I caught up with Senator Lisa Murkowski over a beer at Kodiak Island Brewery; she spoke candidly on several hot button fisheries related topics.
It’s well known that Murkowski and the rest of Alaska’s congressional delegation are strongly opposed to genetically modified salmon (aka Frankenfish), and have led the charge to derail its approval for dinner plates by the FDA.
The “AquaAdvantage” salmon, tweaked to grow three times faster than normal, would be the first animal approved for human consumption. The public comment period recently closed on the issue, and Murkowski said the FDA decision should be announced “in seven months or so.”
Should Frankenfish get government approval, it will require no labeling to alert consumers they are buying a man-made salmon instead of the real thing. The GMO process is categorized under ‘veterinary procedures’ and as such, no labeling is needed.
Last week, Murkowski was the only Republican to vote for GMO labeling requirements at a Senate hearing; the measure failed to pass by a wide margin. The US is one of the few nations in the world that has not either banned GMO foods outright, or requires labeling.
“What does that say to the American people, at a time when they clearly are concerned about food safety and what they are putting into their mouths?” I asked.
“It says we don’t think it’s important for Americans to know,” she retorted, adding that the thumbs down by the Senate is “not a final straw.”
Murkowski said she is extremely concerned that the US’s lack of GMO labeling will be met with backlash by world commerce.
“Most of Europe says no to GMOs, so if we continue to have this attitude we will lose those markets,” she said.
Senator Murkowski revealed that people at recent Arctic summit meetings were “shocked” to learn that the US is so slipshod about GMO products.
“Especially those from Norway. They told me straight out ‘we will not buy any US salmon if we are not sure it is not GMO,” she said. “It will crush our wild salmon market.”
“Speaking of wild salmon,” I quickly interjected. “Senator, are you ready to take a stand on the threat posed to the world’s largest sockeye salmon fishery by the proposed Pebble Mine? Alaskans are waiting to hear more than the stock response of ‘they must be allowed to go through the process.’”
She responded: “As a policy maker who spends most of my days saying there is a process we need to follow, I have a tough time telling the State to chop it off at the knees. But I’ll tell you one thing - Pebble isn’t doing itself any favors by not giving more definition to its plans. They have documents to the moon, but no images or mine plans. The best thing Pebble could do is lay it on the table so we have something real to deal with.”
“As an Alaskan, I don’t like how this has pitted neighbor against neighbor, town against town, Native against Native,” Senator Murkowski added. “The longer it’s delayed, the worse it gets. We’ve got enough issues facing us, and if we are not working together, it will be tough to get anything accomplished.”
Fish watch - Copper River fishermen were slamming the reds – after three openers the catch topped a half million sockeyes, twice what was expected. Conversely, the Chinook salmon harvest of around 6,000 was disappointing. Prices started out at $4/lb for sockeye and dropped to $2.50 most recently; the price for kings had increased from $6 to $7 per pound.
Southeast trollers are back out on the water for spring kings. They wrapped up a slow winter season at the end of April, but Chinook prices were higher than ever, averaging $10/lb in the last months of the fishery.
Alaska’s largest herring fishery at Togiak wrapped up last week with a catch just shy of the 30,000 ton quota, the best harvest in 20 years. Overall, 56,000 tons of herring were harvested along the coast from San Francisco to Togiak, nearly 20% more than in 2012.
Poised to take off is the herring fishery at Norton Sound, where Icicle Seafoods has four tenders on the grounds for an 800 ton catch. Payouts there are posted on a sliding scale ranging from $100 to $450 a ton, depending on roe counts.
Norton Sound also just wrapped up its best ever winter king crab fishery. The catch of nearly 20,000 red king crab was twice the previous record set in 1978. The 25 fishermen also got a record $6.67 per pound for the crabs that they catch through holes in the ice. Norton Sound crabbers will begin a half million pound summer king crab fishery in mid-June.
Southeast Alaska’s summer Dungeness crab fishery kicks off in mid-June, and the Bering Sea pollock fishery reopens for the summer season on June 10.
Alaska longliners by last week had landed just over 7 million pounds of halibut out of the 22 million pound catch limit. Kodiak prices were all over, most recently at $4.50-$5.00, with prices starting at $5.40/lb for 10-20’s reported at Seward. For sablefish, the catch had topped 11 million pounds out of a 28 million pound quota. Those prices continue to drop in Kodiak to $3-$5/lb depending on fish size.
Fish bit – Public comment on the EPA’s Bristol Bay watershed assessment has been extended through June 30. ww2.epa.gov/bristolbay
