“We don't want them to go without electricity,” said Thomas Mack, president of the Aleut Corp., in Anchorage. “We are trying to get it resolved, the quicker the better.”

Adak, population 136, lies on Kuluk Bay on Adak Island, 1,300 miles southwest of Anchorage and 350 miles west of Unalaska/Dutch Harbor, in the Aleutian Islands.

Since July, the city has had intermittent problems getting fuel from the Aleut Corp. because the city was in arrears on paying the corporation's subsidiary, Aleut Enterprises, for the fuel, said city clerk Chrissy Dushkin.

Meanwhile the Aleut Corp. was in arrears paying sales tax to the city, “because they wanted to deduct it from our (fuel) bill,” Dushkin said.

Dushkin estimated that the city owed Aleut Enterprises about $500,000 for fuel, a debt that in part was the result of Adak Fisheries owing the city upward of $600,000 in sales taxes and utility bills.

The city manager, with approval of the city council, can disconnect power from a delinquent utility subscriber, but the council as whole has never approved a disconnect for Adak Fisheries, Dushkin said.

Meanwhile, on Sept. 23, the Regulatory Commission of Alaska released an order finding that good cause exists to revoke the certificate of public convenience and necessity held by the city of Adak, doing business as Adak Electric. RCA scheduled a public workshop in Anchorage for Oct. 20 for individuals or entities interested in providing electric service to Adak.

RCA officials cited the utility's continuing struggle in providing adequate, safe and reliable utility service in Adak as a reason to revoke the certificate.

Aleut's Mack said his company wants the city of Adak to have a viable power plant, but can only do so much.

“We have been putting a little Band Aid on the problem extending them fuel,” he said. “We are not helping the situation by just giving them fuel; we are throwing good money after bad.”

Adak Fisheries, which processes cod, halibut, sablefish, crab and pollock, is the mainstay of the Adak economy when things are going well, said Dave Frasier, a government relations spokesman for Adak Fisheries.

But Adak Fisheries currently is experiencing hard times, as competition to process fish has grown in recent months. The company owes thousands of dollars in unpaid fuel bills to the city and Aleut Enterprises, the fuel division of the Aleut Corp.

There is also plenty of friction between the city of Adak and the Aleut Corp. On Sept. 19, in the wake of an Adak City Council agreement with Aleut Enterprises, city clerk Dushkin, city manager Steve Hines and city council member Will Tillion tendered their resignations. According to Tillion, the trio resigned in protest of council action without the advice of the city attorney.

Tillion said the deal to allow fuel delivery included a provision that forgives the Alaska Native corporation for removing copper components from the electric distribution system that belongs to the city of Adak.

Other council members were under duress to sign the agreement because they were worried about a power outage, due to lack of fuel causing the clinic and school to close, he said.

The fuel shortage resulted in some 200 contractors, on the island to clean up unexploded ordinance left over from World War II, leaving earlier in the season than usual because there was no guarantee utilities would be available, Dushkin said. Contractors normally leave in October, but the last three planes out were pretty full, she said.

The residents, however, are staying on. “I guess we could all pack up and leave, but to where?” she said.

Adak Fisheries, meanwhile, is working with North Pacific Fishery Management Council, which will introduce a discussion paper at its October meeting to give more protection to Eastern Aleutian Island communities for processing Pacific cod.

From 2005 to 2007, vessels harvesting Pacific cod delivered up to 84 percent of the fish to the Adak shoreside processor, but when the crab-processing sector was consolidated in 2008, landings to Adak Fisheries dropped to 37 percent, Frasier said.

This happened because some processor vessels that previously worked in the crab fishery were suddenly freed up and began competing to process Pacific cod. While Adak Fisheries processed black cod and halibut in summer months and some crab in winter months, Pacific cod is its most important fishery.

To process the Pacific cod, Adak Fisheries imports workers from outside the area, because most adult Adak residents are already employed. Adak Fisheries does pay sales taxes on behalf of the fishermen who sell to them, and pays a raw fish tax to the state, which passes it on to the city of Adak.

Along with the processing competition, Adak Fisheries has had challenges in getting its processed fish to market.

“We are at the end of the line,” Frasier said. There is no scheduled service from domestic vessels and processed fish for domestic markets can't be shipped on a foreign processor.