industry

Alaska's plan to pay out nearly $50 million to the fishing industry for pandemic relief has been approved by the federal government. 

That's after two major revisions and more than 200 public comments from every industry sector.

Trident Seafoods' huge processing plant on the remote Aleutian island of Akutan reopened Friday after a nearly month-long COVID-19 closure. 

An outbreak at the plant forced the fishing giant to close the facility in late January just as the lucrative winter season was set to kick off. Forty-five percent of Trident's 700-person workforce ultimately tested positive for the virus, company officials said Monday.  

Unalaska's largest fish processing plant reopened Monday after a COVID-19 outbreak forced it to shut down for almost a month. 

UniSea closed its doors Jan. 5 after a handful of workers tested positive for the virus, following a New Year's gathering in company housing. 

Updated 01/26/2021 at 6:30 p.m.

A COVID-19 outbreak at one of Alaska's largest fish processing plants has infected nearly 20 percent of workers, with testing only partially finished, officials said Tuesday. 

At Trident Seafoods' huge plant on the remote Aleutian island of Akutan, 135 of 700 workers have tested positive for the virus, state officials reported Tuesday.

A third seafood processing plant has shut down in the Aleutian Islands amid a COVID-19 outbreak, threatening to further derail lucrative winter fisheries in the region.

In the Aleutian port town of Unalaska, at least five local boats are stuck at the dock with nowhere to deliver their cod after the shutdown of the Alyeska Seafoods processing plant, according to a crew member on one of them, Tacho Camacho Castillo.