Articles Posted in Fishing Industry

American Seafoods Group, one of biggest commercial fishing companies involved in the Alaska pollock fishery, has sold their east coast seafood processing business, American Pride Seafoods. The sale to High Liner Foods was announced October 1, 2013. High Liner Foods reportedly paid $34.5 million for this subsidiary of American Seafoods. The American Seafoods sale of American Pride Seafoods marks a departure from the company’s previous sea-to-plate market integration.

American Pride Seafoods is a value-added frozen seafood and scallop processing business with revenues of $190 million reported in 2012. Typical products include breaded seafood products such as fish and chips, frozen seafood, and seafood packaged for use by restaurants and retail food providers. High Liner Foods indicated that they intend to continue to operate American Pride Seafoods at the New Bedford location without any substantial changes at this time.
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On January 30, a 23-year-old fisherman was air-lifted from F/V NORTH SEA, a Seattle-based Coastal Villages Region Fund crab boat. According to reports, NORTH SEA crewmembers called the Coast Guard that afternoon when the man was seen suffering seizure-like symptoms.

According to the Coast Guard, NORTH SEA was about 60 miles southwest of St. Paul, Alaska, at the time. Conditions at the time are said to have been 6-foot seas and 29mph winds. The Coast Guard deployed a Jayhawk helicopter from Air Station Kodiak and airlifted the fisherman to St. Paul for medical attention.

As written previously, commercial fishing remains the most dangerous job in the United States. Alaska has a higher worker fatality rate than the rest of the U.S., partly because about 25% of commercial fishing related deaths in the U.S. occur in that state. According to a 2010 National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) report on commercial fishing fatalities, falls overboard constituted 31%. Vessel disasters, such as sinking, constituted another 51%. A grim fact stated in the NIOSH report is that, of the 170 fall overboard fatalities between 2000 and 2010, none of the victims were wearing a personal flotation device (PDF).

Some people argue that there’s no reason to wear a PDF in cold seas because a person would die within two or three minutes from hypothermia. However, for the average healthy person in cold water, it takes hypothermia about 30 minutes to set in. In truth, wearing a PDF adds survival time pending rescue because it keeps you afloat even after you are too cold to move (but are still alive and able to recover). Remaining afloat also keeps you more visible to searchers, especially if your PDF has reflective tape and strobe lighting.
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After about ten years of investigation, studies, assessments, and meetings, the Akutan Airport Construction Project, awarded to Kiewit Infrastructure West Company, got underway on Akun Island in March of 2010 and is to be finished in the fall of 2012. There, Kiewit is building a 4,500 foot long paved runway, a taxiway, an apron, a sand storage building, a snow removal equipment building, a hovercraft maintenance and storage facility, three hovercraft landing pads, an access pad, and surrounding roads. According to Alaska DOT web site information, the federal budget slated for the project is $54,565,000.00. The total cost of the project, which is purported to be around $75 million, is additionally funded with state and local funding, including $1 million from Trident Seafoods Company. In addition to the airport on Akun Island, a hovercraft storage facility, pad, and ramp are under construction at Akutan Island. The hovercraft portion of the project is said to cost around $13 million, $11 million of which buys the hovercraft itself.

Akutan and Akun Islands are located about halfway into the Aleutian Chain, just east of Unalaska Island. The Akutan Island terrain is not amenable to building an airport, which is why Akutan Airport is being built on uninhabited Akun Island. Akun Island is about seven miles east across Akutan Harbor, so hovercraft service is crucial for connecting the airport with the City of Akutan.
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The Congress and the President passed a new law recently, which gives the USCG the authority to replace aging ships and aircraft with modern craft, improve USCG stations and housing, train personnel, and strengthens maritime security.

Specific to the commercial fishing industry, the Act provides the USCG more authority to amend and clarify, regulate, and enforce safety standards. Vessel and equipment standards now are to be determined based on where the vessel operates, not on where it’s registered. The goal of these uniform standards is to ensure fairness and to simplify to application of regulations. The emphasis here is on safety, both to prevent accidents and to buy survival time while awaiting rescue. The amendments in the Act include the following:
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Too many casualties in the fishing industry, including amputations and death, are caused by unguarded machinery parts catching a worker’s fingers, limbs, clothing, or hair. Long hours with little rest, the fast pace of work, and rolling seas increase the risk when the moving parts of a machine are not properly guarded from human contact during operation and properly shut down during maintenance. Coast Guard regulations on machine guarding are very clear and the courts tend to rule accordingly.

In Fuszek v. Royal King Fisheries, Inc., 98 F.3d 514 (1996), the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals found that a seaman is entitled to full damages, and not subject to reduced damages for comparative negligence, when the employer violates U.S. Coast Guard regulation. In Mr. Fuszek’s case, the question was not whether the machine was guarded, for all admitted and agreed that it was not guarded. The question was whether Mr. Fuszek’s award for damages should be diminished due to what the defendants claimed was Mr. Fuszek’s comparative negligence.
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A preliminary report for 2010, made this past August by the U.S. Bureau of Labor, shows that fishers and those in related fishing industry work continue to have the highest fatal injury rate of all employment categories in the U.S. This chart sums up the higher than average occupation-related death rate in the fishing industry:

Year – Fatalities per 100,000

2010 – 116

2009 – 200

2008 – 129

2007 – 112

2006 – 141

2005 – 118.

According to NTSB data, the death rate averaged 158 per 100,000 between 1992 to 2008 for the fishing industry, whereas the national work fatality average for that time period was four deaths in 100,000. Recognition of this unconscionable death rate, as well as the high rate of non-fatal injuries, and the financial and emotional costs involved in work-related death or injury has driven a focus on better fishing-related safety.
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