processing pollock in Unalaska’s Beaver Inlet and traveling to Seattle for maintenance. In 2018, the vessel found a permanent home docked at Unalaska’s spit.

Read the full story at KUCB

Unalaska Boosts COVID Risk Level To ‘High’ After Potential Spread At Weekend Festivals

August 19, 2021 — The City of Unalaska confirmed what it called a “widespread community exposure” of COVID-19, after identifying two new community acquired cases of the virus Tuesday.

In a prepared statement and interviews, city officials said wastewater testing had recently shown an uptick in COVID-19 positivity. They also said they’re on guard after two major public festivals last weekend brought residents together in close quarters.

In response to the new cases, the city has raised its COVID-19 risk level to “high” and closed certain municipal buildings to the public.

Despite the uptick in cases, the city isn’t mandating any extra public health protocols or scheduling a special City Council meeting to discuss them. However, council will meet next Tuesday to review community-wide protective measures.

City Hall and the public library are also temporarily closing to the public, while the pool and Community Center will remain open at limited capacity, and by appointment only.

Read the full story at KUCB

Harmful algal blooms can be lethal for humans. Scientists wonder if they cause seabird die-offs, too

July 29, 2021 — Paralytic shellfish poisoning, caused by eating seafood contaminated with toxins from harmful algal blooms, can be deadly to humans. Now, using marine samples from Unalaska, scientists are trying to understand if those harmful algal blooms could also be responsible for seabird die-offs.

There’s not much data on how saxitoxin — a harmful compound produced by algal blooms that cause PSP — spreads through the larger food web. But in July, a group of biologists with the United States Geological Survey visited Unalaska to collect samples of plants and animals in hopes of learning more about how saxitoxin levels magnify and diminish as they move through the food chain, from phytoplankton to mussels and up to seabirds.

“We don’t really know how this toxin moves through the food web,” said Sarah Schoen, a USGS wildlife biologist that recently collected marine samples in Unalaska. “There’s still a lot of unknowns, but the more information we can collect about it, the more we’ll understand it.”

Schoen said the project started about five years ago when a major heat wave, known as “the blob,” hit the ocean. Around the same time, there was a die-off of an estimated million common murres — a northern seabird — from Alaska down to California.

Read the full story at KTOO

U.S. Seafoods apologizes to Unalaska after COVID-positive crew caused widespread exposure at local bar

April 16, 2021 — A Seattle seafood company issued an apology to the community of Unalaska after crew members from one of its vessels, at port in the island community, breached isolation protocols to visit a crowded local bar last weekend.

The resulting widespread exposure forced the city to move from the “medium” to “high” coronavirus risk level after nearly a month and a half at the lower threshold. Dozens of locals who visited the Norwegian Rat Saloon have been asked to quarantine and test for the virus, if they haven’t been vaccinated.

“We are extremely sorry about the events that occurred,” said Dave Wood, U.S. Seafoods’ chief operating officer. “We regret that these individuals made terrible decisions, put a lot of people at risk and harmed a lot of people. We are as outraged as you are.”

U.S. Seafoods officials said they’re still trying to figure out exactly what happened that night, shortly after the F/V Seafreeze America arrived in port.

The 240-foot vessel was fishing for yellowfin sole in the Bering Sea last week when a few of the 51 crew members on board started feeling COVID-19 symptoms. The company tested them on board, and rerouted the boat to Dutch Harbor to confirm the results and be closer to medical care, Wood said.

Read the full story at KUCB

ALASKA: Bering Sea fishermen likely had COVID-19 but still went to Unalaska bar. Now, locals have to quarantine.

April 14, 2021 — Unvaccinated people who visited Unalaska’s Norwegian Rat Saloon late Saturday are being asked to quarantine this week after officials say they shared the space with fishermen who broke their company’s own quarantine plans while they were awaiting COVID-19 testing results.

The fishermen came from a United States Seafoods vessel where COVID-19 cases were suspected, but they still visited the popular bar after 10 p.m., Unalaska City Manager Erin Reinders said Monday.

“There was a vessel that came into town on Saturday, and on that vessel, there’s been 26 confirmed individuals who tested positive for COVID-19 and then two additional presumed positive for COVID-19,” Reinders said. “There was a breach in the company’s isolation plan with some of those positive individuals, and due to that breach, that did cause a community exposure.”

Reinders said the fishing company is working on its plan for isolation and quarantine of its 51-person crew aboard the factory trawler Seafreeze America. She didn’t say whether they are quarantining on or off the boat.

The city, meanwhile, is considering what kind of action it could take against the crew members who knew they may have been COVID-positive and still breached quarantine to visit the saloon, said Reinders.

Read the full story at KTOO

ALASKA: Gov. Dunleavy Introduces Job Creating Infrastructure Bond

February 9, 2021 — The following was released by The Office of Governor Mike Dunleavy (R-AK):

Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy today introduced a job-creating $356 million infrastructure proposal – the first statewide bond proposal in nearly 10 years. Senate Bill 74 is a key piece of the Dunleavy administration’s Path Forward and will benefit Alaskans statewide, improving transportation, education, recreation, and communications systems throughout the state. Upon passage by the Legislature, the general obligation bond will go to a vote of the people.

“This statewide bond package is essential to stabilizing our economy and putting Alaskans back to work following the economic upheaval caused by the pandemic,” said Governor Mike Dunleavy. “Not only will this proposal create jobs, it will improve critical infrastructure for all Alaskans. I look forward to working with the Legislature to take this to a vote of the people following the 2021 legislative session.”

The proposal totals $356,405,952 and leverages a federal match of $1,003,471,000. Projects of interest included in the general obligation bond include:

$8.5M to West Susitna Road Access project
$25M to School Major Maintenance Grant Fund
$18.9M to Fairbanks Youth Facility
$2.4M to Fairbanks Pioneer Home
$19.5M to Alaska Vocational Technical Center upgrades
$12M to Alaska Public Safety Communication Services System upgrades
$13.2M to Fairbanks to Seward Multi-Use Recreation Trail Construction
$20M to Statewide Firebreak Construction Program
$2.4M to Alaska Wildlife Troopers Marine Enforcement repair and replacement
$4.2M to Bethel Airport
$8.3M to Craig Harbor
$28.8M to Dalton Highway repairs and upgrades
$540K to Denali Highway Mile Point 24-25 (Milepost 22)
$5.6M to Ketchikan South Tongass Highway
$29.9M to Sterling Highway Miles 8-25 (Milepost 45-60) Sunrise to Skilak
$9.3M to Unalaska Harbor
$29.6M to University of Alaska infrastructure projects

For more information on the general obligation bond proposal, including a comprehensive list of project proposals, click here.

New Coast Guard Cutter Named For Heroic Sailor Buried In Unalaska

February 5, 2021 — Near the base of Mount Newhall in Unalaska, among several weathered Russian Orthodox crosses, a tall stone marks the grave of seaman Charles Moulthrope.

Moulthrope was buried in Unalaska in 1896, at the age of 23, after he died during service in nearby waters. But 125 years later, his name lives on, as a recently commissioned U.S. Coast Guard cutter now carries the name Charles Moulthrope.

This will be the first modern Coast Guard cutter named for an enlisted member of the Revenue Cutter Service. The ship is meant to bring recognition to the sacrifices made by Moulthrope and other sailors who served in this precursor of the U.S. Coast Guard, according to Senior Chief Petty Officer Sara Muir.

“The first ten revenue cutters were ten oceangoing cutters,” Muir said. “We’re talking about wooden vessels with sails that were built at the behest of the United States Congress in the early 1790s, largely to crack down on smuggling.”

Moulthrope is recognized for heroically saving his crewmates, while they were serving off the Oregon coast.

Read the full story at KUCB

Unalaska fish processing plant reopens after COVID-19 outbreak forces monthlong shutdown

February 3, 2021 — Unalaska’s largest fish processing plant reopened Monday after a COVID-19 outbreak forced it to shut down for almost a month.

UniSea closed its doors Jan. 5 after a handful of workers tested positive for the virus, following a New Year’s gathering in company housing.

Since then, 66 of UniSea’s more than 900 workers tested positive for the virus, according to UniSea President Tom Enlow. Seventeen of those were during their two-week entry quarantine, and 49 were non-travel related cases, he said.

“The virus has not been eliminated just yet,” Enlow said in an email. “We have active cases in isolation that we are monitoring and close contacts in quarantine that we are continuing to test. But we feel very good about our response to the outbreak and containment thus far.”

The reopening is a bright spot for the Bering Sea fishing industry, which has been hampered by COVID-19 outbreaks at multiple boats and onshore plants.

Read the full story at KTOO

COVID-19 closes a third Aleutian plant, stranding Bering Sea fishermen at the dock

January 25, 2021 — A third seafood processing plant has shut down in the Aleutian Islands amid a COVID-19 outbreak, threatening to further derail lucrative winter fisheries in the region.

In the Aleutian port town of Unalaska, at least five local boats are stuck at the dock with nowhere to deliver their cod after the shutdown of the Alyeska Seafoods processing plant, according to a crew member on one of them, Tacho Camacho Castillo.

Alyeska closed its plant Friday “based on a cluster of positive cases” identified through “surveillance testing,” the City of Unalaska said in a prepared statement.

“There’s two days and this fish starts to spoil,” Camacho Castillo, a crew member on the 58-foot Lucky Island, said in an interview Friday. “Am I going to be throwing out fish into the ocean? It’s going break my heart, for real, if I throw all this fish away.”

The plant closures are setting off a scramble among fishermen, industry leaders and political officials involved in the Bering Sea cod, crab and pollock fisheries, which are worth more than $1 billion and support thousands of jobs.

Read the full story at KTOO