The United Fishermen of Alaska are demanding to have tax credits and waivers in an effort to alleviate the problem. If thing goes like this then some might soon find it very difficult to stay in business. He added that unless fuel prices drop dramatically, the state might soon find itself under even more pressure to “sustain” Alaska’s archetypal sustainable industry, seafood, with money from its archetypal unsustainable industry, oil and gas.
It is said that Prudhoe Bay’s riches first started flowing into Alaska pockets, it became fashionable in economic circles to disdain investment in such “unsustainable” industries as mining. Instead, the push was on to grow oilseed in the Mat-Su area, sell milk from Alaska cows and produce fish-based fertilizer near Alaska processing plants. It seems
likely that Alaska seafood is being priced out of consumers’ budgets by $4-a-gallon gasoline for all but those higher-income households that can still afford to pay $10 to $12 per pound for coho salmon and more than $15 per pound for king and sockeye.
It is true that higher oil and gas prices are not so good for the seafood industry and there is an urgent demand of some as yet unforeseen technological change comes along to greatly reduce the cost of harvesting prime wild salmon, some fisheries once considered sustainable will become less and less so over time. It is told that canned product was once the backbone of the Alaska salmon industry. It might soon experience a revival of sorts.
