A hatchery operator gone astray?

The state has issued a breathtaking report titled "Alaska Department of Fish and Game Internal Review of Prince William Sound Aquaculture Corporation."

It details all manner of problems with the Cordova-based operator of some of the world’s largest fish hatcheries.

The problems include chronic conflict with Fish and Game staff, improper harvest and processing of salmon to cover hatchery expenses, and an apparent disregard for "straying" of hatchery fish intermingling with and possibly damaging wild salmon runs.

The report doesn’t reserve its intense criticism solely for PWSAC (locals pronounce the acronym pizz-wack). It also faults Fish and Game officials themselves for futile attempts to appease recalcitrant hatchery managers by looking the other way on criminal offenses.

If even half this stuff is true, Alaskans — perhaps legislators — are going to be alarmed, angry and asking tough questions.

Now, here’s a really important caveat. Some if not all of these problems are somewhat dated. That’s because the "internal review" was conducted back in 2006.

Since that time, PWSAC compliance has improved, says an epilogue on page 26 of the 207-page document.

However, "the relationship remains strained," with the hatchery operator still not communicating well with Fish and Game and still not addressing the issue of straying salmon.

PWSAC is a private, nonprofit corporation founded in 1974 that runs major salmon hatcheries around Prince William Sound. It’s an integral part of the commercial fishing industry, producing millions of pink, chum and sockeye salmon that make big money for seiners and gillnetters.

It’s partly because PWSAC is so vital to the fishing industry that Fish and Game hasn’t been able to crack down harder on its many permit violations and generally stubborn and uncooperative attitude, the internal review says.

Here’s a few select items from the report:

• PWSAC’s general manager "has created an antagonistic relationship with every commercial fisheries biologist in the Cordova office for the past 5 years. That hostile atmosphere has led, in part, to the high turn-over rate of department staff in the Cordova office."

• PWSAC has more than $25 million in state loans, and plenty of fish to cover costs. Yet hatchery managers have a record of "multiple cost recovery failures" and had to turn to the state for an additional $3 million loan in 2004.

• State biologists have a legitimate interest in what goes on in PWSAC hatcheries, and wanted to see PWSAC’s fish culture manuals. But the hatchery operator called them "proprietary" and refused to hand them over. Result: "The department has no knowledge of how PWSAC operates many aspects of their programs."

• The straying of hatchery chums on a large scale into wild salmon streams, instead of homing to sites where they were released as smolts, is "one of the most serious problems" with PWSAC. Such straying is a violation of state regulations, yet PWSAC has refused to participate in projects to assess it.

Deckboss has not contacted Fish and Game or PWSAC to see if these problems persist.

All I can say is that the department has released the internal review with an August 2009 date on the cover and the epilogue saying "the relationship remains strained."

While the review itself was news to me, I was aware of some of the state’s PWSAC concerns in late 2006, when I wrote an Anchorage Daily News article headlined "State slams hatcheries."

Hatchery managers contended then that many of the problems were either overblown or out of date.

"We’re very anxious to sit down with the commissioner and talk through some of these issues," PWSAC’s general manager, Dave Reggiani, told me at the time.

Fine.

My guess right now, however, is that with the public release of this internal review, Fish and Game still has a serious bone to pick with PWSAC.

DOT crackdown burns commercial fishermen

People are stirred up in at least two Alaska ports over an apparent Alaska Department of Transportation crackdown on commercial transit regulations.

Evidently some Cordova fishermen received citations in July related to the trailering of commercial fishing boats.

More recently, from what I hear, DOT enforcement officers have appeared in Petersburg to educate folks there about the potential for $1,000 fines for not complying with road rules that sound more appropriate for truckers than fishermen.

The Petersburg Vessel Owners Association on Friday sent out this detailed information advisory.

And here's another advisory well worth reading from Cordova District Fishermen United.

Body of Trident processor found in BC waters

Here's breaking news about the discovery of a body believed to be that of a woman crew member who fell overboard in British Columbia waters from the Trident Seafoods processing ship Aleutian Falcon.

Blotter

A seiner in trouble, bootleg halibut sales, a lonely heart bound for Dutch Harbor...

Catch it all today on The Brig.

Outside Alaska, aquaculture efforts march on

Alaska evidently has it so good that it need not consider a serious expansion of its aquaculture industry.

Elsewhere, however, folks are thinking big.

Here's an excerpt from a daily investors newsletter I receive sketching out a fantastic plan involving fish, algae and oil production in the Gulf of Mexico.

Would we consider something like this in Alaska? Nope, don't think so.

Something Smells Fishy‏

Wells Fargo Daily Advantage

Aug. 25, 2009

Are we ready for cars that are powered by the oil squeezed out of fish which munch on algae? One company hopes so. LiveFuels is a firm hoping to cash in on the algae-based biofuel craze by developing new ways to process algae into liquid energy to power our cars, buses, and trucks. They also claim their methods will help reduce a problem in the ocean caused by fertilizer runoff.

Each spring, fertilizer runoff from farms across the Midwest flows down the Mississippi river and into the Gulf of Mexico. This creates the second-largest algae bloom in the world — the size of New Jersey. It is called a "dead zone" because the algae feeds on the fertilizer, which in turn feeds a booming bacteria population which sucks up so much oxygen in the ocean water that fish and plants either move away or perish. Scientists, environmentalists, and the seafood industry have been monitoring the negative impact of fertilizer runoff and the dead zones for years.

Instead of harvesting the oil directly from the algae in the harmful dead zones (a costly proposition), LiveFuels plans to enlist an army of traveling fish to gobble it up. (Think of it like a farmer renting out goats to "naturally" cut the grass along highways and airports.) More than 25,000 pounds of fish per acre would be released into the dead zones to feast on the algae. The fish would be contained in caged fish farms and, after plumping up, would be rounded up and the oils squeezed out of them. Lovely imagery, hey? But the process results in no carbon footprint, the phosphates from fish bones are used for (ironically) fertilizer, and protein for animal feed and oil for fuel is generated.

— Brian Bock

Looks like the end for Harbor Crown Seafoods

I'd been hearing for months how a relatively new Dutch Harbor processing company, Harbor Crown Seafoods Inc., was really struggling financially.

Today, on a visit to the state courthouse in Anchorage, I found hard proof.

Five days ago, Superior Court Judge William Morse signed a final judgment against Harbor Crown awarding $203,252 to the owner of the crab boat Tempo Sea.

Tempo Sea sued on June 23 alleging that Harbor Crown failed to pay for 131,425 pounds of snow crab delivered to the plant on April 3.

Harbor Crown didn't answer the lawsuit in a timely fashion, resulting in the default or final judgment.

According to state and court records, Kenneth Dorris of Hayden, Idaho, is president and owns a third of the company. A unit of Toronto-based Hai Yang International Inc. is listed as the largest shareholder with 45 percent.

The court file contains some correspondence from a Spokane, Wash., lawyer who said he was "assisting Harbor Crown with its current financial difficulties."

In one letter the lawyer, John Munding, mentions the company's creditors and a fear of possible bankruptcy.

And in a July 26 e-mail to Tempo Sea's attorney, Munding wrote:

"Harbor Crown Seafoods, Inc. has been determined to be insolvent as a result of the recent economic recession and will be closing its doors. As such it is unable to hire Alaska counsel to defend the Tempo matter and will allow judgment."

The e-mail concludes: "This is truly an unfortunate situation for all involved."

According to its Web site, Harbor Crown opened in 2003 as "a modern, mid-sized processing plant" with a vision of providing fishermen and consumers an alternative to the "international processing conglomerates."

Harbor Crown touted Pacific cod as its primary product, along with Alaska octopus and crab.

Nice save

U.S. Coast Guard responders in Kodiak this morning helped save the 42-foot seiner Hail Mary, which was aground and taking on water in Womens Bay near the Coast Guard base. Guardsmen and the four-man seiner crew managed to plug a hole and used a dewatering pump to refloat the boat in about an hour. "The fishing vessel crew used their own skiff to tow the Hail Mary to the dock at Alaska Pacific Seafoods in Kodiak City, arriving at 12:48 p.m.," a Coast Guard press release said. USCG Seamen Grant DeVuyst photo