Commercial fishing to reopen in Nushagak after sunken vessel fuel spill

Commercial salmon fishing reopened Tuesday afternoon in the Nushagak district in Bristol Bay after a fuel spill from a sunken vessel shut down fishing there last week.

The fishing vessel Pacific Knight capsized July 25 in Nushagak Bay and sank. The amount of fuel that spilled is not known, said Geoff Merrell, an on-scene coordinator with the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation. The vessel had an estimated 800 gallons of diesel and 300 gallons of hydraulic fluid on board when it sank, according to a DEC report last week.

"This one is being allowed to dissipate on its own," Merrell said. "Which it will do pretty easily in that kind of wind and current."

The fuel spill came around the end of a record-breaking sockeye salmon run in Bristol Bay. Commercial fishing reopened at 4 p.m. Tuesday, said Tim Sands, a biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. The agency issued an emergency order for the Nushagak area — one of five districts in Bristol Bay — on Thursday.

Fishing for pinks and coho salmon will happen over the next few weeks.

Two people were rescued from the water after the incident and one man was reported missing. The U.S. Coast Guard searched for him but suspended its search last week.

Garrett Evridge, an economist with Anchorage consulting firm the McDowell Group, said the economic impact of the spill could have been dramatically larger for the sockeye harvest if it had happened just slightly earlier.

"Had it happened a week prior or two weeks prior, it'd be a massive deal. I mean, millions of dollars. That's not hyperbole," he said. "It was tragic, but … if it would have happened the week prior, it could have limited the harvest of 3 million sockeye."

Bristol Bay is the biggest commercial sockeye salmon-producing region in the world, according to Fish and Game.

On Tuesday, work was underway to prepare to lift the vessel from the sea floor, said Merrell. He wasn't sure exactly when that would happen.