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Alaska's fishing industry is struggling and a number of processors have closed or been sold off.

Communities like King Cove have been hit especially hard.

A great example is driving down the road, you know, at 7 a.m. to go to work, and it's peaceful.

There's no humming, there's no boats in the bay.

There's nothing.

What is the outlook for one of Alaska's longest economic engines and cultural touchstones?

We'll talk with fishery experts right now on Alaska Insight.

A convergence of factors are challenging Alaska fisheries, climate change, fluctuations in market demand and foreign competition are all putting pressure on fishermen and processors.

We'll talk with industry experts tonight to learn more about the future outlook for one of Alaska's economic mainstays, fisheries.

Before we get to that discussion, here are some of the top stories of the week from Alaska Public Media's collaborative statewide news network.

The ballot measure that would have repealed Alaska's ranked choice voting and open primary system has very narrowly failed according to final, unofficial results released Wednesday by the Division of Elections.

The final margin saw the measure failing by 664 votes out of more than 340,000 total.

The no on two campaign called the failed repeal a win by Alaskans for Alaskans, while supporters of the repeal say they plan to request a recount if the results stay the same after a recount, proponents of the measure say they hope the legislature will pass a law getting rid of the system.

They also plan to petition for a similar ballot measure in 2026.

Final results also show that Republican challenger Nick Begich has defeated Democratic Representative Mary Peltola in the race for Alaska's lone U.S. House seat.

Begich garnered just over 48% of first choice votes, and after ranked choice tabulation, won with just over 51% to Peltolas 48.7%.

The U.S. Supreme Court has let stand in Alaska law aimed at reducing dark money in politics.

The law applies to donors who give more than $2,000 to fund political ads for or against a candidate.

It requires that donors report their contributions within 24 hours, and also affects disclaimers that say, who paid for a political ad dictating that they stay on screen for the entire length of a video ad.

A group of contributors challenged the law, saying it infringed on their freedom of speech.

Lower courts rejected the claims Monday.

The U.S. Supreme Court issued an order saying it wouldn't take the case without giving a reason.

Rome Middle School eighth grader Emily Brubaker won the first ever national civic speech at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation headquarters in Washington, D.C., on November 12th.

Scores for each round of the bee were weighted, and even during the final round, contestants were unaware of who was in the lead until winners were announced.

Brubaker was born with a rare condition that affects her hair, teeth and skin.

That led her to become civically involved when she was just six years old for winning the National Civics Bee.

Brubaker was awarded a $100,000 scholarship to the school of her choice.

She said she wants to study at MIT for a career as an engineer or spacecraft programmer for NASA.

Congratulations, Emily.

You can find the full version of these and many more stories on our website.

Alaska public.org or by downloading the Alaska Public Media app on your phone.

Now on to our discussion for this evening.

Alaska's iconic and long standing fisheries industry.

Thousands of jobs and billions in income have been so steady through the decades that when the alarm started going off, many fishermen and communities were caught off guard.

The seafood industry around the world has been devastated by market turmoil.

Seafood processors have sold off paused operations or even shut down plants and coastal communities across Alaska.

One of the hardest hit communities in Alaska is King Cove.

The Peter Pan Seafoods plant that had served as the economic engine of the Southwest Alaska Village for more than a century, announced this spring it would cease operations.

Now, as Alaska Public Media's Eric Stone reports, its owner is out of business and residents are left to wonder if their community has a future.

In May, King Cove Mayor Warren Wilson wrote an opinion piece in the Anchorage Daily News.

The headline was stark.

Fighting for our Lives in King Cove.

The Peter Pan plant, which had run year round for the past five decades, had already been closed all winter, but it would stay closed indefinitely, was a shock.

Wilson wrote that he was worried King Cove was on the edge of becoming a ghost town.

If I had to write that story and now there would, you know, it'll be a little more gloom and doom in it.

I know, but we're still fighting for our lives, for sure.

The shuttered Peter Pan plant is sprawling.

It dominates the waterfront.

Bunkhouses once housed hundreds of staff who processed crab, salmon, pollock and more.

Today, two containers block the main entrance to the plant.

There's not much to see from outside.

Much of the normally bustling area around the plant is quiet.

The school, though, is still busy.

That's where we meet at a position in the library.

So Peter Pan was the heart of our community for many, many years.

People here talk about fishing for Peter Pan for decades or their whole lives.

And with the plant idled because I can says life just feels different.

A great example is driving down the road.

You know, at 7:00 am to go to work, and it's peaceful.

There's no humming.

There's no boats in the bay.

There's nothing.

I've never heard that.

I'm born and raised here.

I'm 47 years old and I've never not heard those noises before.

The silence is deafening.

The hum is gone.

But King Coast fishermen are still fishing.

Many have no other choice.

They're fighting storms, low fish prices and rising costs and doing everything they can to stay afloat.

But it's not easy.

And some are thinking about leaving.

Oh, yeah?

If they don't open up, we're not staying here.

Ken Mack has been fishing at King Cove for decades, and with no fish plant to support the primarily small boat fleet.

Fishermen like Mack are forced to sail hours out of their way to supply their boats and deliver their catch.

Right now, we're running six hours to fall as fast to get fuel and freight and we're running nine hours to Sandpoint to get rid of the crab or halibut or whatever you catch.

So it's, you have to cut off that expense.

Only way to cut that expense up as move supplies.

The plant closure is also taking a toll on the city's finances.

Some 70% of the city's general fund revenues come from fish taxes and sales taxes connected to the fishing industry.

Mayor Warren Wilson says so far, the city itself has been able to hang on with savings it squirreled away during years when the fishing was good.

But Wilson says that can't go on forever.

If it's not up running next year.

This will be the system.

The cuts will be happening, but whether the plant ever will reopen is not clear.

Peter Pan is being sold off for parts in a Seattle court.

One of the investors who bought Peter Pan from a Japanese conglomerate recently won an auction to purchase the plant, but the community is still waiting for an announcement about the plant's future.

Reporting in King Cove.

I'm Eric Stone.

Joining me tonight to discuss the disruption to Alaska's fishing industry and what the future may hold is Jeremy Woodrow.

Jeremy is the executive director of the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, and Julie Decker is also with us this evening.

Julie is the president of Pacific Seafood Processors Association.

Welcome, both of you.

Thanks for being on hand.

There's a lot to discuss.

I want to get reaction from both of you to a recent two day meeting held in Anchorage of the Joint Legislative Task force that's been looking at the troubled Alaska seafood industry.

Reporting by the Alaska Beacon on the meeting noted 1.8 billion in lost revenue last year.

Loss of employment, shuttered processors.

The task force will produce a report for the upcoming legislative session in January.

What do you both see as answers to these dire conditions, especially given Russians intention to raise quotas to bring more fish to the international market?

And also, of course, the disruption of climate change.

Jeremy, do you want to start us off?

Happy to you.

And thanks, Laurie.

Thanks for having us here.

And thanks for shedding light on this incredibly important topic to Alaska.

This really is an entire Alaska situation, as you've pointed out.

As we've talked about, over 17,000 Alaskans are employed in the commercial fishing industry, and they're spread out across 142 communities all across our states, from, from the far north to the far south and everything in between.

And we like to say that our I can't say we like to say, but we have to say that we aren't out of this, this situation that we're in is very dire.

And King Cove closing just really points to how challenging our communities are, are having this situation and what they face.

And we really appreciate the fact that the legislature is taking a close look at this and looking for leaders in the industry to to speak up of what we need, to, to get ourselves out of this as a state and so we can have a future for this industry and continue to thrive and continue to be the economic engine that the Alaska seafood industry is.

Julie.

Julie, what's your thoughts?

Yes, I you know, I, along with Jeremy, mentioned that the situation in King Cove is very serious.

I think everyone hopes for a solution that will allow that seafood processing facility to reopen.

And it demonstrates, you know, how inner dependent communities, seafood processors and fishermen are.

It's a very stark example of that.

And so, as Jeremy really drives home the point that the seafood industry really is important to all Alaskans.

And which is why to your question, Lori, why the Legislative Seafood Task Force is looking at things that the state can do to help.

I think, you know, there's industry looking to, to to make some changes.

There's the state seeing what they can do to help.

And our, federal congressional delegation has also been, looking to see what they can do to help.

Some of the, some of the, ideas put on the table, for the task force to consider.

Things like how to help stabilize the industry initially, making sure financing options are available to help the industry continue to operate during the the crisis that we're still in.

And then also longer term, what kind of incentives can the state put in place to, incentivize investment in things that we know we need to do to modernize, to help us better compete with some of the things, like you mentioned, foreign competition, some places that don't have the level of cost that we have.

And so those are some of the, some of the things that the state's looking at.

There's got quite a long list, from different speakers who have come to them and presented, increase in quality, how to look differently yet at harvesting.

And, and wide variety of options.

So I think that they'll be still continue discussions through January at the task force level.

Julie, staying with you for a moment, we just saw the King Cove story, Peter Pan shutting down the processing facility there.

I read in Undercurrent News that silver Bay Seafoods joined a group formed by Roger May, the former co-owner of the Peter Pan seafood plant there, regarding the future of the King Cove plant.

Do you know of this working group and what might be being considered for that idled plant in King Cove?

I know basically what you know, what you've read as well.

I don't know of any details.

I do know, you know, like, I said, everyone is very concerned about King Cove and their future.

So I think people are really trying to come up with options that can allow that facility to open.

But I don't know details.

How many processing facilities have been sold and how many have closed?

There's been a lot of transfers.

I would say it's in the range of about ten.

So it's, and there's you know.

It's about ten.

As of as of, yesterday.

So, some of them, I think there is pause revenues in that, you know, some of the plants that were put up for sale, have been purchased.

And so I think that there is an inkling of positive news in that there are people that still see a future.

And so I think companies what they're trying to do is, first of all, everybody's trying to cut costs, of course, where they can, but secondly, look to, their business models.

Each company is different, has a different business model and has different strengths.

So I think companies are trying to sort of readjust to their strengths, as they make it through these difficult times and look to the future.

Thank you.

Julie.

Jeremy, drill down on the last two years that brought so much turmoil, the contributing factors that have created so much uncertainty for fishermen, inflation, war in Ukraine, Russia, flooding the market with cheap food.

Thanks, Lori.

I hate to bring up Covid again because I think we're all tired of hearing that word, but this really is still a Covid hangover.

We saw inflation really skyrocket coming out of Covid.

Consumer spending was at an all time high, especially here in the United States.

And then that was followed with, record sockeye harvest in Bristol Bay, harvest that really we've never seen before of that size.

And there was a strong market when that harvest started.

And as inflation crept up over the course of that summer, that market starting to soft, started to soften and then became incredibly weak.

And we were burdened as an industry with an oversupply of salmon that took two years to move off the market.

And as our industry sat on that supply, that product became more costly to hold on to costs for everything increased over the course of that time, from insurance to shipping to labor to goods to supplies.

It just all escalated and it became the cost of doing business.

Just incredibly expensive.

Every Alaskan knows how expensive it is to live in this state and to operate in this state.

And that was impacted greatly on our our fishing industry and not just the processors, but our harvesters as well.

And their have to make strong business decisions on whether it makes sense to run an extra six hours just to refuel their boats.

Is that price of that catch worth while to actually go out and put that hard work in to deliver the fish to the processor?

So it's putting a lot of strain on the industry because of this continued inflation, interest rates remain incredibly high.

And so when a processor needs a recapitalize, the ability to do that in the current cost structure is is almost the math doesn't equate right now.

And so we're kind of in a stagnant place where where does the industry go with the current cost structures.

That has.

And to Julie's point, there is some restructuring going on that has to happen.

Everybody's really looking at their business models and saying, okay, how does it work in the current structure?

But we do need some relief.

And that's where the task force coming in, our delegation in DC, taking a strong look at it, and trying to find different levers that we can pull in favor of the industry so that we can be competitive in the global market.

It's incredibly important right now.

And stay with you, Jeremy.

During that task force meeting last week, more funding for your organization, Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute was proposed, lawmakers said.

Ask me is critical to solutions if funding is increased, what do you see as the way forward for fixes immediately?

You know, we have to talk about the Russian seafood ban entering the U.S. marketplace.

That provides an incredible amount of opportunity for the Alaska fishing industry.

As recent as 2022, over $450 million of Russian seafood entered the US marketplace, and that represented about 70,000 metric tons of seafood, primarily of salmon, cod, crab and pollock.

That's where our opportunity is.

The US dollars really strong right now?

It makes us it makes it actually challenging for us to compete in our global markets because we have such a strong U.S. dollar.

So we need to focus on the US market.

We need to take take advantage of that hole that was left behind with the exit of Russian seafood.

We need to make sure that that isn't taken over by other foreign competitors such as Russia, Norway, Chile or other countries that farmed massive amounts of seafood.

We need that to be filled in with Alaska seafood.

So that's where Assamese focus is right now, is that let's take advantage of the US marketplace.

That's really make sure that Americans know that Alaska seafood is US seafood, and increased consumption here at home.

Julie.

Aging infrastructure in the industry was also cited by this task force as a concern.

What do your members say about this need and what it will take to modernize, especially in a depressed market?

Yeah, that's it's a huge issue.

Many of the processing facilities and vessels are 40, 50 years old, some older.

So there's a tremendous need to modernize, everything from, you know, renewable energy, fuel sources, energy efficiency, to things like automation and it's automation can be sort of, a difficult, discussion because there's always jobs related to that.

But the reality is the entire world is automated, automating these simple, sort of repetitive jobs.

And there's a lot of workers that have sort of changed their idea of work and what kind of work they want.

And it's getting more and more difficult to fill those jobs, with anyone, with any workers.

And so we're not we're not unique.

See, food processing is not unique that way.

There's a critical workers shortage.

So that's one of the, topics that, is, is needed.

There's everything from quality improvements as well.

From the boat all the way through the processing facility.

When you improve quality, it improves value.

It improves how much you can, add value, sort of, secondary through secondary processing throughout the supply chain.

So there's a number of things that, we can still make improvements on.

And a lot of it has to do with our aging infrastructure.

You mentioned workers and, the H-2b visa program.

The federal government increased the wage for these workers to $18 an hour.

Will this increase?

How much will that help?

It's a real burden right now.

As I said, some of the repetitive jobs, that we can't find, enough Alaskans or U.S. workers to fill, are filled by foreign workers through the HDP visa program.

There is a federal require ment attached to that program to pay those workers a prevailing wage, and the federal government sets that prevailing wage.

That's what you mentioned.

The $18 an hour.

And then that becomes, even if you have just one h-2b visa worker in your facility and your company, that becomes your de facto minimum wage.

So that increase in prevailing wage actually has driven labor cost increases of 50% in two years from 2021 to 2023.

It's very hard to absorb cost increases like that, especially at a time when Jeremy mentioned, costs across the board were going up.

But this particular issue is driving costs for seafood processors more so than any other manufacturers and businesses.

So it's it's very problematic.

It's not likely to, to go away.

So that is another issue that's driving this, need to automate the visa program robust enough to withstand potential barriers to foreign workers that may come up with a new administration in Washington in January.

Well, I think, you know, that's speculation at this time.

We went through a Trump administration in the past, and, you know, so we we stand ready to work with, you know, the new administration, just as we have in the past, and advocate for things that are going to, you know, be best for the seafood industry.

Me, what does it take to start a new market in another country?

What is the workflow from outreach to fish and sauce shelves?

How long does it take?

It takes time.

It really does.

It takes working with buyers and those new markets.

You need to introduce them to new products.

And it depends whether you're going to use that market as an export market for reprocessing or an export market where it's a final market and it's going to be introduced to consumers.

Training, the workers in an export market to reprocess your goods.

That takes time as well.

There might need to be some new equipment that needs to be restructured, and then finding buyers for where that product might be exported to as well.

So there is a lot of regulation.

It also takes cooperation between governments, the US government and whatever new markets and foreign market they need to have a cooperation as well too.

If there are tariffs or that creates, an uneven trade barrier to enter a market and that might not happen, especially as it enters that market to, to a final consumer.

Now, when we want to introduce Alaska seafood to new consumers and new markets, a lot of times we're going to work with chefs in that market to introduce their flavors of their cuisine and make Alaska seafood that local, that local cuisine, a local flavor that they're going to, start to enjoy and love.

But it does take time and it takes a lot of investments.

When we've developed new markets, it can often take, you know, well over a decade to see Alaska seafood start to really increase and make an impact and a presence in the new marketplace.

But it's something that's really important.

Diverse markets are incredibly important.

We need new customers.

We need more competition globally for Alaska seafood so that when we do have challenges in one market, we have customers in another who are willing to take over, and maybe buy a little bit more seafood during times or, you know, having financial challenges like now.

And in about a the minute that we have left here for both of you, do you think a federal program of subsidies or stabilization in pricing like the USDA has provided for farmers should be considered for fishermen?

I'll jump in on that.

Quickly.

I think there are parts of USDA programs that, could be applicable and really helpful for the Alaska seafood industry, not necessarily all of their programs.

But things like low interest loans to help with reinvestment.

There, seafood purchasing programs have been really important, particularly when we have, large runs, that, you know, aren't really expected.

So there are some real, positives there.

Jeremy, your thoughts?

Absolutely.

And we do see some opportunity through the farm bill and the new Congress.

If that farm bill were able to pass, there is, language to create an office for seafood liaison within the USDA.

That's a great starting points.

And, our fishermen absolutely need to be looked at, like our farmers do.

They?

They are providing nutritious food to Americans, and they should be treated fairly as well.

All right.

Thank you both so much for your time and your work on behalf of this important industry for Alaska.

So many Alaskans are connected to the seafood industry, the health of the product and the economic powerhouse it has been for decades has made salmon, pollock, black cod, halibut and crab cultural icons for Alaskans and international symbols of Alaska's bounty.

It will take industry and government working together to support future fisheries, to continue providing an excellent source of protein for the table and commerce for Alaska's economy.

That's it for this edition of Alaska Insight.

And this is our last episode before we take a winter break.

We'll be back on January 17th with a fresh lineup of programs.

However you celebrate the winter holiday season, please have safe, enjoyable festivities and we'll see you right back here in the New year.

Until then, visit our website Alaska public.org for breaking news and reports from our partner stations across the state.

While you're there, sign up for our free daily digest so you won't miss any of Alaska's top stories of the day.

Thanks for joining us this evening.

I'm Lori Townsend.

Tonight.