Elizabeth Earl for Alaska Journal of Commerce

The plan has been in development for the last several years, with much contention between user groups and at least two lawsuits in the mix.

Commercial fishing has historically been one of the most dangerous industries in the state, but in recent years the industry has seen improved gear, changes in fisheries management and new regulations.

With little warning, the snow crab fishery went from booming and healthy to overfished and collapsing within five years.

In the child care market, there’s huge demand for workers and capacity, but because tuition is already so expensive, providers don’t have much room to raise it to pay workers more.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced an opening for the Upper Cook Inlet drift fishery on Thursday, including in federal waters.

“This is unprecedented in the United States for a mature, rationalized fishery to suffer a stock collapse, in part due to climate change,” the executive director of the Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers said.

Renewable IPP already owns three projects—one in Willow, one in Houston and one in Anchorage. Renewable IPP’s CEO said the Willow project is the largest so far, but the Kenai Peninsula project will be significantly larger.

The North Pacific Fishery Management Council is debating changes in its meeting this month.

For the past three years, the late run of Kenai River king salmon has been too small to meet the escapement goal, leading Alaska state biologists to place restrictions on close-to-shore sockeye fisheries.

By Saturday, 289,784 sockeye had been counted, significantly ahead of last year’s count and on track to reach the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s in-river escapement goal.

The state’s two remaining individual health insurance plan providers on the marketplace, Premera Blue Cross Blue Shield and Moda Health, declined to significantly raise rates for 2021.

The Copper River sockeye run was a flop, as was the chum run statewide, and the silver salmon harvest was down everywhere except Kodiak and Bristol Bay.

The coronavirus pandemic closed restaurants across the U.S., leaving mariculture farms in Alaska with a much more limited market but still a lot of product to move.

Much of the decline is due to poor sockeye returns, particularly in the Copper River area, though other places are also seeing a slowdown.

With about two weeks until the Copper River salmon season, the industry is pulling together the details of how to execute a safe fishery amid the coronavirus pandemic.