Thursday, April 15, 2021

Alaska Saint Paul Island’s Fuel Shortage — in its 5th Month — is Finally Over SeafoodNews.com by Peggy Parker - April 15, 2021 Saint Paul Island will be able to start supplying the areas crab fleet and other fishing vessels with fuel today, thanks to the arrival of the fuel barge two days ago. “We’ve only been waiting for it since November last year,” said Saint Paul City Manager Phillip Zavadil yesterday. “We are restocked with diesel and gasoline and will be able to sell to the fleet starting tomorrow.” Saint Paul’s Bulk Fuel Storage Facility, which can hold 1.8 million gallons of deisel and gasoline, was drawn down to a level that required rationing during the winter. Saint Paul is the year-round home to 371 residentsand the Trident Seafoods plant that now has 280 workers as the crab season winds down. The fuel barge’s scheduled November delivery was cancelled due to extreme storms in the area. Saint Paul Island is the northernmost inhabited Pribilof Island, at 170 degrees west longitude, in the middle of the Bering Sea. The fuel barge makes only two stops to the remote outpost each year and the last one before the winter storm season is a critical one. Zavadil described how the island has coped. “Once the City reached only having 100,000 gallons of diesel fuel left, we cut off selling to boats. This impacted the crab fleet. With 100,000 of fuel we could keep our power plant running and homes and business heated for just over 2 months,” Zavadil said. The rationing of vessel fuel meant that crab boats had to travel more than 250 miles south to Dutch Harbor to refuel, adding added expense of time and money to a crab trip. “When the barge finally did make it in yesterday we were down to about 50,000 gallons of diesel,” Zavadil said. “We received 360,000 gallons this delivery. We will need to get more diesel before the end of the year to avoid this situation again. We can hold 1.6 million gallons of diesel.” During the winter, Saint Paul’s school was open because until a few weeks ago the island had no cases of COVID-19. They now have had one positive test. The vaccine arrived in December and since then, 170 residents have been fully vaccinated with 30 more receiving the first shot, according to the city’s COVID website. Another 154 non-residents have also received the first vaccine shot. Nearly 600 residents who live in Anchorage have also been tested. While the island’s remote location gave a layer of protection from the virus, residents were anxious about the low level of fuel in the city’s tank farm. “At one point we were down to about 1600 gallons of gasoline,” Zavadil said. “We implemented a gas ration of 5 gallons per week per vehicle that was in effect until last week when we increased it to 10 gallons per week per vehicle. “We could do that because over the course of the past few months we have had over eighty 55-gallon drums of gas brought in on Coastal Transportation. This delivery we received 86,000 gallons of gasoline. This should last us the rest of the year,” he said. Saint Paul’s bulk storage tanks can hold 1.8 million gallons of fuel: about 1.6 million gallons of diesel and 200,000 gallons of gasoline. https://www.seafoodnews.com/Story/1196676/Saint-Paul-Islands-Fuel-Shortage--in-its-5th-Month--is-Finally-Over Kodiak Symposium Serves up Local Science at a Fast Pace Seafood News by Laine Welch - April 13, 2021 This is Alaska Fish Radio. I’m Laine Welch –Kodiak serves up local science at a fast clip. More after this- Fish Radio is brought to you by Alaska Boats and Permits in Homer. Marine broker for vessels, permits and IFQs. Online at www.alaskaboat.com Did you know that eating wild and sustainable Alaska seafood can boost your immune system? Learn more about Alaska seafood’s many proven nutritional benefits at www.wildalaskaseafood.com. Science for local people at a fast pace is the plan for the upcoming Kodiak Area Marine Science Symposium – a virtual four days that will include visitors far beyond the island. Sessions are organized around five themes: fish and habitat, harmful algal blooms, birds, mammals and crab. “And this session on crab will cover some of our local research here, as well as highlight some of the Bering Sea work that our NOAA scientists conduct.” Julie Matweyou is a Sea Grant marine advisor at Kodiak and symposium co-organizer. She says the science presentations roll along at a good clip. “The presentations are organized into two hour blocks that will be delivered in the morning and afternoon, Tuesday through Thursday. And these sessions are made up of 24 presentations that will be 20 minutes in length and move quickly from one topic to the next. So it's similar to other science symposiums. And it's the format that we normally hold, where each presenter has 15 minutes to present their materials, and then about five minutes for question and answer. So all sessions will be live on zoom and interactive. There'll be opportunity for Q&A during all the events.” Kicking off the symposium Monday evening is keynote Dr. Steve Barbeaux of Seattle’s Alaska Fisheries Science Center. He will describe how the “blob” heatwave caused the 2018 Gulf of Alaska cod crash and how the stock might fare in a warming world. The Kodiak Symposium has been held on a three year rotation since 2011as a way to share local science with the community. Everyone misses meeting in-person, Matweyou says, but the web does open it up to more people. “You know, there's a lot of research being done right here locally, but there's also different organizations that are working in our community from different areas. And so this is an opportunity for them to come share their results to the Kodiak community, as well as engage with each other. So we do have some out of state presenters and that’s exciting. So I think we will attract a larger audience.” The Kodiak Marine Science Symposium is set for April 19-22. “I just want to emphasize again, that this symposium is free and open to the public. Attendees can join any and all of the sessions, you can hop in and out of the zoom meetings as your schedule permits.” All presentations will remain posted at the Kodiak symposium website. Sign on at Alaska Sea Grant.org and find links at www.alaskafishradio.com and on Facebook and Twitter. Fish Radio is also brought to you by OBI Seafoods -- an Alaska corporation proudly supporting Alaska’s coastal communities and the Alaskans who depend on fishing for their livelihoods and culture. In Kodiak, I’m Laine Welch. www.oceanbeauty.com https://www.seafoodnews.com/Story/1196439/Kodiak-Symposium-Serves-up-Local-Science-at-a-Fast-Pace Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association 2020 Annual Report BBRSDA - April 13, 2021 Click HERE to view or download BBRSDA’s 2020 Annual Report. This inaugural annual report summarizes what BBRSDA did in 2020, who we are, our approach to meeting the mission, financial data, market analysis, and more. https://www.bbrsda.com/updates/2021/4/13/2020-annual-report Federal Register Agency Information Collection Activities; Submission to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for Review and Approval; Comment Request; Alaska Chinook Salmon Economic Data Report (EDR) A Notice by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on 04/15/2021 he Department of Commerce will submit the following information collection request to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review and clearance in accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, on or after the date of publication of this notice. We invite the general public and other Federal agencies to comment on proposed, and continuing information collections, which helps us assess the impact of our information collection requirements and minimize the public's reporting burden. Public comments were previously requested via the Federal Register on January 13, 2021 (86 FR 2646), during a 60-day comment period. This notice allows for an additional 30 days for public comments. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2021/04/15/2021-07742/agency-information-collection-activities-submission-to-the-office-of-management-and-budget-omb-for FYI’s First Aid at Sea Workshop Set for May 7 in Washington’s Gig Harbor Fishermen's News - April 14, 2021 Washington Sea Grant and the Gig Harbor BoatShop at Eddon Boatyard are cosponsoring an all-day Coast Guard-approved first aid at sea workshop on May 7. http://fnonlinenews.blogspot.com/2021/04/first-aid-at-sea-workshop-set-for-may-7.html

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