City of Adak / Credit: Craig Hoyt

After a summer spent searching, Adak has found an operator for its fish processing plant. Adak Cod Cooperative will take over the facility this winter.

As KUCB's Lauren Rosenthal reports, they weren't the only ones interested in setting up shop in Adak.

Unalaska doesn't want to close the door on new Pacific cod fisheries.

The town’s Fish and Game Advisory Committee met Saturday. They voted 5-2 to reject a proposed moratorium on new Pacific cod fisheries in state waters until the state comes up with a new long-term management plan for the resource.

The moratorium would also prevent the state from expanding current Pacific cod fisheries for the time being.

Dan Magone / Credit: Lauren Rosenthal

After 40 years in western Alaska, Dan Magone is selling his namesake diving and marine rescue business.

Magone, 61, says he’s been kicking around the idea for a long time. Then, a new tide of Coast Guard vessel safety rules came along.

"We’re having so much trouble keeping up with the regulations," Magone says.

Magone says he’s spent millions of dollars trying to get the response vessels in his fleet up to code. In the meantime, more companies started to show up in Alaska to do salvage and rescue.

Shell's Noble Discoverer drill rig

Shell will pay the Environmental Protection Agency $1.1 million in fines for allegedly violating air permits during their 2012 drilling season in Alaska.

According to a press release from the EPA, Shell has agreed to pay $710,000 for violating the Clean Air Act permit on the Noble Discoverer drill rig, and $390,000 for infractions on the Kulluk.

Shell asked the EPA to revise the air permits for both rigs last year. The oil company conducted extra tests on the vessels and discovered that they weren't built to match the emission limits that the EPA set out in their initial permits.

USCG Adm. Robert Papp with Unalaska Mayor Shirley Marquardt. / Credit: Lauren Rosenthal

The highest ranking leader in the United States Coast Guard stopped into Unalaska today to talk about Arctic strategy.

Commandant Admiral Robert Papp hosted a town hall meeting with city officials and leaders from the local Native corporation. It was the first time a sitting commandant has visited Unalaska.

Papp said that’s a nod to the strategic importance of the community -- particularly, its port.

Shell Oil is still doing work in the Alaskan Arctic this summer, despite cancelling its drilling season in the wake of disasters that left both its rigs inoperable.

As KTUU-TV first reported, the company is mapping the Chukchi seafloor for ice gouges -- distinctive markings left by massive chunks of ice scraping across the bottom of the ocean. Knowing the location of ice gouges and their depth is important if Shell ever wants to build a pipeline from its oil prospects to shore.

It’s shaping up to be a busy year for Arctic shipping. The Russian government has already granted 218 vessels permission to transit the Northern Sea Route this summer -- four times as many as made the trip last year.

While some of the vessels are resupplying the Russian far north, others are doing the full passage from Europe to Asia, or vice versa. None of them is expected to stop in the Aleutians, but the potential for ships to do so in the future is on people’s mind.

Courtesy of ADF&G

One of the Aleutians’ smallest fisheries, the Dutch Harbor Food and Bait Herring Fishery, opened on Monday. Three seiners are participating this year -- one each for Trident, Westward, and Peter Pan. Locals may have noticed the boats’ spotter plane flying in and out of port, but those hoping to catch a glimpse of the harvest are likely going to be disappointed.

A month into pollock B season, fishermen should be ramping up their efforts in the Bering Sea. But instead, they’re slowing down because of high chum salmon bycatch.

Almost 20,000 chum have been taken incidentally since the season started on June 10. In the same period last year, the fleet caught about a tenth of that amount.

But Krista Milani, a biologist with the National Marine Fisheries Service, says it's not uncommon to see high bycatch so early in the season.