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Tuesday, May 29, 2007 News: Togiak Herring Fishery Withers Away
ANCHORAGE – It’s nearly all over at Togiak.
As of Friday, the total harvest in the state’s largest sac roe herring fishery stands at 16,131 tons with the purse seine fleet accounting for 11,974 tons and the gillnet fleet taking the rest. Department of Fish and Game managers shut down the seiners for the season Sunday night due to rising catches of undersized fish. Gillnetters can keep scratching until further notice or June 1, when the fishery closes by regulation. So, it looks like a lot of fish will be left on the table, as the harvest limit coming into the season was 23,634 tons. That’s amazing considering how competitive this fishery used to be (The Highliner, May 14). Weak Japanese roe demand and low prices have simply scared a lot of boats and processors off the water, leaving one to wonder: Will Togiak herring ever rise again? – Pacific Fishing columnist Wesley Loy, writing in the Anchorage Daily News News Brief: Russians Cut King Crab Harvest Vladivostok – TINRO (Pacific Scientific Fisheries & Oceanographic Research Institute) is proposing that only 5,631 tons of Kamchatka (king) crab be taken in 2007 - of which 1,201 tons be allocated to scientific vessels.The rest, 4,430 tons for commercial vessels, should be taken only north of the Sea of Okhotsk, off the west coast of the Kamchatka peninsula and in the waters of the Kuril Islands south of the Kamchatka peninsula. The other six catching grounds should be only monitored this year, the institute recommends. The institute also observed that the growing amount of illegal crab fishing and ever decreasing stocks in all the grounds could result in a complete ban in the future, as has been recommended by some, including Primorye Province's Governor Darkin. – Fishery RU
Vladivostok - In summing up the results of this year's winter pollock season, the administration of Primorye Province stated that more than 181,000 tons had been taken by the province's pollock fleet, or 1.8% more than last year.
News Brief: Russians Pollock Take Edges Higher The quota given the Primorye fleet was for 185,000 tons, so 98.2% of the quota was realized. When processed, the catch yielded 119,600 tons of product. The administration said that more yield had been obtained from processing this year, but did not offer any figures, saying only that almost 5% of the realized product was fillets and mince, and 67% was headed and gutted. – Fishery RU News: B.C. Government approves New Fish Farm VANCOUVER — The provincial government has approved a new fish farm on Vancouver Island, a week after a legislative committee issued a report calling for restrictions on new farms and the use of closed containment systems for farmed salmon.“I'm not discounting the report in any way,” Agriculture Minister Pat Bell said Thursday. “It will take some time to do a detailed review that we need to in order to understand the policy implications of implementation of part, all or none of that report.” He said the new farm, which will be run by Greig Seafood near Concepcion Point in Muchalaht Inlet on the west coast of Vancouver Island, was appropriate and technically sound. Bell said he discussed with the chairman of the committee that it would be inappropriate to have a moratorium on new licences while the report was being complied. The company first applied for the licence in March 2003, before the committee was formed. The site is within the territory of the Mowachaht/Muchalaht First Nation. Bell said the new farm will be subject to several conditions, including a review of its plans to prevent the escape of fish into the wild. Only one other farm has been approved since Bell has been in office in the past two years. He said 18 other applications are being processed around the province. “There could be other sites that will move forward over time but there's nothing in the immediate future that I'm aware of,” he said. – Globe and Mail, Toronto News: Fire Consumes B.C. Fishing Vessel VICTORIA, B.C. – Just a few days more and the Blue Pacific would have been worth its weight in insurance money.Flames gutted the nearly 80-foot commercial fishing boat early yesterday morning at owner David Lansdowne's private dock off Tovey Crescent in View Royal. Lansdowne estimates that it would have been insured for at least $400,000. "It's just horrifying to me to have all that machinery and hydraulics ... just all gone up in smoke," said Lansdowne, 63, who was in Vancouver when the boat burned. He had owned the Blue Pacific for only a month, and planned to get it checked for safety and insured by a Vancouver shipyard this weekend. "A boat like that -- there's no way to describe it," said Lansdowne, who has been living in Victoria for 30 years and fishing since he was a teenager. "It's not just a toy, a shiny piece of fiberglass. This was a really good boat that you could go anywhere in and be safe." He planned to use the wooden two-deck seiner to transport salmon from Alaska to Prince Rupert. "It was dirty, you know, but the more I cleaned it the more I liked it." View Royal Fire Department received the call at 3:40 a.m. and responded alongside firefighters from Colwood. Crews struggled to work their hoses down to the dock, almost 400 meters from the nearest hydrant. The Blue Pacific was tied to another of Lansdowne's trawlers. Firefighters had to cross the first, unburned boat to get to the blaze. They were assisted by fireboats and a Department of National Defence fire tug. Later, while the fire was still going, containment booms were brought in to block diesel runoff into the harbor. View Royal Fire Chief Paul Hurst said that the impact on Esquimalt harbor was minimal. The preliminary investigation indicates the fire was probably accidental, according to Hurst. It isn't yet known what caused the blaze, but Lansdowne thinks that it probably started as an electrical issue in the engine room. He said the fire could be due to the battery charger, which was the only thing he left on, or possibly the trouble light. He doesn't think that the boat is salvageable. – Times Colonist <<<•>>> Wednesday, May 30, 2007 Legislative Watch: Troller Aid Measure Sent to President WASHINGTON—Congress has sent President Bush a funding bill for the Iraq war that also will deliver $60.4 million in disaster assistance that desperate West Coast salmon fishermen have been seeking for nearly a year.This time it looks like they will get it. Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, a leading House advocate for the disaster money, said Thursday that the spending bill presents “the best chance so far” for the money being dispersed. Rep. Lois Capps, D-Santa Barbara, said the disaster assistance will help fishing families as far south as Morro Bay in her district. “Our salmon fishing communities have been devastated by this disaster and have been waiting for the federal government to do the right thing and come to their aid,” she said. The relief is the result of the closure of almost all the commercial salmon season last year off the coasts of Oregon and California. The closure was necessary to protect poor runs in the Klamath River after massive fish kills in 2002 and 2003 that critics blamed on federal agricultural water policy in the Upper Klamath Basin on the Oregon-California border. Progeny of those fish would have spawned the 2005 and 2006 runs. Last year’s commercial harvest was slashed to 88% of normal, idling commercial boats from Portland, Ore., to California’s Central Coast, and emptying resorts and other businesses that depend on a sports fishery. After initially balking at issuing a disaster finding, Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez declared a fishery failure in August and appealed to congressional leaders to allocate $60 million in relief. That action followed letters from Oregon and California governors and lawmakers, the California Chamber of Commerce and others asking for the emergency aid. But Congress adjourned late last fall after passing only temporary spending authority for most of the federal government, and when it returned to work in January under Democratic control, Congress passed only a pared-down funding bill for the rest of the 2007 fiscal year with no money for add-ons such as the salmon disaster assistance. Thompson and other West Coast lawmakers won a provision on a war spending bill for the disaster assistance, but Bush vetoed that measure because it called for a timetable for withdrawing troops from Iraq. That timetable was dropped this week, clearing the way for enactment of the war spending bill in a form the president is likely to sign into law. “We have fishing families who have lost their homes, or lost their boats or who can’t go out and fish because they don’t have the money,” Thompson said. “We have resort owners who have been living off credit cards. People have been badly harmed by this.” Glen Spain of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations said the disaster money “means the world to us.” – McClatchy Newspapers News: Feds Allow Shark Kill to Save Seals HONOLULU - At a lengthy meeting Friday, with many impassioned testifiers both for and against the issue, the state Board of Land and Natural Resources gave federal scientists permission to kill Galapagos sharks that have been attacking and killing young seals in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.Federal scientists say killing the sharks will save the endangered Hawaiian monk seal from extinction. There are only 1,200 seals left in the world. The board will allow the killing of the 5 sharks this summer inside the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument. George "Bud" Antonelis, protected-species division chief for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Pacific Islands Region, heads the shark culling effort. His request was approved by all three co-managers of the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument: NOAA, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the state Department of Land and Natural Resources. - KHNL
VANCHORAGE -- The National Marine Fisheries Service has rolled out the latest draft of its Steller Sea Lion Recovery Plan, an important document that will guide regulators on how to protect the endangered western stock of the big, braying creatures.
News: A New Plan to Protect Sea Lions The plan is naturally of keen interest to the fishing industry, having already lived for some years now with lots of restrictions. A leading theory is commercial nets scoop up fish the Stellers need for food. Some in the industry pine for the day when the sea lion population ticks back up – federal scientists see faint signs it’s already happening – and waters closed to fishing might reopen. Now, unless you have a real hankering to read the entire 200-page plan plus appendices, available here, The Highliner is pleased to offer you the crux of the document – a ranking of threats to sea lion recovery.
Love the list? Hate it? NMFS is taking public comment through Aug. 20. – Pacific Fishing columnist Wesley Loy writing as The Highliner for the Anchorage Daily News Legislative Watch: Troller Aid Measure Sent to President WASHINGTON—Congress has sent President Bush a funding bill for the Iraq war that also will deliver $60.4 million in disaster assistance that desperate West Coast salmon fishermen have been seeking for nearly a year.This time it looks like they will get it. Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, a leading House advocate for the disaster money, said Thursday that the spending bill presents “the best chance so far” for the money being dispersed. Rep. Lois Capps, D-Santa Barbara, said the disaster assistance will help fishing families as far south as Morro Bay in her district. “Our salmon fishing communities have been devastated by this disaster and have been waiting for the federal government to do the right thing and come to their aid,” she said. The relief is the result of the closure of almost all the commercial salmon season last year off the coasts of Oregon and California. The closure was necessary to protect poor runs in the Klamath River after massive fish kills in 2002 and 2003 that critics blamed on federal agricultural water policy in the Upper Klamath Basin on the Oregon-California border. Progeny of those fish would have spawned the 2005 and 2006 runs. Last year’s commercial harvest was slashed to 88% of normal, idling commercial boats from Portland, Ore., to California’s Central Coast, and emptying resorts and other businesses that depend on a sports fishery. After initially balking at issuing a disaster finding, Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez declared a fishery failure in August and appealed to congressional leaders to allocate $60 million in relief. That action followed letters from Oregon and California governors and lawmakers, the California Chamber of Commerce and others asking for the emergency aid. But Congress adjourned late last fall after passing only temporary spending authority for most of the federal government, and when it returned to work in January under Democratic control, Congress passed only a pared-down funding bill for the rest of the 2007 fiscal year with no money for add-ons such as the salmon disaster assistance. Thompson and other West Coast lawmakers won a provision on a war spending bill for the disaster assistance, but Bush vetoed that measure because it called for a timetable for withdrawing troops from Iraq. That timetable was dropped this week, clearing the way for enactment of the war spending bill in a form the president is likely to sign into law. “We have fishing families who have lost their homes, or lost their boats or who can’t go out and fish because they don’t have the money,” Thompson said. “We have resort owners who have been living off credit cards. People have been badly harmed by this.” Glen Spain of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations said the disaster money “means the world to us.” – McClatchy Newspapers News: Blaze Kills Mother of Kodiak Island’s Fields Alaska State Troopers received a report last week of a structure on fire at a fish camp on Bear Island (near Larsen Bay on Kodiak).Wallace Fields reported his cabin was on fire. Fields and his brother were able to get out, however, he reported his mother had not been able to escape the fire. Wallace stated the fire started around 5:00 a.m. Friday. Wallace's brother, Weston, was medivaced by the Coast Guard due to injuries he sustained from the blaze. At this time it is presumed that Wanda Fields, DOB 5-12-21, died in the fire. The cause of the fire is unknown at this time as investigators haven't reached the scene. As of 3:00 p.m. the structure had collapsed on itself and the ashes were still smoldering. - Alaska State Troopers <<<•>>> Thursday, May 31, 2007 Legislative Watch: Bush Signs Iraq, Salmon-Troller Bill WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Help is on the way for West Coast salmon fishers - thanks to the Iraq war.Tacked on to the request for additional funding for U.S. troops in the Middle East was a spending bill for other projects. This will provide $60.4 million to West Coast fishers - mostly in Oregon and California - hard hit by a downturn in catches and allocations. The move was led by Oregon Sens. Ron Wyden and Gordon Smith, in concert with California congressmen. "This is long overdue relief for Oregon's fishing families," said Wyden, D-Ore. "This funding will go a long way towards preventing a disastrous fishing season from becoming an even longer-term tragedy." Sens. Smith and Wyden first requested and secured support in 2006. But all funding projects, known as earmarks, were stripped from final spending bills in December 2006 - delaying approval of the funding by nearly six months. Almost all the commercial salmon season last year off the coasts of Oregon and California was closed to protect poor runs in the Klamath River after so many fish died in 2002 and 2003. Last year's commercial harvest was slashed to 88% of normal, idling commercial boats from Astoria to California's central coast. After initially balking at issuing a disaster finding, U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez declared one last August. Congress adjourned late last fall after passing only temporary spending authority for most of the federal government, and when it returned to work in January under Democratic control, Congress passed only a pared-down funding bill for the rest of the 2007 fiscal year with no money for add-ons like salmon disaster assistance. Initially, West Coast lawmakers won a provision on a war spending bill for the disaster assistance, but Bush vetoed that measure because it insisted on a timetable for withdrawing troops from Iraq. That timetable was later abandoned, allowing last week's action. Bush signed the Iraq War funding measure - with the fish aid add-on - at Camp David where he is spending part of the Memorial Day holiday. – Daily Astorian News: FBI Probing Ted Stevens’ Home Remodel ANCHORAGE – The FBI and a federal grand jury have been investigating an extensive remodeling project at U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens' home in Girdwood that involved the top executive of Veco Corp. in the hiring of at least one of the key contractors.Three contractors who worked on the project said in recent interviews with the Daily News that the FBI asked them to turn over their records from the job. One said he was called to testify about the project before a federal grand jury in Anchorage in December. The remodeling work, which more than doubled the size of the house, occurred in the summer and fall of 2000. The four-bedroom home, about two blocks from the day lodge parking lot at the Alyeska ski resort, is Stevens' official residence in Alaska. An old friend of Stevens in Girdwood, longtime Double Musky restaurant owner Bob Persons, has been questioned by the FBI about the project. He monitored the remodeling for Stevens and his wife while they were in Washington, D.C. "I will be testifying. That's all I can tell you," Persons said in a brief interview last week. "It is an ongoing investigation that I'm not supposed to talk to or see anybody about it." Persons would not elaborate on whether he meant that he would testify before a grand jury, at a trial, or both, or for whom. He said he believed Stevens did nothing wrong. Ted Stevens and his wife, Catherine, declined to answer questions about the Girdwood house. In a prepared statement issued by his office, Stevens said: "While I understand the public's interest in the ongoing federal investigation, it has been my long-standing policy to not comment on such matters. Therefore, I will withhold comment at this time to avoid even the appearance that I might influence this investigation." Ted Stevens, the most senior Republican in the U.S. Senate and Alaska's most famous political figure, has not been directly connected with the corruption investigation. The wide-ranging federal inquiry surfaced in August when agents raided six legislative offices, including those of then-Senate President Ben Stevens, one of Ted Stevens' sons. The FBI said at the time that it also had executed a search warrant in Girdwood, among other places, although the location of that search has never been officially disclosed. Veco, an oil-field service company that has long been a strong lobbying presence in Juneau, was one of the early targets of the agents, according to some of the search warrants that became public. On May 7, the company's longtime chief executive, Bill Allen, and a vice president, Rick Smith, pleaded guilty to federal conspiracy, bribery and tax charges. They are now cooperating with authorities. The investigation spread to the commercial fishing industry, including Ben Stevens' consulting clients and associates. Federal subpoenas served on fishing companies in Seattle last year sought records concerning both Ben and Ted Stevens. Four current or former Alaska state lawmakers have been indicted and are awaiting trial on corruption charges, and an Anchorage lobbyist has pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges. Ben Stevens has not been charged. But the charges pleaded to by Allen and Smith alleged Ben Stevens improperly accepted $242,000 from Veco for "giving advice, lobbying colleagues, and taking official acts in matters before the legislature." Augie Paone, owner of Christensen Builders Inc. of Anchorage, said in a recent interview that it was Bill Allen who hired him to complete the framing and most of the interior carpentry at Stevens' home. Before he could send a bill to Stevens for work in progress, he was directed to provide it first to Veco, where someone would examine it for accuracy, he said. When Veco approved the invoice, he would fax it to the Stevenses in Washington, he said. Paone said that by the time he finished his work in late October or early November, he had sent Stevens more than $100,000 in invoices for his own work. Paone said he charged normal rates but was uncomfortable with the arrangements because he hadn't provided an estimate before starting the work. He said he protected himself by retaining all the records on the project. Current city property records show the 10-room home contains 2,471 square feet of living space. With its quarter-acre lot, its assessed value for 2007 is $440,900. Last year, some six years after the project was completed, Paone said, "the FBI came over to me and I gave them all the paperwork I had on it." When he was questioned by the FBI, he said, agents seemed particularly interested in Veco and its officials. The government already had copies of most of his invoices on the Stevens home, having obtained them from Veco files, he said. Paone said he followed that up by testifying before a federal grand jury in December. – Anchorage Daily News
ANCHORAGE - A state-private effort is studying the seemingly diminished sockeye salmon returns to the Susitna River drainage over a three-year period.
Research Brief: Study Examines Lack of Susitna Sockeye The Alaska Department of Fish and Game has teamed up with the Cook Inlet Aquaculture Association to try to get a precise count of returns to help plot future management. The $1.75 million tag-and-recapture study is being conducted throughout the Susitna drainage. The state makes estimates based on sonar counts at the drainage's Yentna River, which has failed to return enough salmon to meet biologists' minimum goals in three of the last five years. During the same period, healthy numbers of sockeyes have swarmed to the Kenai Peninsula. The Yentna River had a record-low sonar count of 37,000 sockeyes in 2005, compared with a minimum state goal at the time of 90,000 spawners. The results could affect commercial fishing in Cook Inlet. Some blame nets that target the Kenai's bounty for also snaring the less-plentiful sockeyes swimming farther north. "There's no way they cannot catch our fish when they're catching Kenai and Kasilof fish," Skwentna sportfishing guide Dave McHoes said of gillnetters snaring Susitna-bound sockeyes. The first-year numbers from 2006 show more fish swimming up the Yentna than were counted by sonar, said Gary Fandrei, executive director of the Cook Inlet Aquaculture Association. The Fish and Game sonar downstream on the river counted 93,000, while association staffers manning weirs at four upstream lakes found 125,500 spawners. – Juneau Empire News: Corruption Reigns in Russian Far East Fisheries YUZHNO-SAKHALINSK, Russia --The largest number of crimes in the fishing sector, as well as rampant corruption, in the Far East have been uncovered in the Primorsky Territory, the Kamchatsk and Sakhalin regions, deputy Prosecutor General Yury Gulyagin said."The fishing sector in the Far East remains highly criminalized and very corrupt," Gulyagin said at a press conference in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk on Wednesday. A criminal investigation already involving 26 witnesses, and the number may rise to 35, is currently under way in the Primorsky Territory, he said. This is an organized and well-established group, which was involved in illicit crab fishing and in the smuggling of crab out to Asian Pacific countries, he said. "This is an example that characterizes the entire fishing sector in the Far East region," he said. Gulyagin also said that the Department of the Prosecutor General's Office in the Far East Federal District is now completing a general inspection of how all Far East regions comply with federal fishing and forestry laws. "A significant number of violations of federal fishing and forestry laws have been uncovered throughout the Far East region. These are similar types of violations," the deputy Prosecutor General said. - Interfax News Agency News: Mother, Daughters Rescued off Alaska Reef CHIGNIK LAKE – A mother and two young girls narrowly escaped drowning Wednesday afternoon when the open skiff the woman was piloting home from a shopping trip went aground on a reef near Chignik Bay on the Alaska Peninsula.“I was scared after it was over, but while it was happening, you just have got to do what you’ve got to do,” Chignik Lake resident Sandra Aleck, 43, said this morning. Sandra had two passengers on the shopping trip, her daughters, 14-year-old June and 9-year-old Briana. “I got my girls and told them to get out of the skiff and onto the reef. We were in the middle of the ocean, on a rock and the tide was about to turn,” Sandra said. Sandra said her outboard had a mechanical failure just as she passed the reef. Without power in the strong tides, the mishap soon turned into a grounding. And had it not been for June grabbing the radio, Sandra said, the women would not have been able to call for help from the rocks. Breakers battered the rocks, and the skiff, while the Aleck women hung on for help. Ernie Carlson and the crew of the Desperado heard the distress call and arrived to float a rescue raft to the stranded threesome. Sandra said the radio was the only item saved from the skiff. “We lost all the gas and groceries that we bought. (The skiff) is banged up bad, and I am very sore,” she said. – Kodiak Mirror <<<•>>> Friday, June 1, 2007 Industry Expansion: Sitka SITKA -- A new salmon processing plant is rising in Sitka, and big government dollars are helping float the venture.The Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority has loaned almost $1.2 million to Stikine Holdings, developer of the Silver Bay Seafoods plant. AIDEA describes it as a participation loan with Juneau-based Alaska Pacific Bank kicking in $130,000. Meantime, Stikine Holdings sought another loan of $900,000 from the City and Borough of Sitka, with the bank contributing $100,000 more. Silver Bay’s private investors including 29 commercial fishermen say they’re making a $5 million cash contribution for a total project cost of $7.3 million. The fish plant is under construction in Sitka’s Sawmill Cove Industrial Park, which is where a giant wood pulp mill operated up until 1993. The local government owns the park and leased the space for the fish plant. The developers promise to convert “an old and tired pulp warehouse and dock” into a bustling factory where up to 179 employees will head, gut and freeze chum and pink salmon for domestic, European and Asian markets. They’re aiming to complete the plant and open in time for this summer’s salmon runs. And next year they want to expand into herring. They say the plant will be not only a substantial employer of displaced timber workers and others, it’ll offer salmon seiners another place to sell their catches in a region lacking adequate processor capacity. So, who is Silver Bay Seafoods?
- Pacific Fishing correspondent Wesley Loy, writing at The Highliner on his Anchorage Daily News blog Industry Expansion in Depth: Astoria ASTORIA – Astoria's sardine industry is growing, along with the market for the North Coast's oil-rich product.This year, all three of the fish processors operating in the Port of Astoria's Pier 2 warehouse are expanding their operations to cash in on a burgeoning international sardine food market. Come mid-June, the ocean waters off the North Coast are rife with these 5- to 9-inch fish, which for the last several years have been landed in Astoria and sold as bait for the Japanese longline tuna fishery. But tuna aren't the only ones hungry for the schools of hearty sardines off the Oregon and Washington coasts. Consumers in Asia are increasingly providing a food market for sardines caught in the Columbia River plume. To process the fish for the overseas markets, Astoria's West Bay Marketing, Da Yang Seafoods and Astoria Pacific Seafoods are all adding sardine processing machines to their facilities. All three anticipate bringing in more product, processing more fish and hiring more workers when the catch comes in next month. Several other local sardine processors have undergone similar expansions in recent years, adapting to new marketing opportunities as the once experimental sardine fishery proved itself to be a worthwhile investment. New rules support growth Fishery managers have helped pave the way for expansion in the local sardine industry by changing the seasonal guidelines to give Oregon and Washington fishers access to more fish during the four-month fishery. Oregon's sardine industry was reborn in 1999 when West Coast fish stocks rebounded after 60 years of decline. To support initial interest in harvesting the product, the state launched a developmental sardine fishery with three permitted fishing vessels. Sardines caught off the Oregon and Washington coasts have increasingly found buyers in Japan, where a depleted sardine fishery has left the market open to American product. By 2002, there were 16 sardine fishing vessels operating in Oregon; by 2005 there were 20. Of the 99 million pounds of sardines caught by Oregon vessels in 2005, 99 percent was landed in Astoria. Last year, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife gave the sardine fishery a long-term stamp of approval and bumped up the number of permits from 20 to 26, all of which were claimed by boats in Astoria, Warrenton or southwest Washington. Rules for sardine fishers starting in 2006 allow uncaught sardine quota to roll over seasonally from California to Oregon and Washington, where fisheries start later in the year as schools swim north. The new guidelines have "evened the playing field" for North Coast fishers, allowing them to access the fish California fishers aren't catching, according to Brett Weidoff, sardine project manager for ODFW. Although the fishery includes the entire Oregon and Washington coasts, he said, "all the activity is just off the Columbia River - north and south of the river's mouth." Local processors respond Dana Ferguson, plant manager at West Bay Marketing, said abundant sardines stocks and the market for them have offered his company opportunities for growth in recent years. West Bay once focused on supplying the overseas tuna fleet but has slowly been tailoring more product for the Asian food market. In a $1.5 million expansion this year, West Bay is increasing its processing space inside the Pier 2 warehouse, adding freezer space and automated heading and gutting machines that cut 250 fish per minute. "If everything goes in the direction we expect it to, we'll continue to expand," said Ferguson. "There's room to grow." Rick Morehouse, chief engineer for Da Yang Seafoods, said his company is effectively doubling the existing freezer space and sardine processing equipment this year and has added a mezzanine level to its Pier 2 facility to make room. Like West Bay, Da Yang operates under a parent company in Taiwan. Both are now looking to tap high-end food markets for Japanese butterfly filleted sardines. Next door on Pier 2, the Astoria Pacific Seafoods plant is adding its own installation of sardine processing machines. Jay Bornstein, co-owner of Astoria Pacific Seafoods with Darrell Kapp of Bellingham, Wash., said his company is making a "significant investment in equipment, people and additional product" this year in a move that will add more value to the fish "on this side of the ocean" and improve access to Asian markets. "You have to adapt the fish to the market, adapt to where you can sell," said Bornstein. "We've been selling into food already, this is just additional manufacturing here versus overseas." The company is also replacing one of its boats with a bigger fishing vessel this year, looking to increase the volume of fish it brings in by 20-25 percent. Bigger profits for northern fish Sam Herrick, an economist with the federal National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said the Oregon and Washington sardine processors have capitalized on the larger sardines found in northern waters. The sardines off the mouth of the Columbia draw higher prices than the smaller fish caught off the coast of California, he said, and companies invested in the fishery have pushed for a bigger cut of the West Coast sardine allocation and have sought out buyers for their product. "That sector seems to be pretty aggressive in terms of developing new markets for their sardines," he said. "The Pacific Northwest created a market for sardines for human consumption in Japan - for sashimi-grade sardine, essentially. ... They're really pretty big fish, and they're high in oil content." According to the Pacific Fishery Management Council, the amount of sardines sold for human consumption is quickly growing in Japan and in other countries as food markets are developed and the longline tuna bait markets become saturated. This year, the coastwide allocation for sardines is the highest it's ever been, with 152,650 metric tons available, compared with 118,936 metric tons in 2006. "The Pacific Northwest can harvest larger fish than the California area, and now they can chew into more of the harvest guideline," said Weidoff. "I think what guys are doing is trying to develop more markets. There's all kinds of markets for sardines continually looking to diversify and utilize large and small fish." – Cassandra Marie Profita, a reporter for the Daily Astoria, also covers commercial fishing for Pacific Fishing magazine
ILWACO - Channel maintenance soon will begin at the mouth of the Columbia River, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced.
News: Latest Round of Columbia Dredging to Begin An informational meeting about the channel maintenance will be held at 6:30 p.m. June 7, at the Port of Ilwaco. The schedule for dredging activities and the disposal locations for sediment removed from the navigation channel will be presented. In previous years, this meeting has also been an opportunity to share information and coordinate activities among all of the attendees. The meeting is open to anyone who is interested. The port offices are located at 165 Howerton Way S.E., Ilwaco. The contract for the mouth of the Columbia River maintenance dredging has been awarded to Great Lakes Dredge and Dock, and work is tentatively scheduled to begin around the end of June. The Corps' dredge, Essayons, will begin work in July. The Mouth of the Columbia River navigation channel is between River Mile 3 and River Mile minus-3, where the Columbia River meets the Pacific Ocean. The Corps dredges the navigation channel each year to provide a lane of safer transit for vessels crossing the Columbia River bar. – Chinook Observer More Information about Death of Fields’ Mother KODIAK – New information regarding the fire at a fish camp Friday on Bear Island north of Larsen Bay reveals only Wanda Fields was in the house at the time of the fire.Wanda’s son Weston, the only family member present during the fire, had not been interviewed or contacted by media until recently. Weston told the Mirror today he lives near her house, but not in the line of sight. Another son, Wallace, was at his home in Uyak Bay, a mile away. The fire was discovered by a crewmember in another house who got up in the middle of the night to use the restroom. The crewmember’s house has a line of sight to Wanda’s house, Weston said. The crewmember contacted Weston, who then tried to enter Wanda’s house. “By the time I got there, the fire was already pretty advanced,” Weston said, adding he was unable to get in the front door. While trying to break a window to enter the house, he sliced tendons in his thumb and was unable to hoist himself in. A crewmember was able to climb in. He searched for the elder Fields unsuccessfully, due to heat, smoke and lack of visibility. “In a situation like that, you only have seconds because you’re in the smoke. It’s pitch dark. There was heat, the whole thing was burning,” Weston said. “We couldn’t find her.” When the crewmember came out, the fire had escalated to the point that it was unsafe for anyone to go back in. “They actually had quite a bit of fire extinguishing equipment and emptied it all trying to get the fire down to get into the door,” Weston’s brother Wallace said. People at the scene had 20 fire extinguishers plus two larger ones, Weston said. He emphasized there was no gas or diesel stored inside the house. A few days prior to the fire he checked around the woodstove for anything flammable and put in a new fire extinguisher. The smoke alarm worked, he said. “We had been using the woodstove for almost a month before she (Wanda) ever got there,” Weston said. “Nothing that we could think of changed in the nine or 10 days she had been there.” – Kodiak Daily Mirror News Brief: Scientists Recognized for Public Service PRINCE RUPERT -- A fish nutritionist and the man responsible for the federal government's rockfish conservation plan have both been recognized for their scientific endeavors.Dr. David A. Higgs and Gary Logan - both Fisheries and Oceans Canada employees - were awarded 2007 Murray A. Newman Awards by the Vancouver Aquarium. "To my mind, one of the greatest honors that can be bestowed on a public servant is public recognition of a job well done," said Paul Sprout, regional director general, Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) Pacific Region. - The Daily News, Prince Rupert |