Disaster declaration unlocks potential federal aid for Alaska crabbers

A Commerce Department disaster declaration for Bering Sea crab and some Alaska and Washington salmon fisheries sets the stage for an end-of-the year push to secure federal funds to help fleets and communities.

The declaration announced Friday covers the Bristol Bay king crab harvests suspended for the past two years, and the snow crab harvest that next year will be canceled for the first time ever.

Other fisheries covered by the declaration include the 2021 western Alaska Kuskokwim River salmon harvests as well as 2019 salmon fisheries in the Puget Sound and the 2020 Washington ocean salmon fisheries.

A Commerce Department disaster declaration, under federal law, can be made for a commercial fishery failure due to causes such as a run failure beyond the control of fishery managers.

Some Washington and Alaska fisheries have been buffeted by marine heat waves that appear to have reduced survival rates for some species, such as the snow crab populations, which collapsed after temperatures spiked in the Bering Sea.

The declaration by Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo makes it possible for Alaska and Washington’s congressional delegation to try to get relief funds included in a massive omnibus spending bill that lawmakers are negotiating to fund the government for the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30. The disaster relief funds would be allocated to the Commerce Department, which would then release the assistance through NOAA Fisheries.

“I appreciate all the efforts to speed up this process. The next step is for Congress to act,” said Jamie Goen, executive director of Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers, which is hoping for aid that could top $280 million to the crab industry and communities where the catch is processed.

The tail end of this lame duck session of Congress also will include an effort to secure funding for a third new Seattle-based Coast Guard polar icebreaker.

The polar icebreaker was authorized in legislation that passed Congress earlier this week as part of a Coast Guard budget that also includes new 52-foot Motor Lifeboat replacement vessels that would be homeported at Ilwaco and Grays Harbor on the Washington coast.

The money to partially fund the icebreaker could be included in the omnibus spending bill, according to U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell’s staff.

The two other new polar icebreakers already have been funded by Congress. But construction has fallen behind schedule. The first vessel was initially scheduled to be completed by 2024 but it is still in a design phase, and it is unclear whether construction will begin by then.

The Mississippi-based shipyard Halter Marine, which was contracted to build the vessels, was purchased by Bollinger Shipyards of Louisiana in November.