Representatives of the City and Borough of Wrangell and the local seafood industry held a workshop on Tuesday, April 7, to discuss how public health can be protected with fishing season drawing near. There were over 30 people who called into the meeting, in total. The meeting was chaired by Assembly Member Julie Decker.
"I think, in my opinion, the goal is to move the city in a direction of a set of policies, and procedures, and requirements, for the seafood industry that keep the community safe and keep the fleet safe," said Decker.
There were some documents from other communities Wrangell was looking at, Decker said, to get a sense of what might be appropriate for Wrangell. For example, the city of Craig has issued a quarantine policy for their harbors. All vessels entering any harbor facility in Craig are required to contact the harbormaster or dispatch center before disembarking any passengers or crew members. Vessels that have travelled outside of the state or come from Alaskan communities with known cases of COVID-19 are also required to submit to quarantine procedures. Decker also mentioned a mutual aid agreement for small and large fishing operations from the city of Cordova, in an effort to protect their community from the virus. The agreements, in short, state that operators agree to educate themselves about COVID-19 and to take precautionary measures, to comply with local emergency rules, and to complete a health risk assessment form for all employees.
Locally, Wrangell's seafood processors are taking steps to be safe. Rocky Caldero represented Sea Level Seafoods during the meeting. He said that they are continuing service boats from the dock, but they are not letting fishermen off their boats. If need be, employees can run to the store to get supplies for them. He also said that they intend to bring in 35 seasonal workers this summer, but plan to quarantine them for two weeks before letting them into town. Caldero added that they would be happy to hire locally, as well. Should any of these workers begin to show signs of sickness, Caldero said they would be immediately quarantined.
"We would monitor them, see what their progress is, and if it does get worse, then we would contact the doctors," he said.
Mayor Steve Prysunka asked Caldero if these hypothetical sick workers could be flown out of Wrangell, to protect the hospital's supplies. Some communities up north, he said, are looking into having a plane on hand for such a scenario, to take the stress off of the local community. Caldero said they have not had any firm discussions on that topic, but they could look into it.
Trident Seafoods was also represented at this meeting, by Shannon Carroll. Trident will not be running this summer, as reported in the Sentinel in early March. However, Carroll said that they will maintain a skeleton crew at the local plant. More broadly, looking at Trident's nearby Petersburg and Ketchikan plants, he said that their main concern is protecting the health of their communities, employees, and harvesters. This will not be a "business as usual" season, he said, and they are currently putting together response plans for Southeast Alaska. The plans are still being finalized, but Carroll said they involve limiting exposure between harvesters and employees.
"In general, the policies that we're implementing are not allowing fishermen to get off their boats when they unload at the dock, restricting all sorts of interactions ... The goal is basically to minimize interactions between our employees and our harvesters," Carroll said.
Local fishermen and other residents also got to voice their input during the meeting. Brennon Eagle said that he wished there were some better definitions and criteria when it came to whatever safety guidelines the city came up with. He added that he was uncomfortable with the city adopting these sorts of guidelines without technical expertise.
"There's a lot of technical expertise as to how to run a fishing businesses, how to run businesses within town, how to write regulations, but when we start writing these regulations they need to be based in some type of technical expertise as to what causes spread, how to minimize spread, that sort of thing, not how do we make ourselves feel comfortable with things," he said.
Harbor Master Greg Meissner also weighed in during the discussion.
"I had an individual ask me today, he says 'Once in a while I'm out halibut fishing I might pull into Juneau and unload,'" he said. "So if his plan stated that upon that chance he goes to Juneau and unloads his product, he stays on his vessel, and unloads his product, and does not go up on deck, and doesn't do A, B, or C ... If the plan is accepted that would work, I would think, for you to come and go to those places if you're following the protocol you say you're going to."
Another person who commented during the meeting was Dave Miller. Miller said he works in the marine center. He said he firmly believes that if there's a way for people to potentially bypass safety guidelines, the town needs to hold their own and not allow that. He does not want to work on a boat or around anybody that's been in Ketchikan or another community with cases of COVID-19. It should be mandatory they quarantine or leave, he said.
"I don't think we're going to get to the nitty-gritty of anything except in a later meeting with a smaller group," Decker said. "I'm hopeful that folks recognize that so we can detail out some things."
Reader Comments(0)