St. Paul seafood processing facility unlikely to reopen for surprise snow crab fishery

St. Paul
The closure of the snow crab fishery in recent years has been a huge blow to St. Paul, a Pribilof Island community of about 300 people. (Courtesy Ethan Candyfire)

Alaska processor Trident Seafoods announced Monday that it probably won’t be processing crab in the Pribilof Island community of St. Paul this season.

That comes after the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s decision to reopen the snow crab or opilio fishery after a two-year closure. The state’s announcement on Friday surprised many fishermen.

It was also a surprise to Trident. Shannon Carroll is the company’s Alaska director of public affairs and fisheries development. On Monday, he told the North Pacific Fishery Management Council that Trident wasn’t expecting the opening.

To be frank, we never imagined, even a few weeks ago, being in this position,” he said. “And I want to be clear that it’s not a signal that we’re pulling out of St. Paul or pulling out of crab.”

Harvesters will have roughly 4.7 million pounds of snow crab to catch this season. That’s just a sliver of what they’ve historically harvested.

According to Carroll, it’s not economically feasible to open the plant with such a low TAC, or total allowable catch.

“The low TAC would mean really significant losses just to open the doors in St. Paul,” Carroll said.

St. Paul is a remote island in the middle of the Bering Sea. Trident has touted its facility there as the largest snow crab processor in the nation. But recently, billions of the crabs disappeared from Alaska’s waters, and the state shut down the fishery in 2022. Shortly after, the City of St. Paul declared a cultural, economic and social emergency.

The closure of the snow crab fishery has been a huge blow to the community of about 300 people. City Manager Phil Zavadil told KUCB earlier this year, that they’re making do but still missing out on about $3 million in tax revenue. He said the city has lost about 25 employees in the last three years, and they’ve had to increase utility rates and take money from savings to stay afloat. He said they hoped for a small amount of crab to keep things stable.

Fish and Game’s decision to reopen the fishery could have provided the community some relief. Now, it’s likely they won’t see any revenue from the fishery.

Keeping the plant closed could also leave harvesters with few other processing options.

Trident’s Shannon Carroll told the North Pacific Fishery Management Council that there are many complex reasons for the company’s decision.

The biggest one is just poor conditions in other fisheries, including pollock, salmon and cod,” he said. “And that means that we can’t subsidize our operation in St. Paul like we’ve done in many years during low TAC years.”

Carroll said Trident plans to work with stakeholders and the community of St. Paul to come up with possible solutions.

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