The Alaska Story investigation: Bill Hill’s Marxist message to voters collides with his stake in billion-dollar seafood giant

By SUZANNE DOWNING

Sept. 10, 2026 — Bill Hill presents himself to Alaska voters as a working-class fisherman ready to take on wealthy elites.

But the Democrat-backed congressional candidate also holds an ownership stake in Silver Bay Seafoods, a rapidly expanding corporation reportedly generating more than $1 billion in annual revenue and controlling much of Alaska’s salmon-processing capacity.

Hill’s newest campaign advertisement displays the word “Billionaires,” with “ionaires” crossed out to leave only “Bill.” The accompanying message attacks “corrupt billionaire tax breaks” and describes Hill as “a fisherman from Bristol Bay who’s going to take on the DC elite, lower the cost of healthcare and fuel, and fight every day to make life better for hardworking Alaskans.”

The advertisement uses a familiar class-warfare appeal: Billionaires are corrupt, Washington elites are the enemy, and Hill is a worker bee coming to set things right. It has become a recurring theme of his campaign: Class warfare.

What the advertisement does not mention is that Hill partly owns one of Alaska’s largest seafood-processing companies.

Hill’s federal financial disclosure identifies him as the owner of a small interest in Silver Bay Seafoods’ Naknek operation. The privately held company describes itself as a fishermen-owned, vertically integrated seafood business with some 600 fishermen-shareholders.

Millionaire retiree Bill Hill rails against wealth while collecting a taxpayer-backed pension worth millions

The disclosure reports $244,049 in gross income from Hill’s commercial fishing operation through Silver Bay during 2025 and another $15,890 through April 15, 2026, totaling $259,939 over the reporting period.

Hill is thus a business owner, vessel owner, commercial fisherman — and shareholder participating in the growth of a major private corporation.

Silver Bay began with one processing facility in Sitka in 2007. It has since expanded aggressively, including through acquisitions of processing assets formerly operated by Peter Pan Seafoods, Trident Seafoods and OBI Seafoods.

An industry analysis by Antarctica Advisors estimates that Silver Bay now controls between 60% and 70% of Alaska’s pink and sockeye salmon-processing capacity and generates more than $1 billion in annual revenue. Because Silver Bay is privately held, the revenue estimate cannot be independently confirmed through public financial statements. The company has nevertheless become a dominant force in Alaska’s salmon industry.

That muddies Hill’s campaign message. His own fishing enterprise depends upon investment, private ownership, capital equipment and access to a large corporate processor, yet his advertising portrays billionaires as a corrupt political class. It does not explain where that dividing line falls or which tax provisions Hill considers corrupt.

There is another contradiction in Hill’s relationship with Silver Bay.

Hill portrays himself as a labor champion and has appeared on union picket lines carrying a “STRIKE” sign. The American Federation of Government Employees endorsed him alongside US Senate candidate Mary Peltola. Yet Silver Bay facilities are identified as nonunion in Occupational Safety and Health Administration records.

The company has undergone more than 20 workplace-safety inspections over the past decade, with OSHA records listing more than 30 alleged or confirmed violations.

A 2025 complaint inspection at Silver Bay’s False Pass facility resulted in a serious lockout-tagout citation and a proposed $16,550 penalty. The citation concerned safeguards intended to protect workers from hazardous machinery energy. Silver Bay contested it.

In 2017, workers at the company’s Naknek facility alleged that they had been “mentally terrorized and physically abused,” prompting an investigation by Alaska Occupational Safety and Health.

Hill has also been promoted as an environmental candidate, but Silver Bay has paid $549,969 in state and federal penalties for environmental violations.

In 2022, the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation penalized the company $467,469 for water-quality violations at its Naknek River plant.

Silver Bay exceeded its permitted annual fish-waste discharge by 2.9 million pounds in 2017 and 5.1 million pounds in 2020. DEC said the company repeatedly exceeded its limit after regulators denied its request to discharge additional waste.

A subsequent inspection found catch-transfer water being discharged at the dock, leaving blood and foam on the river’s surface. Regulators cited additional problems involving waste-grinding requirements, management practices and failures to report noncompliance.

DEC Division of Water Director Randy Bates said Silver Bay’s “knowing and recalcitrant disregard” of its permit conditions put the environment at risk and provided a competitive advantage over processors that paid the cost of compliance. Silver Bay said it took corrective steps following the settlement.

The company paid another $82,500 penalty in 2019 after the Environmental Protection Agency documented Clean Water Act violations at its Sitka operation. A dive survey found a 2.76-acre seafood-waste pile on the seafloor, more than twice the one-acre area allowed by its permit.

EPA also identified inadequate monitoring and unauthorized discharges of oil, blood and foam. Silver Bay subsequently installed technology that EPA said reduced its waste discharge by nearly 90%.

Hill’s relationship with Silver Bay is relevant to the political identity he is selling. He has earned substantial gross revenue through the same system of private ownership and corporate investment that his campaign depicts as a struggle between working people and wealthy elites.