We told you in the spring how Icicle Seafoods Inc. was closing its seafood plant on the distant Aleutian island of Adak, and how the processing equipment would be put up for auction.
Well, the auction is over with the city of Adak and a local community development nonprofit jointly submitting the winning bid.
It's a more than $2 million bet that Adak, trying to remain a viable civilian town on what used to be naval base, can attract another processing company to make use of the equipment.
The alternative, City Manager Layton Lockett told Deckboss, was to let the equipment leave the island, perhaps dooming chances for restarting the processing plant.
The city itself has no intention of running the plant, Lockett said.
Folks on Adak are confident they can lure a new processor.
"To take this kind of gamble? Yeah, for sure," Lockett said. "Fishing is our future."
Here's a press release from the city with more details.
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8 comments:
Solberg will be there in December!
Five companies have failed. City buys the equipment for what amounts to just about scrap value. Will the light bulb go on? no one is intereted in operating there. The brainiac that bought that junk better get hope Chopper Chuck gets interested.
the new owners being local have time to do it right, build a local fleet. they bought a plant in A-1 shape for cheap, so time is on their side. forget the big guys, do it local.
however, the cost of electricity is a killer.
A local fleet? Are you serious? It will take tens of millions of pounds of cod to make that plant work.Harvest window for economically viable harvest is fairly short. It doesn't work with 58 footers and jiggers.Room for them of course, but the back bone of the fleet has to be large trawlers. Think about who has those boats. In any case, most 58 footers have other fisheries in the Gulf that they are going to pursue. Adak cod is at the bottom of their list.
yeah, ok anonymous. Loser.
the plant processed tens of millions year after year. you think the big guys are the only ones who can fish, or have the money? you are ignorant.
Adak Eagle.......the tens of millions weren't enough. They all went broke. They are gone. Get the picture? It takes even more fish than those previous five owners processed to make the plant profitable. Depending on a local fleet or allocating a big percentage to 58 footers dooms the plant and makes that $2.1 million dollars worth of equipment just a pile of scrap. Whoever runs that plant needs to control massive catching power or it fails again.
Adak Eagle, you are an idealist. The world can use more of you. But, reality is that Adak has reached a crossroads. You need the right operator in there to make this work. And, if you fixate on a local fleet of 58s and jiggers, Adak is doomed. Think about it.
But I have fished out there and there isn't alot of real estate for dragging, it's all jagged bottom except a small portion of the south end.
Also take into account of all the Sea lion rookeries and no fish zones and you're almost S.O.L. on dragging, maybe Longliner Processers have a better chance?
Aaron Hankins
F/V Exodus
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