Anchorage Daily News

A community development quota group representing 20 Southwest Alaska communities will open a new $35 million salmon processing facility in June in Platinum. The facility will be financed by the group's lucrative profits in Bering Sea pollock fisheries.

The plant, under construction for the past year by Coastal Villages Region Fund, is expected to employ 125 workers, with room and board at the plant, and will double the salmon processing capacity already provided by the CVRF's Quinhagak plant, which also employs 125 people.

CVRF officials said they anticipate the new plant will operate at a deficit for up to five years. Still, it will make CVRF the third-largest employer in the region, where fisheries -- which include salmon, halibut and crab, but mainly pollock -- are critical to the economy.

"Pollock provides" is the mantra of this CDQ group, which represents 8,700 residents living in the 20 villages in the Bristol Bay region.

CVRF is among six CDQ groups in Western Alaska. The groups are allocated a percentage each year of the total allowable catch as determined by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council.

To emphasize the importance of pollock to the region, CVRF recently produced a 16-page catalog for area residents that is filled with information about all the harvesting, processing and related jobs in the region. The booklet includes a job application.

In its commitment to provide fishermen with the means to repair and maintain their boats and motors, CVRF also has built 14 fisheries support centers, and has two more planned for completion in 2009. Each center is primarily intended to be a multi-use building that provides and enhances economic opportunities, particularly for fishermen participating in commercial fisheries.

Each of the centers may be used for maintenance, repair, servicing and modifying boats, motors and fishing gear. Four-wheelers and snowmachines may also use the centers.

To provide those services, CVRF offers a number of fisheries-related training opportunities, including carpentry, electrical, heavy equipment operation, welding, plumbing, certified nurse assistant and marine licensing.

There are also scholarships, internships and youth leadership training programs, and financing plans to allow fishermen to borrow up to $500 for supplies and gear at the start of the season.

CVRF officials emphasized in a note in the front of the catalog that the money for all these benefits comes from the Bering Sea groundfish fisheries, and primarily from pollock.

"We are grateful that the Bering Sea pollock fishery continues to provide such opportunities for our region, particularly with the changing economic conditions in the rest of the world," the note in the catalog read. "We still have a long way to go to alleviate the poverty in our villages and to create sustainable and diversified economies. In the meantime, if you are willing to work for it, CVRF can provide many great opportunities that are paid for by pollock."

The groundfish fisheries, however, have become a controversial issue because of the high incidental catch of king salmon on the high seas. Those chinook salmon are fished commercially by residents up and down the Yukon River and are valuable subsistence food. But their numbers have dwindled.

In defense of the pollock fishery, CVFR sent more than 100 members to the North Pacific Fishery Management Council meeting in Anchorage in April to talk about bycatch issues.

In addition, Neil Rodriguez, community and government affairs manager, sent a letter on the matter to Doug Mecum, acting administrator of the Alaska Region of the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Rodriguez argued that there was insufficient socio-economic data about the CDQ program and the scope of its impact on Western Alaska, including non-CDQ member communities. He also said data about the CDQ program with respect to the level of Western Alaska ownership in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands pollock fishery was outdated. Chinook bycatch limit alternatives for the CDQ program penalize the region's clear fishing history and may violate the federal CDQ statute, he said.

The federal panel heard hours of testimony before approving to make an unprecedented cap of 60,000 king salmon the maximum allowed in a Bering Sea pollock fishery that harvests millions of pounds of groundfish annually.

ADVERTISEMENT