A state and federally designated economic development organization for Southeast Alaska has received $1 million in two grants to build up mariculture in the region, with half the money to go toward applying for an even larger grant and the other half going to design a processing facility on Prince of Wales Island.
A $500,000 grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration will be used “to build an application to allow us to compete for $50 million,” Robert Venables, executive director of Southeast Conference, said last Friday.
The $50 million would go toward “everything from facilities, equipment, nurseries, hatcheries — the whole gamut that supports the industry,” Venables said.
The organization will pay McKinley Research Group, which has offices in Juneau and Anchorage, to put together the economic data, market information, community benefits and other material for a compelling grant application, he said.
The $500,000, announced in January, was Phase 1 of the federal Build Back Better competition, and will allow the Southeast Conference, one of 60 finalists among more than 500 applications nationwide, to compete for Phase 2 of the grant program against a smaller pool of applicants. The deadline for the application is March. 15.
Of those 60 finalists, the federal program indicated it will fund 30 to 40, Venables said. “Our chances (in Phase 2) have greatly improved.”
Venables said they’ve been told grant awards will be announced this summer.
If awarded, the mariculture projects would take five years to implement, Julie Decker, executive director of Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation, said last Friday.
A different $500,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture awarded to the Southeast Conference will go toward designing a mariculture “incubation” facility on Prince of Wales, Decker said. The processing facility could be shared by multiple businesses in the mariculture industry, which harvests kelp, seaweed and other ocean plants for foods, cosmetics and other uses.
Venables said the design work is an 18-month project and includes “all the due diligence, the pre-construction activity to have that facility construction-ready.” That includes putting the designs out to bid for construction, he said.
The organization still would need to obtain construction funding.
The state is looking to grow the mariculture industry in Alaska, and the governor’s proposed budget includes a $25 million matching grant program. The funding, however, “still has to make it through the legislative budget process,” Decker said.
The governor also has proposed that the state borrow $5 million to go toward construction of the Prince of Wales Island processing facility. That, too, will require legislative approval and then voter approval.
Brian Herman, owner of Wrangell-headquartered Canoe Lagoon Oyster, which he runs out of Blashke Islands, said grant funding is good but the hurdles he’s run into with the state have made running his business frustrating. Herman applied in the fall for a satellite processing site for his oysters in Wrangell in case of bad weather to bring in the harvest from Blashke Islands, but hasn’t heard back.
“I applied to the state (Department of Environmental Conservation) to do our water quality testing in September of 2021. They still have not come out and done a site visit, so I can’t start my water quality testing until they show up. We’re now six months in, and the whole intent of this project was to have our oysters on the beach in the winter,” Herman said.
“We're going to lose one more winter because the state did not do its water quality test. If the state sent me something, and I took six months to submit my paperwork on it, I think they’d be pretty mad at me. Every time I ask them, it’s one excuse or another.”
Herman said if the state really wants to make good on a transition from a wild stock economy to mariculture and aquaculture, it needs to beef up testing staff and shorten lab times. All samples go through the DEC testing laboratory in Anchorage.
Venables said his team is meeting with DEC this week to have a conversation about testing.
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