Trident Seafoods’ St. Paul processing plant won’t open to take snow crab deliveries this season. But the Pribilof Island community will still see some economic benefits from the harvest, thanks to a new agreement between the cities of St. Paul and Unalaska.
The Unalaska City Council unanimously approved a resolution at a special meeting on Jan. 3 that will allow snow crab, or opilio, that’s normally processed by Trident in St. Paul to come to Unalaska instead. St. Paul will receive the seafood taxes and fisheries business taxes associated with that portion of the harvest, like they normally would.
“With the crab crash for the last three years, we took an approximately $2.7 million cut in our operating budget, so any little bit helps,” said St. Paul Mayor Jacob Merculief.
St. Paul hasn’t processed any snow crab at its Trident plant since 2022, when the fishery closed for two years due to massive population declines among crab stocks. But the Alaska Department of Fish and Game made a surprising move this fall by reopening the snow crab fishery, allotting harvesters a total catch of around 4.7 million pounds for the season.
The small Pribilof community was expecting to process a portion of the harvest that is designated to the North Region of the fishery. This season, about a third of the catch — roughly 1.58 million pounds — was headed for St. Paul’s docks, and with it a revenue stream from seafood taxes.
But shortly after Fish and Game’s announcement, Trident said the amount was too low to justify opening their plant, which they’ve touted as the largest snow crab processing facility in the world. That left the crab with nowhere to go. St. Paul houses the sole processor for the North Region, so the catch would have been left in the ocean.
That is, until the City of Unalaska reached a memorandum of understanding with St. Paul earlier this month.
“Unalaska will essentially administer, on behalf of St. Paul, collection of St Paul’s 3.5% of the tax on the North Region crab,” explained Unalaska City Attorney Charles Cacciola. “So that’s the crab that would be either delivered to St. Paul or, without the exemption contract, would not be harvested at all.”
Unalaska City Council members voted to give the City of St. Paul its normal seafood taxes for all of the North Region crab landed locally, minus an administrative fee that will come from tax proceeds. St. Paul will also receive state fisheries business tax from the same catch.
Still, according to the memorandum, Unalaska should see a sales tax revenue bump and increased economic activity for the delivery and processing of the extra crab.
For St. Paul, the contract could provide significant economic relief to the Pribilof Island community, which has previously relied on crab as a major revenue stream. City officials have estimated that St. Paul has missed out on about $3 million in tax revenue due to the fishery closures. Officials said the city has lost more than two dozen employees in the last three years, and they’ve had to increase utility rates and take money from savings to stay afloat.
Unalaska City officials said they’re glad for the opportunity to help out the island’s distant neighbor to the north. Unalaska Fisheries Advisor Frank Kelty said Unalaska processors UniSea Inc. and Westward Seafoods can take St. Paul’s crab landings.
The Bering Sea snow crab fishery opened Oct. 15. As of Jan. 13, ten vessels were registered for the fishery, but no landings had been made. According to Fish and Game, the first offloads are expected this week.
The exemption agreement is active through the end of June.