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State officials and industry leaders trying to rescue the ailing Alaska seafood industry are facing daunting challenges, recently released numbers show. The industry lost $1.8 billion last year, the result of low prices, closed harvests and other problems, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Direct employment of harvesters last year fell by 8% to the lowest level since 2001, when counts of harvesting jobs began, the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development said. The monthly average for... Full story
A variety of market forces combined with fishery collapses occurring in a rapidly changing environment caused Alaska’s seafood industry to lose $1.8 billion from 2022 to 2023, a new federal report said. The array of economic and environmental challenges has devastated one of Alaska’s main industries, said the report, issued by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. And the losses extend beyond economics, casting doubt on prospects for the future, the report said. “For many Alaskans the decline of their seafood industry affec... Full story
Alaskans will vote Nov. 5 on a ballot measure that would increase the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2027 and require that workers get paid for up to seven sick days a year. To backers who collected signatures to put the question before voters, Ballot Measure 1 is about fairness for workers and overall state economic vitality. But opponents in business groups warn that the measure, if passed, would bring dire consequences. To Sarah Oates, CHARR’s president, the consequences of Ballot Measure 1 would be bad. “This is going to kill small... Full story
Opponents of the planned Donlin Gold mine in Western Alaska won a key victory on Monday when a federal judge ruled that regulators who granted a permit needed to build the project failed to properly consider the risks of a catastrophic release of mine waste. U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason agreed with tribal government plaintiffs that argued the environmental study that led to federal permitting for the Donlin mine illegally omitted analysis of the impacts of a major tailings dam failure. “I think it’s a major victory for the tri...
Alaska had the biggest decline in average life expectancy of all U.S. states in 2021, a year when health outcomes were heavily influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a recent national report. Alaska’s life expectancy in 2021 was 74.5 years, down from the average of 76.6 years in 2020, according to the report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Overall, U.S. life expectancy declined by 0.6 years in that time, mostly because of the COVID-19 pandemic and increases in drug overdose deaths and other unintentional i...
As Alaskans from different organizations convened at the University of Alaska Anchorage to brainstorm ways to reverse the state’s continuing population outmigration, a leading state economist delivered some bad news. Dan Robinson, research chief at the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development, revealed that the latest data shows that Alaska has now had 12 consecutive years with more residents leaving than arriving. That is unprecedented, he said. “This is not normal for us. It hasn’t happened before,” Robinson said on Thursda... Full story
Democratic U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola received more than half of the votes in primary results released Tuesday night, well ahead of Republican challengers, businessman Nick Begich III and Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom. With 387 of 403 precincts reporting through 1 a.m. on Wednesday, the incumbent Peltola had received 50.4% of the votes counted. She was running well ahead of her 36.8% share of the vote in the 2022 primary, which was held the same day as the special election she won to fill the seat left vacant by the death of 49-year Congressman Don... Full story
Fishery managers overseeing Alaska’s faltering salmon runs should be able to rely on a more comprehensive and holistic approach to science that considers all habitat, from the middle of the ocean to freshwater spawning streams far inland, according to a task force report on salmon research needs. The report was issued last week by the Alaska Salmon Research Task Force, a group established through a 2022 act of Congress to identify knowledge gaps and research needs. The task force comprises close to 20 members and includes scientists, f... Full story
The 33rd Alaska State Legislature came to a shuddering but active end early Thursday morning as lawmakers passed the state’s annual budget and a series of high-profile bills addressing crime, climate change, the looming Cook Inlet energy crunch, and problems with the state’s correspondence education programs. “I think it was a great session,” said Speaker of the House Cathy Tilton, R-Wasilla. “We’ve taken care of energy … we were able to take care of the correspondence folks. And we had a great crime bill that we passed. So I think it was... Full story
New U.S. claims to seabed territory off Alaska have run into an obstacle: an objection from the Russian government. The Russian government, which has staked territorial claims to most of the Arctic Ocean, is challenging the U.S. claims made in December to sovereignty over 520,400 square kilometers of extended outer continental shelf in the Arctic Ocean – an area bigger than California - and another 176,330 square kilometers in the Bering Sea. The U.S. does not have the right to make such claims... Full story
Maximum payouts from a fund that covers medical costs of injured seafood harvesters would be boosted under a bill that won final passage in the Alaska Legislature on Thursday. The measure, Senate Bill 93, would boost allowable payouts from the Fishermen’s Fund to $15,000 per injury or disablement from the current $10,000 maximum. The Fishermen’s Fund serves as something of a stand-in for workers’ compensation. Commercial fishers in Alaska are not covered by workers’ compensation insurance. The fund, which predates statehood, is adminis... Full story
Money to purchase an icebreaker for the U.S. Coast Guard to be based in Juneau is in a pending federal defense bill more than a year after similar funding was dropped at the last minute from another budget bill, members of Alaska’s congressional delegation said on Thursday. The pending Homeland Security Appropriations Act, which is part of a broader federal budget bill, includes $125 million to buy an icebreaker to add to the Coast Guard’s meager fleet, the delegation members said. “This is really good news for Alaska, good news for Ameri... Full story
Russian fish flooding global markets and other economic forces beyond the state’s border have created dire conditions for Alaska’s seafood industry. Now key legislators are seeking to establish a task force to come up with some responses to the low prices, lost market share, lost jobs and lost income being suffered by fishers, fishing companies and fishing-related communities. The measure, Senate Concurrent Resolution 10, was introduced on March 1 and is sponsored by the Senate Finance Committee. “Alaska’s seafood industry is in a tailspi... Full story
The U.S. Department of Agriculture will purchase about 50 million pounds of Alaska seafood to use in national food and nutrition-assistance programs, state officials said on Tuesday. The seafood purchase is to benefit needy children and adults and school lunches, said the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, which announced the department’s plans. The purchases are authorized through a portion of federal law called Section 32, which allows the department to buy surplus food products, and through the department’s Commodity Credit Corp., a gov... Full story
Russian seafood will no longer be legally allowed in U.S. markets after it is processed in China, under an executive order issued Friday by President Joe Biden. The action seeks to close a loophole that the Russian seafood industry was able to use to skirt import sanctions put in place in 2022 in response to the invasion of Ukraine. The ban is now extended to any seafood caught in Russian waters or by Russian-flagged vessels, "notwithstanding whether such products have been incorporated or...
Alaska’s minimum wage will increase on Jan. 1, 2024 from $10.85 to $11.73 an hour, in accordance with a law put in place by a 2014 citizen initiative, the state Department of Labor and Workforce Development announced. The law mandates regular increases in the minimum wage to match inflation rates as determined by the Consumer Price Index in Anchorage. Compared to the rest of the nation, the state’s minimum wage is “a little bit middling right now,” said Joelle Hall, president of the Alaska AFL-CIO. It appears on track to stay that way for at... Full story
The company trying to build a huge copper and gold mine in the salmon-rich Bristol Bay will keep fighting for the project, despite a decision by the federal government to keep the proposed development site off-limits to large-scale metals mining. John Shively, chief executive officer of the Pebble Limited Partnership, made that vow in a presentation at the Alaska Miners Association annual convention in Anchorage. He said the Pebble mine had the potential to transform the economy and improve lives in the rural Bristol Bay region, just as he... Full story
After recent years of record or near-record runs and harvests, Bristol Bay sockeye salmon numbers are expected to return to more average levels next year, according to state biologists. The 2024 Bristol Bay sockeye salmon run is expected to total 39 million fish, with a predicted range between about 25 million and 53 million fish, according to a preliminary forecast released Friday by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. That is 35% lower than the average over the past 10 years but 6% higher than the long-term average for Bristol Bay, the... Full story
After a period when COVID-19 restrictions halted the spread of other respiratory diseases, Alaska had a big increase in influenza cases, state data shows. The overall influenza case load during the 2022-23 season was much higher than in prior years, reports a new bulletin issued by the epidemiology section of the Alaska Division of Public Health. Most notably, cases spiked much earlier in the season, in November and December, before dropping. There were five influenza deaths over the season, all among adults, according to the bulletin, the late... Full story
The company behind the controversial Pebble Mine in Southwest Alaska has agreed to pay nearly $6.4 million to a group of shareholders who claim they were misled by corporate leaders. Vancouver-based Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. reached the settlement with the named plaintiffs, according to documents filed last week in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. The settlement is the product of two lawsuits, later consolidated, alleging that Northern Dynasty and the Pebble Limited Partnership had defrauded investors through... Full story
In the Bristol Bay region, sockeye salmon runs have been booming while Chinook runs have dwindled. Now scientists are seeking to enlist fishing crews in the effort to find out why, as well as what can be done about the Chinook troubles. A community-focused program called Skipper Science is asking for Bristol Bay fishermen working on the salmon-rich Nushagak River to record the prevalence, locations and conditions of Chinook salmon they encounter – and the places where they are not found. The Nushagak project is a partnership between Skipper S... Full story
The Alaska House of Representatives on Tuesday passed a bill that would allow the state to set up a system for using state land to sell carbon-offset credits. The House action amounted to final passage of the bill, which was approved the previous day by the state Senate. The measure, Senate Bill 48, authorizes the Alaska Department of Natural Resources to lease out state land for up to 55 years for the purpose of preserving its powers to absorb atmospheric carbon. The bill has been a high priority for Gov. Mike Dunleavy. The Republican... Full story
Alaska’s coastal communities are home to more than a third of the U.S. wastewater plants that are still allowed to treat their sewage at the lowest and most basic technological level. But six cities in Southeast Alaska may soon have to invest in improvements to better clean their wastewater before discharging it into the ocean. That is the message from draft permits that have been released or are to be released by the Environmental Protection Agency, which has determined that too much bacteria is going from the sites into marine waters. The a... Full story
The long-term outlook is bright for Bristol Bay sockeye runs, source of a thriving commercial fishery that has enjoyed record-breaking returns and harvests in recent years, a salmon expert told a conference last month. Part of the credit goes to the warming climate in that southeast Bering Sea region, Daniel Schindler, a professor at the University of Washington's School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, said in a teleconferenced presentation on March 24 to the two-day Bristol Bay Sustainability... Full story
Bans on commercial fishing in U.S. and international Arctic waters have been lauded as admirable preemptive actions that protect vulnerable resources before they are damaged by exploitation. But now the Alaska Department of Fish and Game is preparing for a time when the 14-year-old moratorium on commercial fishing in federal Arctic waters is lifted. The department is seeking $1 million in state general funds and another $2 million in federal funds to work on research to better understand those Arctic waters in the event that commercial... Full story
