Alaskan Leader Fisheries Fined for 2013 Oil Spill

Washington state officials have fined Alaskan Leader Fisheries LLC $11,000 for a 2013 oil spill of 181 gallons of diesel fuel into Elliott Bay from one of its fishing vessels, the 167-foot catcher-processor Bristol Leader.

The Washington Department of Ecology also announced on Jan. 15 that Alaskan Leader Fisheries was billed $1,715 for the state’s costs of responding to and overseeing the spill cleanup.

The spill occurred while the Bristol Leader was taking on fuel from a tank truck at Terminal 91.

The incoming fuel, intended for empty tanks on the Bristol Leader, went instead to a partly full tank. Officials with the Department of Ecology determined that the vessel’s chief engineer had not followed the company’s written procedures and loading plan, which specified which tanks would receive fuel and in what order, and required the chief engineer to monitor tank levels and valve settings.

“The company could have prevented the spill if they had kept a close watch on the valves and fuel levels,” said David Byers, Ecology’s spill response supervisor.

Fuel flowed out of a fuel tank air vent and filled a surrounding 49-gallon containment bin. The fuel then flowed across the deck and overboard. An oil spill containment boom was placed around the Bristol Leader before fueling began, and kept most of the fuel from spreading beyond waters immediately around the vessel.

The company delivering the fuel to the Bristol Leader made the initial report.

Alaskan Leader Fisheries had no prior Washington spills, and cooperated with the spill cleanup response and follow-up investigation, state officials said.

The company was also issued a $1,966 assessment earlier for damage the spill caused to the public’s natural resources. That assessment was paid in March 2014.

Alaskan Leader Fisheries, with locations in Lynden, Washington and Anchorage, Alaska, is owned by the Alaska Leader Group and Bristol Bay Economic Development Corp.

Each of these groups consists of individuals who are lifelong fishing families who currently own and operate various fishing vessels in the salmon, longline and pot fisheries of Alaska.

Alaska Leader Fisheries manages the F/V Alaskan Leader, F/V Bristol Leader and F/V Bering Leader, which are owned 50 percent by ALG and 50 percent by BBEDC.

Nomination of Cotten as Alaska Fisheries Commissioner Approved by Governor

Alaska Gov. Bill Walker has approved the nomination of acting commissioner of Fish and Game Sam Cotten as the head of the agency.

Cotten, a veteran commercial fisherman, is a former member of the Alaska Legislature and Speaker of the Alaska House of Representatives. He has served on numerous fisheries boards, including the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, the Alaska Commercial Fishing and Agriculture Bank, and the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute. He has also been an advisor in fisheries negotiations between the United States and the USSR. He has served for the past two months as acting commissioner of Fish and Game. He was nominated by the Alaska Boards of Fish and Game and Walker subsequently approved the nomination. The appointment still requires legislative approval.

Cotten’s years of involvement in fish issues give him the depth that we need to ensure we follow our constitutional mandate of sustained yield,” Walker said.

Former Alaska ADF&G Commissioner Joins Nome-Based CDQ Group

Siu Alaska Corp., the for-profit arm of the Norton Sound Economic Development Corp. in Nome, Alaska, has hired former Alaska Fish and Game Commissioner Cora Campbell to be its new chief executive officer, effective Feb. 1.

Campbell will fill the vacancy left by the retirement of John Eckels, who has served in that capacity since Siu began doing business six years ago.

Born and raised in Petersburg, Alaska, Campbell now resides in Anchorage, and will work at Siu’s office there, first becoming familiar with Siu’s investments and partners and then helping to lead the company in its future endeavors, Siu officials said. Siu is invested in six commercial fishing ventures in the Bering Sea, and is under the direction of a seven-member board.

Through her time served on the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, Campbell became familiar with NSEDC and the community development quota program.

Siu board chairman Don Stiles said Campbell’s experience with the state of Alaska offered her familiarity with the CDQ program and the communities of the Norton Sound region.

Siu Alaska investments include crab, halibut, Pacific cod, black cod and assorted flatfish fisheries. The company also formed Bering Select LLC, the first commercial fish oil production facility in the world that produces oil from Alaska cod.

NSEDC represents 15 member communities and over 8,700 people in the Bering Strait region of Northwest Alaska. It is one of six community development quota entities in the state. More information is at www.nsedc.com.

Proposed Aleutian Islands Marine Sanctuary Meets With Opposition

Residents of the fisheries dependent Aleutian Islands borough are challenging environmental and economic benefits posed by environmental groups seeking creation of a national marine sanctuary in the Aleutian Islands

The Aleutians East Borough Assembly on Jan. 8 voiced unanimous opposition to creation of the Aleutian Islands National Marine Sanctuary, as proposed by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. The nomination was submitted to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in late December.

The borough assembly said that the NOAA national sanctuary nomination process clearly states that every nomination starts at the community level. The borough government is not aware of any local support from local regional communities, tribes or local groups for this nomination, the assembly said.

The state of Alaska has not yet commented on the proposed marine sanctuary, but Acting Alaska Commissioner of Fish and Game Sam Cotten said Jan. 13 that it was unlikely that the state would support it. “We’d be concerned that there would be serious negative impacts on the fishing industry and some of the area reopened to fishing might be at risk,” he said.

PEER proposed 10 goals for the proposed sanctuary, including permanent prohibition of offshore oil, gas and mineral leasing and regulation of transit merchant shipping to reduce the risk of oil spills and whale-ship strikes.

PEER’s nomination cites the Aleutian Islands marine ecosystem as one of the most biologically productive in the world ocean, supporting the largest populations of marine mammals, seabirds, fish and shellfish in the nation, and one of the largest anywhere in the world.

PEER’s proposal was made on behalf of PEER’s Alaska members, including marine conservation consultant Rick Steiner, a retired University of Alaska professor of marine conservation. The nomination is also endorsed by the Center for Biological Diversity, Anchorage; the Eyak Preservation Council, Cordova, AK; the Center for Water Advocacy in Homer, AK; North Gulf Oceanic Society, Homer, AK; The Ocean Foundation, Washington D.C.; and Marine Endeavors, a seabird conservation consulting firm in Oakland, CA.

The AEB resolution voiced concern on how such prohibitions would affect the borough economy, saying that “the potential designation would make all current restrictions to fishing and other commerce permanent and would authorize further onerous permanent restrictions. The borough and other tribes in the area are concerned this could cause economic harm to communities within this area, which are mostly dependent on commercial fishing.”

The borough resolution said that protections from overfishing, increased shipping and risks associated with oil and gas development are unnecessary because those safeguards are already in place from federal and state agencies.

Stocks in this region are at record levels due to good stewardship by management agencies such as the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, and local residents, the assembly said.

Lessons Learned in Detecting Japan Tsunami Marine Debris at Sea

A new report issued in January by the NOAA Marine Debris Program says one of the biggest lessons learned from tracking marine debris from the Japanese tsunami is a better understanding of use of remote-sensing technology.

Researchers now have a better base of understanding to move forward with using remote-sensing technologies for at-sea detection of debris, but the report emphasizes that the human eye is critical to the effort, both in finding debris and in providing a “ground-truth” comparison to what can be detected from the air.

The complete report is online at http://marinedebris.noaa.gov/sites/default/files/JTMD_Detection_Report.pdf

Marine debris is very small compared to the North Pacific, so we need to try as many different methods as possible to locate it,” said Peter Murphy, regional coordinator for the NOAA Marine Debris Program. “If you shrank the North Pacific to the size of a football field, even a large object like the Misawa dock is still equivalent to the width of a human hair, and it would be a moving hair.

“We learned lessons about what works and what doesn’t work, so now we have a tool kit of knowledge on the mix of techniques and when to use them in future projects and responses,” he said.

Before the tsunami, some of the detection technologies, including several types of satellite sensors, had not been used before to find marine debris or were in early stages of testing. Because of the extensive efforts and renewed interest in at-sea detection during the Japan tsunami marine debris response, the marine debris community learned more about marine debris behavior and movement and has advanced the state of knowledge on detection of debris at sea, Murphy said.

Federal, state and local partners focused on finding marine debris from the Japan tsunami through several detection methods, including observations from aircraft, unmanned aircraft systems, vessels, shoreline observers, and satellites. NOAA paired detection with modeling in order to focus detection resources on areas where the debris was most likely to be located, given the large area of ocean where the debris dispersed.