Fallout from what’s being described by commercial fishermen as a pink salmon disaster in Prince William Sound is still being calculated, but troubling times began earlier this year when high insurance costs kept some from ever going out in their boats.
Low runs of humpies, mounting fuel costs and some processors opening up late all appear to be spelling big economic challenges for the Prince William Sound economy.
“It’s going to be a big hit for the town,” said Cordova City Council Member Kristen Carpenter, who is anticipating a significant loss of raw fish tax dollars to the city this year.
“The revenue that the city received from the raw fish tax in March 2023 (for the 2023 fishing season) was for a city levy, not the state’s raw fish tax. It was about one third less than we anticipated,” said Carpenter, who also serves as executive director of the Prince William Sound Economic Development District. “We have not received the state’s raw fish tax revenue for the 2023 season, but we anticipate that it will be proportionally less than what we budgeted ($1.2 million) based on what the city collected.”
“It was an absolute disaster,” said veteran salmon harvester John Renner, chair of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s Copper River/Prince William Sound Advisory Committee.
Renner, who delivers his catch to Trident Seafoods, said that processor started the season offering 25 cents a pound for pinks, compared to last season when Trident began the season offering 23 cents a pound and then dropped the price to 18 cents.
“This year the harvest (of pinks) was extremely limited,” he said. “Valdez came in well under the forecast and the Prince William Sound Aquaculture Corp. is experiencing a run failure. Pinks are in the book as a disaster.”
One young man lost his boat, said Renner. “Anyone who has payments to make is in trouble unless they have dual permits and are making money off of gillnetting or longlining,” he said.
“Fuel is $5 a gallon and insurance costs are up 25%.”
Some harvesters couldn’t even afford to go out at all. One fisherman had multiple claims last year on the insurance policy on his boat, which is valued at $750,000, and he was told by his insurance company he had to come up with $70,000 before the season to go fishing. “He tied his boat to the dock and let his crew go,” Renner said. “Things are not well right now. This is exactly why we created hatcheries, for times like this. Wild stocks are doing quite a bit better than hatchery stocks right now.”
One of the big hits for harvesters came during the 2023 season when Russia dumped the equivalent of the entire Alaska harvest of pink salmon into the U.S. market in just one week, he said. “They reprocessed it through China through companies we work for, and they were allowed to finish up through much of this year, until it finally stopped,” he said.
Renner said he is hopeful that harvests of coho salmon, which are currently worth $1.25 a pound, are coming in late and that this will be a good harvest for the fleet. “Right now, we are restricted to one 24-hour opener for silvers out of concerns for the statewide silver run,” he said.
Another veteran of the Prince William Sound fisheries, Megan Corazza of Homer, said that this year Trident Seafoods wanted to buy as many pink salmon as possible for use in several products, including the company’s Alaska Salmon Burgers, a popular item at Costco warehouses.
“It was not that good of a year,” said Corazza. “After paying crew, plus insurance, fuel, moorage and for all the incidental mechanical repairs, it was quite bad,” she said.
“Right now, we are trying to figure out what we are going to do. I hope to keep fishing,” Corazza said. “If you are trying to fish you have to (also) get a part time or seasonal job.”
With all the financial challenges, Corazza said that fishermen “are going to try to make it work next year, because we love fishing Prince William Sound.”
E.J. Cheshier, a veteran Prince William Sound seiner, said last year wasn’t that great for pinks, “but we got 10 times more than this year,” he said. “In a good year we get 20 to 30 times as much.” Still fishermen need to be optimists, he said “If you think it’s going to be a bust you shouldn’t even go out to fish.”
Cheshier predicted that young fishermen would be looking for jobs seining for squid and crab in California, Oregon and Washington after this season ends here. “If a kid from Cordova is looking for work, they will hire them first. There is good networking between the west coast and Alaska because a lot of fishermen there also fish in Alaska.”
Meanwhile at the Cordova Family Resource Center, executive director Nicole Songer is anticipating fishermen showing up in need of help in September through November, to get money to pay rent, utility bills and more, all because of a bad year fishing. Staff at the center will be guiding them through the process of getting state aid or support from the Native Village of Eyak, churches and other entities. Folks from the center can talk to the utilities if they are behind on payments, and they may give them more time to pay up, she said.
