SEAFOOD.COM NEWS by John Sackton - March 1, 2010 - Trident St. Paul received its final delivery of snow crab for the season on Saturday, just hours before wind and sea ice threatened to shut St. Paul's harbor. In other years, ice conditions have led to lengthy and costly delays in crab processing, with Trident even hiring an icebreaker one year to try and keep some of the harbor open. According to ICE (Independent Cooperative Exchange), the association that consists of most of the crab harvesting co-ops in the Bering Sea, Trident was able to process crab continuously at St. Paul from January 11th until Feb. 26th with no down time. Jake Jacobsen, speaking for ICE, said 'This was not by chance. We really worked hard to jam our North crab in. During the last week especially, there were several transfers to expedite deliveries in the face of impending ice. Boats that had crab on board that were supposed to deliver south delivered in the north in place of boats that would have taken longer. There was an unprecedented degree of cooperation and coordination. As of today, ICE has delivered all of its North quota and 77 percent of it's total quota.' The other processor in St. Paul, Icicle's vessel Robert M. Thorstensen, formerly the Stellar Sea, was 25 miles southwest of St. Paul on Saturday, along the ice edge, awaiting its last delivery of the season.

The issue of completing deliveries in St. Paul has been contentious, involving a number of different factors. First, from the harvesters point of view, their captains' need to make sure that safe operation is possible, and not risk getting trapped in the ice. Secondly, no one, neither harvesters or processors, like the prospect of a mid-season closure that in the past has idled plant workers, forced vessels to fly crews home and then return several weeks later. The stop and start for crab processors was a huge cost problem. Finally, the City of St. Paul depends on its crab landings, and certainly cannot afford to see a portion of those landings, and the taxes involved, go to other ports due to operational conditions. Various solutions for emergency relief have banged around the N. pacific council for years, with no final agreements. This year the problems were solved by the industry through an unprecedented level of cooperation. The flexibility afforded by the catch quotas along with the organization of ICE that allowed for immediate transfer of quota among all boats in real time, plus the experience working the Trident and other processors over several years to resolve scheduling issues to support plant operations, led to this result. The timely deliveries and the ability to finish the Northern Opilo season before ice shut down the fishery is the type of benefit that only can occur when harvesters have the type of control given by catch share systems, in this case the division of Alaska crab into vessel and processor quotas, along with community delivery requirements. It meant that this year, the northern opilio has been harvested at lower cost to both vessels and processors, due to the high degree of cooperation. Total snow crab landings in Alaska, which include both northern and southern district landings, are now 78% of the overall non-CDQ quota, which is 43.2 million lbs. About 9.6 million lbs remain to be harvested.