Alaska Gubernatorial Candidates Take on Fisheries Issues

When it comes to myriad commercial fisheries issues facing Alaska, from a declining budget to Russia’s ban on import of Alaska seafood, three candidates vying to be Alaska’s next governor had plenty to say this past week in Kodiak.

The occasion was the 2014 fisheries debate, sponsored by the Kodiak Chamber of Commerce and KMXT Kodiak public radio, featuring incumbent Gov. Sean Parnell, Independent candidate Bill Walker and Democrat Byron Mallott. (Five days after the debate, Walker and Mallott announced in Anchorage that they had combined their campaigns to a single Independent slate, with Walker running for governor and Mallott for lieutenant governor).

In his closing comments during the two-hour debate on Aug. 28, Walker said he was running because as a life-long resident, father and grandfather, he was worried about the future of the state. When someone in Fairbanks asked him recently why he was working so hard on his campaign, Walker said he responded with “Let me ask you a question: if you were out in a boat with your family and taking on water, how hard would you bail?”

Alaska’s fisheries, said Mallott, are a bellwether of the kind of place we are, the kind of people we are.” Alaskans’ concern for the demise of the salmon resource runs deep, he noted, and was a reason for statehood.

All three offered suggestions on increasing resident involvement and ownership in Alaska’s fishing and processing industry, from tax credits to developing the next generation of employable workers for the industry.  But as Parnell brought up tax incentives, Walker spoke of his passion for local hire, and said if he were to provide such economic incentives, they would be based on the company’s percentage of local hire.

In addition to questions from fisheries writers, the candidates responded to questions from the audience, including what the state should do to help those in the fishing industry with no employer-based health insurance.

Walker said he would, as governor, quickly accept expanded Medicaid for Alaska, for three reasons. “Number one, he said, Alaskans have already paid for it. Number two, it helps between 10,000 and 40,00 Alaskans, and three, it creates over 4,000 new medical positions in Alaska, and that’s before it brings down the cost of health care in Alaska.”

All three men also spoke of the importance of providing educational and economic means to help young Alaskans gain entry to the fishing industry, and protecting fishery habitat.  Growing the resource, so there is a bright future, low interest loans, research and development opportunities are key, Walker said.

Seafood Watch Upgrades 21 West Coast Species to Sustainable Status

The Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch program has moved 21 species of West Coast fish to sustainable status, thanks to the success of a fisheries management program championed by the Environmental Defense Fund.

The seafood watch program, a sustainability program used by millions of Americans and corporate seafood buyers, on Sept. 2 declared nearly 40 species of West Coast rockfish, flounder, sole and other species as either a “best choice” or “good alternative.” The fishery was declared a federal disaster in 2000, and many of these species had long been rated as fish to avoid.  The replacement of ineffective fishing regulations with the catch share management program that EDF championed was cited as a primary reason the fishery has turned around.

The catch share program was designed to rebuild and manage stocks to ensure long-term sustainability.

Approximately 70 percent of West Coast flounder and sole, and 60 percent of rockfish got the top rating of “best choice,” which marks a dramatic change from prior ratings.  On that list among trawl-caught rockfish are widow, aurora, yellowtail, splitnose and shortspine and longspine thornyheads.  Alternative choices include chilipepper rockfish, petrale sole and sablefish.  Five species of flatfish improved to a “best choice” from “good alternative,” including Dover sole, English sole, Pacific sanddab, rex sole and starry flounder.

Federal Fisheries Council Prepares for October Meeting

The North Pacific Fishery Management Council will take on Gulf of Alaska trawl bycatch management issues, community development quota Pacific cod fishery development and the observer annual deployment plan in October in Anchorage.

The agenda for the 219^th plenary session is still being developed and not all documents are available, but the council has posted all materials available at this time online at http://legistar2.granicus.com/npfmc/meetings/2014/10/894_A_North_Pacific_Council_14-10-06_Meeting_Agenda.pdf

Council staff said Sept. 2 that the agenda would be continually updated with associated documents as they are released.

For information on how to access these documents through an iPad app called iLegislate, please call the NPFMC at 1-907-271-2809.

The meeting at the Anchorage Hilton hotel will be broadcast at https://npfmc.adobeconnect.com/october2014.

Adobe connect has an app for listening on mobile devices.

Three other fisheries related meetings are also being held the week of the council meeting.  They include a workshop for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Recreational Fishing Policy on the evening of Oct. 7, a Steller sea lion critical habitat workshop on the evening of Oct. 8, and a Bering Sea fisheries ecosystem plan public hearing on the evening of Oct. 9.

All meetings are open to the public, with the exception of executive sessions of the council.  Council staff said that other committee and work group meetings may be scheduled on short notice during the week.

Salmon Harvest for Alaska Tops 146 Million Fish

Commercial wild salmon harvests in Alaska have reached 146,204,000 fish, with harvesters having delivered to processors 89,583,000 humpies, 42,915,000 sockeyes, 9,267,000 chums, 3,963,000 cohos, and 477,000 Chinooks.

That was the latest preliminary salmon harvest estimate provided today by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.  Daily preliminary harvest updates are posted online during the salmon harvesting season.

Data compiled by ADF&G biologists showed an overall final harvest for 2013 of 272,630,000 salmon, including a record 219,160,000 pink, 29,257,000 sockeye, 18,578,000 chum, 5,353,000 silver, and 281,000 kings.

For Prince William Sound alone, processors have received 47,615,000 salmon, a catch including 42,878,000 pink, 3,310,000 reds, 1,162,000 chum, 255,000 cohos and 10,000 Chinooks.

In Bristol Bay the harvest stood at 30,856,000 fish, including 28,810,000 sockeyes, plus 1,303,000 pink, 447,000 chum, 284,000 silver and 13,000 kings.

In Southeast Alaska harvesters have caught 41,931,000 fish, delivering to processors 32,845,000 humpies, 5,061,000 chum, 2,097,000 coho, 1,505,000 sockeye and some 423,000 Chinooks.

Along the Alaska Peninsula, the catch to date was reported at nearly 5 million salmon, including 3,285,000 red, 737,000 humpies, 619,000 chum, 349,000 coho and 8,000 kings. Kodiak, the state’s second largest fishing port by volume, reported 13,697,000 salmon netted, including 10,237,000 pink, 2,797,000 sockeye, 331,000 chum, 307,000 silver and 8,000 kings.

In Western Alaska’s Arctic-Yukon-Kuskokwim region, harvesters from Kotzebue,  the Kuskokwim, Norton Sound and the Yukon River have to date achieved a catch of 2,140,000 fish, mostly chum, but also pink, red, silver and king salmon.

In Cook Inlet fisheries, harvesters have netted 3,692,000 salmon, mostly sockeyes and humpies. In the Aleutian Islands permit holders brought in 1,135,000 pink salmon, and at Chignik, 1,158,000 salmon, including 617,000 sockeye, 345,000 pink, 132,000 coho, 56,000 chum and 8,000 kings.

Distrust

By Chris Philips
Managing Editor

Trust in government is at an all time low in the US, thanks in large part to local and state governments which, although closest to and most directly responsible to the people they serve, continue to make bad law and bad policy, and in some cases ignore the law altogether.

In 1994 the Washington State legislature enacted the Regulatory Fairness Act to protect small business from onerous and harmful regulation. The act states, in part, “…administrative rules adopted by state agencies can have a disproportionate impact on the state’s small businesses because of the size of those businesses. This disproportionate impact reduces competition, innovation, employment, and new employment opportunities, and threatens the very existence of some small businesses.”

Early last year, in spite of the Regulatory Fairness Act, the Washington State Fish and Wildlife Commission unanimously adopted a policy to close the lower Columbia River to commercial, non-tribal gillnets, even though the commission was at the time made up of several members whose terms had expired, and without the commercial fishing representation required by law. Eighteen months later, the commission still has a vacancy, and small businessmen have been forced to petition the State of Washington to invalidate the regulation. Meanwhile the mark-selective commercial seine fishery, proposed for the Columbia on an experimental basis, has experienced high mortality rates, as the area’s gillnetters, both tribal and non-tribal, had predicted. Trust in government remains in short supply among small business owners fishing the Columbia.

In Alaska the Pebble Mine controversy continues, with opponents claiming the breach of a tailings pond at the massive proposed mine would threaten the health of Bristol Bay, while sportfishing special interest groups, taking a cue from their counterparts in Washington and Oregon, are trying to close Cook Inlet to commercial gillnetters. Meanwhile, the breach of a tailings pond dam in British Columbia released an estimated 14.5 million cubic meters of mine wastes into the Fraser River watershed, giving the West Coast a preview, on a much smaller scale, of what a similar breach would mean to Alaska’s salmon industry.

And yet, Alaska Governor Sean Parnell has appointed Ben Mohr, a former publicist for the Pebble Limited Partnership, to serve as his new fisheries advisor – a position previously held by respected fisheries experts including Cora Campbell, current Commissioner of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. While no commercial fishing groups seem to have been consulted prior to the appointment, Ricky Gease, executive director of the Kenai River Sportfishing Association, has been quoted as believing Mohr will “…follow in the footsteps of good fisheries advisers to the governor’s office.”

Which footsteps Mr. Mohr will choose to follow remain to be seen, but we hope he wipes the mine tailings off his shoes before he starts wandering around the pristine waters of Alaska