KODIAK -- As we look back at Alaska's seafood industry over the past year, consider this: 62 percent of our nation's seafood landings comes from Alaska, as does 96 percent of all U.S. wild salmon.

Alaska ranks ninth in the world in terms of seafood production.

The seafood industry is second only to oil in revenue it generates to state coffers, and it provides more Alaska jobs than oil/gas, mining, tourism and timber combined. Alaska's abundant and sustainable fishery resources are the envy of all other seafood producers, and its fishery management is regarded as a model around the world.

Here are more fishing notables from 2009, in no particular order:

• The 2009 salmon harvest of 162 million fish was the 11th best catch since statehood. Pinks pulled a big no-show in Prince William Sound.

• Bristol Bay had one of its best red salmon runs ever; fishermen were again put on trip limits by overwhelmed processors.

• Yukon fishermen got no fishing openers for king salmon, meaning another winter of no money.

• The global recession tamped down all fish prices; cod prices got especially clobbered when lines of credit dried up.

• Fishery advocates swarmed visiting Obama officials to urge them to reinstate a ban on offshore oil and gas lease sites located in 6 million acres of the nation's "fish basket" -- Bristol Bay and the eastern Bering Sea.

• More local salmon made it onto school lunch trays in Alaska. Alaska pollock was added to the USDA food commodities program.

• Three-quarters of the dockside value of Alaska's fisheries continued to go to nonresidents.

• Halibut prices fell from the $5-a-pound range of recent years by more than $1. Catch limits continued to decline, awaiting entry of new recruits into the fishery. Likewise, the pollock catch was cut to one of the lowest levels in decades.

• The first item made from genetically modified animal materials was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Next to get the nod is likely to be Atlantic salmon. No labeling is required alerting consumers that foods are genetically altered.

• Exxon Mobil finally sent checks to oiled plaintiffs 20 years after its big tanker spill in Prince William Sound. Most checks were cut by more than half after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a lower court's punitive damages award was excessive.

• Kodiak became home to one of the biggest boat lifts in the world.

• Fishing-net recycling programs were a huge success at Naknek, Dillingham, Petersburg, Kenai and Cordova. They kept thousands of pounds of old nets out of local landfills.

• For the first time, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency put the brakes on fossil fuel emissions from U.S. power plants. The EPA will set controls for coal- and oil-fired power plants by November 2011. Alas, most of the pollutants in Alaska waters come from Asian power plants.

• The farthest-north global soccer competition was held in Cordova as a way to recognize the hundreds of seafood workers who come to town each summer. Processors fielded six teams. Ocean Beauty's Team Mexico took home the trophy.

• Fishing still tops the list of most dangerous jobs, with a fatality rate 26 times higher than that of all U.S. workers.

• The North Pacific Fishery Management Council began streaming its meetings live over the Internet.

• The feds announced a new national policy for marine aquaculture in waters from three to 200 miles offshore. They also set policy claiming catch shares as the best tool for fisheries management.

PICKS AND PANS FROM 2009

• Biggest fish fiasco: Cook Inlet Legislative Salmon Task Force. Not even a report?

• Scariest fish story: ocean acidification.

• Best back to the future for fishing boats: sails.

• Biggest fish food fight: Alaska spending $20 million on foreign fish feed for salmon hatcheries when over 200,000 tons is made in-state each year.

• Biggest fish boom: Turning Alaska's 3 billion pounds of fish byproducts into oils, nutraceuticals, biofuels, etc.

• Best fish story of 2009: Alaska managers calling off limits to commercial fishing in Arctic waters until more research is done.

Laine Welch is a Kodiak-based fisheries journalist. Her Fish Radio programs can be heard on stations around the state. Her information column appears every other Sunday. This material is protected by copyright. For information on reprinting or placing on your Web site or newsletter, contact msfish@alaska.com.

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