Genetically Modified Salmon, If Approved, Would Need Identification Label

There’s no decision yet from the US Food and Drug Administration on whether to allow genetically modified salmon to be sold to the public, but if  it is, that product would have to be specifically labeled as different from wild salmon.

The Senate Appropriations Committee this week approved an amendment in the federal agriculture spending legislation to require labeling of the product.  Among those backing the amendment were Alaska Senators Lisa Murkowski and Mark Begich.  Both strongly oppose the product, which they call “Frankenfish.”

“This would be the first time ever that the FDA has approved for human consumption a genetically engineered fish,” Murkowski said.

“This is an experiment that, if it went wrong, could be absolutely devastating to the wild healthy stocks that swim off the coast of Alaska, up past California, Oregon and Washington state, she said.

“What this does is it takes a transgenic Atlantic salmon egg, which has genes from an ocean pout, somewhat akin to an eel, and it combines with the genes of a Chinook salmon. …. This experiment I think puts at risk the health of our fisheries not only in Alaska, but throughout the Pacific Northwest.”

Murkowski noted that to date more than 1.5 million people have written in opposition to approval of the genetically tweaked salmon, and 65 supermarkets have said they won’t carry it.”

An aide to Murkowski said he anticipates a final vote on the matter this summer in Congress, before the 2015 fiscal year begins.

China Lifts Ban on Washington State Geoducks

China has notified the US Trade Representative’s office that it has lifted a ban on the import of Washington State geoducks, news that has met with the approval of Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-WA.

Cantwell issued a statement in late May saying this is great news for the shellfish industry, which is a vital part of the maritime economy in Washington state and supports thousands of jobs.

“Since most of our geoduck exports go to China, this will be a major step forward,” Cantwell said.

The ban, which was lifted for Washington in mid-May, had been in effect since Dec. 2, 2013. The ban included geoducks and other bivalve seafood products, including oysters, clams and mussels from Washington, Oregon, Northern California and Alaska.

Geoducks are hugely popular in China, where about 90 percent of Puget Sound geoducks are exported.

Chinese officials banned imports after two shipments of geoducks were flagged for potential toxins. US officials disputed the accuracy of the results and found that the shellfish were safe to eat.  They have worked with stakeholders, tribes, academics and Chinese officials to conduct additional monitoring and develop specific seafood testing protocols for geoducks that will be exported to China.

On Dec. 20, Cantwell sent a letter to the US Food and Drug Administration, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the US Trade Representative requesting immediate action to resolve the geoduck ban. Signers included 9 other members of Congress from Washington state, Senators Lisa Murkowski, R-AK, Mark Begich, D-AK, Rep Don Young, R-AK, Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-OR, Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, D-OR, Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-OR, Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D[OR, Rep. Mike Thompson, D-CA, Rep Jared Huffman, D-CA, and Rep. Sam Farr, D-CA.

Washington state’s $270 million shellfish industry supports more than 3,000 jobs in the state’s coastal communities. Shellfish farming is the largest employer in Washington’s Pacific County and is the second largest employer in Mason County.

Construction Efforts in Progress for Alaska's Fishing Ports

Major fishing ports and harbors critical to Alaska's economy are in the midst of designing, construction and fund sourcing in the spring of 2014, to meet needs ranging from float replacements to strengthening breakwaters.

With steady fishing vessel traffic from the Kenai Peninsula to Homer, Seward, Dutch Harbor, Sitka and Wrangell, planning, bidding and finding construction funds is an ongoing process, harbormasters said.

At Homer, on Alaska's Kenai Peninsula, Harbormaster Brian Hawkins said there are a lot of projects going on, from float replacement and electric upgrades to a new harbor office.

A contract on the float replacement project has already been awarded for the $8 million project to Harris Sand and Gravel, of Valdez, with construction to begin after Labor Day and hopefully be completed by December, said Hawkins, who was honored late last year as the Alaska Association of Harbormasters and Port Directors; Harbormaster of the Year.

The float replacement will include electrical upgrades to the System 5 float system, which essentially triples service for the larger crab tender fleet, and will bring in year-round potable water to that system, Hawkins said.

The project also includes replacing one of the 50-year-old steep gangways with a 100-foot covered gangway being built by Bay Weld in Homer, he said.

A $6 million cruise ship head-tax grant has already been used for dock fender upgrades to the deep-water dock. Improvements for cruise ship passengers coming ashore to visit Homer, and an improved trail system with interpretive signage and overviews is under construction and is to be completed by June, he said.

Meanwhile, said Hawkins, the port is moving toward 95 percent design on a new harbor office, intends to put the project out to bid soon, and begin construction in August. The old 2,000-square-foot harbor office, now about 50 years old, survived the Good Friday earthquake in March 1964, but is now out of code, and has actually been on the city's list of buildings to replace for more than 20 years, he said.

Given the congestion around the current office, the new 4,700 square foot office is to be built across the harbor on the east side, he said. It will be financed with funds from the city and state, plus harbor reserves.

Homer is also nearing completion on design for a $3.5 million project to replace concrete and floats in an area used mainly by sport and recreational boaters, with 75 percent in federal monies allocated to the state, and 25 percent city money. The original floats there are probably 40 years old and patched together, Hawkins said. That project is likely to begin late this year or in early 2015.

At the port of Seward, also on the Kenai Peninsula a new pressure wash-down pad for boats hauled out for work in the boat yard was completed last fall, with a process that sends the water through a recycling system. Also recently completed is replacement of one of the harbor's main docks, with several dozen slips, which was built right after the 1964 earthquake.

Big plans for this year include going out to bid on an extension of the breakwater at the Seward Marine Industrial Center, to extend protection against waves. The Alaska Legislature last spring approved $10 million for the project and voters in the 2012 general election approved another $10 million for the project in the statewide transportation ballot. City sources said they are hopeful the project will be under construction in 2015.

At the International Port of Dutch Harbor, with year-round seafood deliveries of everything from red king crab to pollock, Pacific cod and halibut, replacement and reconfiguration of the Robert Storrs Harbor floats is a priority, in a long term project that will include the addition of year-round access to water and fire suppression equipment, upgrades of the electrical facilities and increased mooring space.

Port director Peggy McLaughlin said the C float project, a $3.5 million project to be funded through a matching grant from the state of Alaska, is in the design phase for reconfiguration and hopefully will go out to bid this summer, with construction a year from now. For the A and B float sections, the concepts are still to be laid out and funding secured, McLaughlin said.

At Kodiak, a new $33 million cargo dock will get under way this summer, with construction by Pacific Pile and Marine, of Anchorage and Seattle, said Harbormaster Marty Owen, who is retiring in May after 19 years at the harbor.

The bulk of the money for the dock, which will be used by cargo ships calling on Kodiak, came from a legislative appropriation.

Cargo vessels move about 150,000 tons a year at this harbor and the project includes a new 100-gauge crane that can lift 50 tons.

Kodiak's city-owned ferry dock, which is about 50 years old, also is being replaced.

Design is complete and the $15 million project is out for bid. Construction is expected to begin in September and be completed by June 2015, Owen said.

The city operates the St. Paul Harbor in downtown Kodiak and another marina on Near Island, St. Herman Harbor. Most slips already have access to water and electricity. Slip assignments are based on availability and vessel size, and waiting times vary depending on the length of the vessel, Owen said.

In Southeast Alaska, Sitka Harbormaster Stan Eliason said the ANB Harbor replacement project was completed in mid-March, at a cost of about $7.5 million, using a 50-50-match grant of state and local funds. The project included a flotation system, electric system, water system and piling system.

Next on tap for Sitka's harbor will be a transient dock, about two years from now, said Eliason.

Wrangell's port facilities, meanwhile, are in the midst of long-term improvements involving the boatyard, five acres of uplands and the addition of harbor space.

Back in 2006, a 150-ton Marine Travelift was purchased from the producers in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, and now the port is awaiting the arrival of a 300-ton boat-lift, an ASCOM from Italy. "We hope to have it running by May," said Harbormaster Greg Meissner, anticipating a lot of fish tender traffic.

"When we started this project in 2006, we got a federal Economic Development Agency grant of $1.85 million, and $1 million local match." The new harbor went in starting in 2005. Facility improvements included the purchase of the 150-ton Travelift, a pier to drive out and pull boats in, and an environmentally friendly wash down pad with a pressure washer.

To transition the area from an old logging mill site to a boat yard, harbor staff had to install storm drains to filter water before it goes into the sound, new lighting and electrical plug-ins and more, using money from state appropriations.

In 2005, the US Army Corps of Engineers completed a new breakwater, and floats for the 15-acre basin inside the breakwater were added in phases, first in 2007 and then in 2010.

"In the second phase, we added some large transient floats, for commercial fish transients and a lot of large yacht transients, and big fish tenders coming in the fall and leaving in the spring," he said.

"We wanted the big new boat lift so they don't have to go to Seattle" (for maintenance and repairs), he said. They can moor here and get the work done by seven vendors who lease space inside the boat yard from the city of Wrangell.

Still to complete in the boat yard upgrade is the rest of the concrete, and then, said Meissner, will come rebuilding of the 1977-vintage boat harbor at Shoemaker Bay, about five miles south of the town.

That boat harbor has outlived its useful life, said Meissner. "Major repairs don't make sense.

"We want to put in brand new floats and go into the parking lot and redo the asphalt parking lot and breakwater. The breakwater needs to be modified to keep rough waves out of the harbor."

Wrangell hopes to finance this project with money from user fees and state 50-50 matching grants. Project cost is estimated at about $14 million.

Copper River Salmon Fishery Opens

Some 500 commercial fishing permit holders have converged on Alaska’s famed Copper River wild salmon fishery, where the total catch from the first two 12-hour openers has reached 1,673 Chinook, 90,774 sockeye, 4,756 chum and 2 humpies.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game had forecast those first two harvests would yield some 93,000 reds and 3,700 kings. The next opener is on May 22.

Jeremy Botz of ADF&G’s office in Cordova, on Prince William Sound, said both sockeye and king salmon are about the same size as last year, with the reds averaging just a little over six pounds and kings at about 19.5 pounds.

The weather, said Botz, is definitely warmer than a year ago this time, with no ice on the Copper River, and the salmon are scattered, although they were a little more concentrated for the second than first period.  Why the harvest is below anticipated, nobody knows for sure, he said.

Harvest volume aside, the fanfare over the celebrated harvest had its usual gusto on May 16, with red carpets rolled out in Seattle and Anchorage as Alaska Airlines landed jets carrying first run sockeyes and kings from Copper River Seafoods, Trident Seafoods and Ocean Beauty Seafoods. 

The red carpet festivities at Sea-Tac Airport in Seattle, an event organized by Ocean Beauty Seafoods, featured a cooking contest between three of Seattle’s finest seafood chefs.

In Anchorage, chefs from several restaurants disembarked from the Alaska Airlines jet carrying sockeye and king salmon. Then Copper River Seafoods had a parade of deliveries from Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport to the restaurants, where chefs planned to put the fresh catch on the menu that night.

First run whole sockeye salmon were priced at $19.95 a pound at 10^th and M Seafoods in Anchorage, but the price dropped to $17.95 a pound with arrival of fish from the second opener.  Prices per pound on whole kings held at $25.95 a pound.

The popular seafood shop also had sockeye filets for $22.95 a pound and king fillets were $35.95 a pound.

Pike Place Fish Market in Seattle was offering whole fresh Copper River sockeyes for $119.95 a fish and Copper River sockeye fillets for $32.99 a pound, plus fresh Copper River king salmon fillets for $57.99 a pound. Other fresh whole wild king salmon were priced at $17.99 a pound and $27.99 a pound for fillets.

North Pacific 2013 Salmon Harvests Reached Near Record

North Pacific-wide total salmon harvests reported by North Pacific Anadromous Fish Commission member countries totaled 1.11 million metric tons in 2013, the second highest on record since 1925, the commission says.

The report emerged from NPAFC’s 22^nd annual meeting in Portland, Ore., May 12-16, where representatives of the five member countries met.

A record 1.14 million tons of salmon was harvested in 2009.

In both 2009 and 2013, more than 50 percent of the catch by weight was pink salmon.

The vast majority of Pacific salmon originate in the waters of the member countries: the United States, Canada, Japan, the Russian Federation and the Republic of Korea.

The 2013 species composition by weight of the North Pacific wide catch was 53 percent pink, 31 percent chum, 12 percent sockeye, 3 percent coho and less than 1 percent each of Chinook and cheery salmon and steelhead trout.

Member nations’ portions of the total catch included: United States, 509.2 thousand tons, or 46 percent, including 483.4 thousand tons in Alaska; Russia, 405.9 thousand tons, or 37 percent; Japan, 164.5 thousand tons, or 15 percent; Canada, 27.8 thousand tons, or 2 percent; and Korea, 219 tons, less than 1 percent.

The North Pacific-wide catch of sockeye salmon was 133.2 thousand metric tons in 2013, with 61 percent of the total by weight coming from Alaska, and 38 percent from Russia.  This is approximately 7 percent less than the total sockeye catch in 2012, researchers said.

Pink and chum salmon are currently very abundant. Coho and Chinook salmon are less abundant than they were previously, while sockeye salmon abundance is highly variable among regions from year to year, researchers said.

The commission also reported a lack of apprehension of vessels fishing illegally in the NPAFC convention area, saying this is testament to the effectiveness of its cooperative model of enforcement.

In a statement issued on May 20, the commission said it is continuing its enforcement collaboration on the high seas to eliminate illegal salmon fishing in the international waters of the North Pacific.  Representatives from fisheries enforcement agencies of NPAFC member countries discussed and planned detailed coordination and sharing of information aimed at increasing effectiveness and efficiency in patrols.