Matt Lichtenstein

PETERSBURG-AK (2010-09-02) A Superior court judge has dismissed a former city councilor’s lawsuit against two city employees in Petersburg. The suit alleged invasion of privacy and defamation. It was set for a jury trial this month. However, after hearing pre-trial arguments last week, the judge granted a defense motion to dismiss the whole thing and ordered the plaintiff to pay the defendant’s legal expenses.

Matt Lichtenstein

PETERSBURG-AK (2010-09-01) Ocean Beauty Seafoods will resume full operations in Petersburg next year. That’s according to company officials who point to early indications of a strong pink salmon return.

Just the opposite was the case this year. Ocean beauty shuttered its Petersburg plant for the most part this summer in anticipation of low pink catches. The company continued to purchase fish from the area, but it only processed them all at its Excursion Inlet plant near Juneau.

                Ocean beauty Vice President Tom Sunderland said this week the Petersburg plant will be buying fish again next year. “We plan on processing in Petersburg full bore. Every indication is that there will be a very good pink salmon run and based on that, we expect business as usual. Back to normal. I mean 2010 was the aberration. We expect 2011 we’ll be back to usual and back to buying as many fish as we can,” Sunderland said.

                When Ocean Beauty announced it would be closed this summer, company officials emphasized it would be only be for one year. However, that didn’t stop some speculation in town that it might be longer. Municipal officials and business owners worried about the decline of raw fish tax income to the city as well the loss of seasonal business from transient fishing vessels, cannery workers and the plant itself.   

                The news that Ocean Beauty is planning to buy fish again in Petersburg next summer comes as a relief to Mayor Al Dwyer, who said, “I’m elated.”

                 Dwyer and the city council have formed a committee to come up with ways to retain existing, local fishing businesses and attract new ones.

                Petersburg’s two other major processing plants are owned by Icicle Seafoods and Trident Seafoods. Both operated this year. Ocean Beauty has run its plant in Petersburg since 1985. Historically, this was the first summer in at least twenty years that Icicle had the only major canning operation in town.

                The Alaska Department of Fish and Game has not yet put out official pink salmon projections for next year. However, state fishery managers say an annual survey of out-migrating pink salmon fry, done by the National Marine Fisheries Service this summer, indicates Southeast could see a big return in 2011.