Unalaska wants $5 million to pave the road serving America's busiest fishing port

Unalaska will ask Congress for $5 million to reconstruct and pave Captains Bay Road, the gravel commercial corridor serving the nation's largest commercial fishing port by weight. The City Council made it the top item on its federal funding list.

The council put three other items on its federal list: $1 million for an Army Corps study of coastal erosion, $700,000 for a mammography suite at the Iliuliuk Family and Health Services clinic, and support for a federal grant to replace the ship-to-shore crane at the Unalaska Marine Center.

The city is also asking for storm money. A December blizzard damaged infrastructure at Tom Madsen Airport and accelerated erosion that threatens utilities, roads and private property. The governor declared it a disaster, which opened state assistance to restore what was damaged.

The council also backed continued enforcement of the ban on Russian seafood imports, and opposed bycatch limits imposed by courts or the Legislature rather than set by federal managers. City officials and pollock industry representatives say caps arriving that way could shut down the pollock B season, taking processors, crews and the tax revenue that pays for city services with it.

The federal council that sets those rules has recommended a limit of 45,000 Western Alaska chum salmon for the Bering Sea pollock fishery, with a corridor closure. Western Alaska tribal organizations and conservation groups argue current bycatch levels are hurting subsistence communities and that enforceable limits are what is needed.

Separately, the council backed the Iliuliuk clinic's bid for state money under Alaska's rural health program, a track distinct from the federal mammography request. The clinic, Alaska's first Level V trauma center, is seeking about $10.7 million for building repairs, a retail pharmacy, behavioral health space and mammography equipment.