The Alaska Seafood Task Force is trying to slim down 20 pages of suggestions for addressing the many issues plaguing the state’s seafood industry. The group must now settle on its final recommendations before it disbands on Feb. 1.

The Kodiak Crab Alliance Cooperative, which represents the local fleet, will deliver between 70 and 80 percent of the total harvest to one processor that offered the best price. Alaska Pacific Seafoods will pay $5.75 per pound for the lion’s share of Tanner crabs.

The recent buy is just the latest influx of cash to Alaska’s seafood industry from the federal government. The USDA spent about $200 million purchasing seafood like salmon and pollock last year, according to the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute.

The Alaska Department of Fish & Game is slated to receive another funding boost as part of Governor Mike Dunleavy’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2026. Millions of that potential money will support research for crashing Chinook salmon stocks.

For Kodiak, this Prince William Sound fishery is estimated to bring in approximately $1 million in dockside value, along with severance tax revenue for the borough and sales tax revenue for the city.

One of the ideas rising to the top of the Alaska Seafood Task Force’s forthcoming recommendations is an insurance pool for commercial fishermen. That's according to information the group’s chairperson shared on Dec. 18 with the Kodiak Fisheries Work Group.

Kodiak’s largest seafood processing plant has a new owner. The sale from Trident Seafoods to Pacific Seafood comes about two months after the companies announced a deal was in the works and over a year since Trident announced it would sell its Kodiak assets.

The Alaska Board of Fisheries has tweaked some regulations related to trawl bycatch in the Prince William Sound pollock fishery. It was part of just one agenda item at the group’s meeting in Cordova from Dec. 12-16. But some wanted the board to go further and completely close the only state managed pollock trawl fishery in Alaska.

Alaska's Seafood Task Force holds its final meeting of the year today, and over the last several months lawmakers have been looking at ways to aid all sectors of the state’s seafood industry, which faced a number of struggles. But the group could also address the outmigration of fishing permits and unequal fishing access in rural Alaska communities.

Among the roughly one hundred proposals on the Alaska Board of Fisheries agenda at its upcoming meeting next month are a handful focused on further restricting or closing the state-managed pollock trawl fishery in Prince William Sound. Now, a Kodiak organization is trying to drum up support for local trawlers, and oppose the proposals.