Fuel prices cause fishing crisis: legislature looking at ways to help fishermen.

• Author: Bohi, Heidi

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Alaska's commercial fishing industry wouldn't know what to do with itself if it didn't have a year go by that wasn't marked with issues facing fishermen's livelihood statewide. While this hardy group is known for riding out challenges ranging from low prices to never-ending politics, as the off-the-charts price of diesel fuel continues to send the state reeling, many fishermen aren't sure how--or if--they'll be able to recover from a season that will go down in history as the summer of the fuel crisis.

Joe Childers, a Southeast salmon trawler and United Fishermen of Alaska (UFA) president, has spent most of the past 40 years fishing out of Kodiak and the Aleutians. To try and offset diesel prices that could easily top $5 a gallon before the fall, he says he has re-powered his boat with a smaller, more efficient engine, which means a 50 percent decrease in fuel consumption. He lengthened the hull to increase hull speed so he can go a half a knot faster. Currently, he's in the process of testing a $25,000 state-of-the-art ice-making system on the boat that would allow him to make fewer, longer trips out to the fishing grounds and cut fuel costs in half from not having to pack 4 tons of ice onboard.

HANDS UP "I have done everything I can," to realize fuel efficiencies, he says from his home in Juneau. "Everybody is doing everything they can."

The need to conserve fuel is nothing new to Alaska fishermen, Childers says. With the cost continuing to increase due to dwindling reserves and growing demand, if the fishing industry does not come up with less expensive energy alternatives, coastal communities will "wither and die." The fuel problem also trickles down into the rest of the economy in other ways. If there is less fishing, for example, fewer crew members need to be hired and fish processors do not need as much labor. As low-cost imports from worldwide salmon markets and the demand for farmed fish have increased the competition and the need to keep Alaska fish prices competitive, the industry has started looking at energy conservation solutions that include alternative fuels--fish waste could even be converted into a viable fuel--or building renewable energy infrastructure such as a thermal power grid. The industry also wants to consider government grants and rebates that might be an incentive for these efforts.

After submitting a petition signed by more than 1,700 Alaskans asking Congress to help provide commercial...