With the government shutdown once again behind us, Alaska's Bering Sea crab fleet can now look forward to getting out of port and on to the fishing grounds in Bristol Bay to begin dropping pots for the Bristol Bay Red King Crab fishery as soon as this weekend.

Over 80 crab boats sat idle at the dock in Dutch Harbor as politics in Washington closed down their ability to get the necessary quota permits to ply their trade. But, with NOAA back on the job, the National Marine Fisheries Service is working to get those essential permits into the crab skipper’s hands as early as today.

Alaska’s Senator Begich, along with Washington State’s Senator Maria Cantwell penned a letter to the Department of Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker urging her to prioritize the opening of the fishery yesterday.

“Fishing families are eager to get to work,” the senators wrote in the letter. “Please help us minimize the economic impact this unnecessary shutdown has had on our coastal economics by making a priority of opening the Bristol Bay Red King Crab fishery. Thank you for your attention to this urgent request.”

Alaska’s Senator Lisa Murkowski stated today that Representative Don Young and herself had advocated NOAA putting a process in place to expedite the sending out of permits to the fishermen and it did lead to permits being faxed out to fishermen.

“It’s National Seafood Month and we want to see our crab fleet in full gear, so I thank the NMFS personnel for making sure this was atop their to-do list,” said Murkowski. “NMFS employees crunched the needed numbers and produced the paperwork for each ship in the fleet, turning them around to the permit holders in a remarkably expedited process. They got the message from us, they did the work, and the ships could be out on the water as early as tonight with pots in the water tomorrow morning and this brief interruption won’t keep them from their peak holiday season goals.”

Alaska’s seafood industry directly supports over 63,000 jobs in Alaska. The study also found that 34,000 Washingtonians worked in the industry and that it supports over 7,000 jobs in Washington state at processors, distributors, grocers and restaurants.

Crabbers have been concerned that the government shutdown would delay the fishery so long that the industry would miss out on supplying crab for the Japanese holidays, the soonest being Labour Thanksgiving Day in mid-November.

Approximately five vessels went out when the season opened on Tuesday. Those vessels are under the state managed community quota fishery and so were not delayed by the government shutdown. The quota for that fishery is 860,000 pounds. There are 17 vessels authorized for state managed fishery.

It is expected that the Bristol Bay King Crab will fetch $16 a pound wholesale and as much as $40 a pound retail this year. This will bring in at least $200 million to the fishermen alone.