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Unalaska formally accepts disaster relief, 3 years after crab crash

Crab pots stacked in Unalaska's International Port of Dutch Harbor in April, 2025.
Theo Greenly
/
KUCB
Crab pots stacked in Unalaska's International Port of Dutch Harbor in April, 2025.

Unalaska is finally seeing some financial relief nearly three years after the collapse of Alaska’s snow crab and red king crab fisheries.

The city has now officially secured more than $3 million in federal disaster money.

The City of Unalaska formally accepted the relief funds at its June 24 city council meeting. That officially adds the money to the city budget, but the move was mostly procedural.

Councilmember Shari Coleman, who’s been on the council since the city first braced itself for a shortfall in 2021, said the move was largely procedural.

“It’s just housekeeping to make sure that we have this all corrected in our financial reports,” she said.

The money comes from a federal disaster declaration covering several fishing seasons that saw little or no harvest after crab populations crashed in 2022, causing the first ever closure of the Bering Sea snow crab fishery.

Unalaska — the hub of one of the nation's busiest commercial fishing ports — is among the group of recipients of the $144 million federal disaster package. St. Paul, whose local economy is still suffering from ongoing crab closures, will also receive a chunk of that funding.

The ordinance passed unanimously. For now, the funding goes into the city’s general fund, and is expected to help offset lost revenue from reduced crab landings and support harbor operations.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game will also help distribute portions of the funds to local permit holders, processors and crew — though how much will reach local recipients remains unclear.

Theo Greenly covers the Aleutian and Pribilof Islands for the Alaska Desk from partner stations KUCB in Unalaska, KSDP in Sand Point and KUHB in Saint Paul.
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  • This season, the Bering Sea snow crab fishery opened for the first time in two years, and the first boats began delivering to processors on Jan. 15. But the Trident Seafoods facility in St. Paul — which the company calls the “largest crab processing plant in the world” — isn’t taking any crab.
  • A federal government shutdown likely won’t affect the start of a Bristol Bay red king crab season, according to fisheries officials.The North Pacific Fishery Management Council will meet in early October to discuss opening the crab fishery, which has been closed since 2021. The federal government shutdown, which could start Sunday, wouldn’t stop the regional council from meeting, but it could affect whether or not the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration can distribute IFQ or Individual Fishing Quota, following the Council’s recommendation.
  • The recent closure of the Bering Sea snow crab and Bristol Bay red king crab fisheries has some of Western Alaska’s coastal towns taking a hard look at their futures, and one small island is bracing for a huge hit. The Pribilof Island of St. Paul runs on snow crab — also known as opilio crab. The community’s Trident Seafoods is one of the largest crab processing plants in the world. So when fisheries management officials announced the species “overfished” and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game shut down snow crab for the first time in the fishery’s history in October, City Manager Phillip Zavadil knew the community needed to act fast. “We're trying to get creative and have people understand that this is going to happen more and more, and that we need to address it,” Zavadil said. “We can do something now, instead of waiting for next year, when we don't have any funding or we can't provide services.”