Nov 27 2007
400 tons of Salmon Rot at processing plant!!!!
Just found this article online and thought that i would share it with my readers. It really is a shame what is happening with the fisheries around the world, and these problems are closer to home than I like.
“Alaska sentences processor for letting 400 tons of salmon rot”
The Associated Press
“ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Three years ago, Jeremy Oliver swept into the summer fishing community of Ekuk to take over the newly vacated cannery, assuring dozens of families that he would be a reliable buyer and processor of their wild salmon.
But by mid-season, 400 tons of Bristol Bay sockeye had rotted so badly that the state declared the area an environmental catastrophe. None of the fishermen or cannery workers were ever compensated for the loss.
On Monday, a magistrate in Dillingham ordered Oliver to pay them $50,000 in restitution and spend 40 days in jail for one misdemeanor related to the violation of Alaska’s Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act.
Officials with the company’s defunct banker, Strategica Import-Export Financial Group LLC, of Florida, have already agreed to pay $187,000 and will share responsibility with Oliver for the latest fine, Assistant Alaska Attorney General Dan Cheyette said.
Smooth-talking and cocky, Oliver had little experience in the Alaska fishing industry when in 2004 he helped form Wild Alaskan Seafood Co. LLC in Washington state, according to local fisherman and prosecutors.
Oliver had convinced Strategica to finance his plan to ship whole frozen salmon to out-of-state wholesalers.
He leased a processing plant in Ekuk, once a Yup’ik Eskimo village on Alaska’s southwest coast, and told fishermen that an Oregon company would buy their fish and his employees would renovate the plant.
Fishermen said they were suspicious of Oliver from the outset because he had did not have enough ice or water to keep their catch frozen.
But the plant was the only fish buyer in the area and many took the risk of selling to him rather than go an entire season without fishing.
Christine O’Connor said her family had a skiff and could take their fish across the water to other processors, but she said others were not so fortunate.
“Most of the folks on that beach didn’t have skiffs like we did and they were forced to deliver to Oliver,” O’Connor said.
Oliver apologized in court to the several fishermen who came to his sentencing.
Copyright © 2007 The Seattle Times Company”
