TOLEDO, Wash. (AP) - Residents of a half-dozen homes were evacuated as a precaution Saturday after a rupture in a natural gas pipeline that supplies Idaho and other states.

The residents were allowed to return to their homes three hours later, said Williams Northwest Pipeline spokesman Bev Chipman at the company's Salt Lake City headquarters.

No injuries or property damage were reported. Lewis County and Toledo fire officials conducted the evacuation.

Valves to the 26-inch Northwest pipeline that runs alongside Interstate 5 were closed and gas was diverted into a parallel 30-inch line until repairs began Sunday. Typically, it takes 10 to 12 hours to make repairs, Chipman said.

The cause of the break is under investigation. The pipeline serves Northwest Natural Gas of Portland, and Cascade Natural Gas of Seattle.

Williams operates a 4,000-mile natural-gas transmission pipeline that carries the fuel to Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah and Colorado.

Alaska groundfish quotas get a boost

ANCHORAGE (AP) -Federal fisheries officials, buoyed by the overall abundance of groundfish, on Sunday approved an increased 2004 harvest of Pacific cod and pollock in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands.

The North Pacific Fishery Management Council voted to allow a harvest of up to 215,500 metric tons of Pacific cod, up 8,000 metric tons from 2003, and nearly 1.5 million metric tons of pollock, up 240 metric tons from this year's quota.

"The council came to a very reasonable compromise," said Jeff Stephan, manager of the United Fishermens' Marketing Association at Kodiak. "We are very pleased that the (total allowable catch of ) Pacific cod is higher than it was last year."

Earlier in the day, Loh-Lee Low of the National Marine Fisheries Service in Seattle, told the council that the biomass, or total pounds of fish available to be caught, is extremely healthy.

Federal regulations limit the total harvest in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands to 2 million metric tons of varied species, ranging from pollock and cod to yellowfin sole, rock sole and Atka mackerel.

The actual catch of some two dozen species of groundfish caught in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands in 2003 came to about 1.9 million metric tons in 2003.

Since the actual catch fell about 8,000 metric tons short of the allowed harvest, industry representatives pushed to increase quotas for pollock and cod, the most abundant of stocks.

The At-Sea Processors proposed that the council add some 4,000 metric tons of allowable catch to both the pollock and cod fisheries.

"We support the cap, but we want to make sure the amount of the cap is fully utilized," said Paul MacGregor, a spokesman for the At-Sea Processors Association, which represents factory trawlers that process pollock.

The council also approved a plan to allow Gulf of Alaska fishermen to harvest 264,433 metric tons of groundfish in 2004, up from 236,440 metric tons in 2003. That total includes a significant increase in pollock and Pacific cod quotas.

Gulf fishermen may catch up to 71,260 metric tons of pollock in 2004, up from 54,350 metric tons in 2003, and 48,033 metric tons of Pacific cod, up from a cap of 40,540 metric tons in the past season. Quotas on sablefish and deep water flatfish also were raised.