After months sitting abandoned in Unalaska, the state announced Friday its intention to dispose of the fishing vessel Akutan.
The processor was abandoned in Unalaska’s Captains Bay in September following a disastrous fishing season in Bristol Bay where the ship’s owner went broke, the crew went unpaid and its 158,000 pound haul of salmon was declared unfit for human consumption.
The state is looking for buyers interested in the vessel. If there are two or more prospective buyers, they will conduct a public auction, or the Akutan will be donated for scrap or destroyed.
The U.S. Coast Guard has removed all environmental threats from the fishing vessel. Chief Marine Science Technician Nathan Hatfield monitored the removal.
“We removed all of the petroleum based products as well as any other hazardous materials on board,” Hatfield said.
Hatfield says that includes portable chlorine tanks, lead batteries and ammonia from a refrigeration system.
Zoe Sobel is a reporter with Alaska's Energy Desk based in Unalaska. As a high schooler in Portland, Maine, Zoë Sobel got her first taste of public radio at NPR’s easternmost station. From there, she moved to Boston where she studied at Wellesley College and worked at WBUR, covering sports for Only A Game and the trial of convicted Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
