Organizations Push to Boost Grants for Fishing Safety

Instructors with the Alaska Marine Safety Education Association (AMSEA) will provide fishing vessel drill conductor classes from Unalaska to Maine through April 2020, thanks in part to a two-year federal grant totaling $650,000.

The grant, which was awarded on Sept. 1, 2019, requires AMSEA, based in Sitka, Alaska, to come up with equal matching funds. According to Jerry Dzugan, executive director of AMSEA, it took nearly eight years for the money to be awarded.

The federal legislation approved by Congress back in 2010 for the marine safety training and research grants called for a 75 percent federal contribution and 25 percent local matching funds, but in 2018 that federal share was reduced to 50 percent.

Now Reps., Don Young, R-Alaska, and Jared Golden, D-Maine., have introduced the Funding Instruction for Safety Health and Security Avoids Fishing Emergencies (FISHSAFE) Act, to raise the federal grant portion back to the original 75 percent.

“Fishing is one of Alaska’s most important industries, and we need to be doing all that we can to ensure our fishermen remain safe on the job,” Young said, in an Oct. 18 statement announcing the introduction of the new legislation.

“This bill would make fishing safety programs available to as many fishermen as possible to prevent unnecessary injuries and deaths,” Golden added.

The current funds were included in the budget for the U.S. Coast Guard, which partnered with the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health to award the grants. AMSEA is one of four organizations receiving funding.

The bipartisan legislation sponsored by Young and Golden would also reauthorize the safety training and research programs for $6 million a year for 2019-2021.

Companion legislation introduced in the U.S. Senate by Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass., is co-sponsored by Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, Margaret Hassan, D-N.H., Angus King, I-Maine, Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, John Reed, D-R.I., Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.

Dzugan thinks the chances of the bill passing are good. “It's bipartisan for the most part, and moderates are looking to anything they can reach across the aisle on. I'm optimistic by nature, which is needed for this kind of work.”

“The 2010 legislation stated that "the federal share of the cost of any activity carried out with a grant from this subsection shall not exceed 75 percent",” Dzugan said. “Thus, there was an assumption that the co-share (as it is called) by a private entity would be 25 percent. Apparently when Congress for the first time finally appropriated the authorized funding in 2018, the Senate side raised the co-share to 50 percent of the grant. It is also confusing, because while they call it a $650,000 grant, it is over the course of two year (thus $325K/year) and 50 percent of the amount has to come from other non-federal sources. But it’s still called a $650K ‘grant’.”

SE Alaska Salmon Harvesters Support Roadless Rule

Seine, troll and gillnet harvesters in Southeast Alaska are appealing to federal authorities to keep the Roadless Rule intact for Tongass National Forest to protect spawning grounds for salmon and the livelihoods of hundreds of area residents.

“We need to manage Southeast Alaska for fish habitat, not logging,” says commercial harvester Jeff Farvour, vice president of the board of the Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association.

Farvour noted that there have been record low returns of pink and coho salmon in Southeast Alaska these past few years and back to back droughts too, plus back to back blobs in the Pacific Ocean, which have not been kind to salmon. “Why would anybody support this (exemption to the roadless rule for the Tongass) knowing it’s going to add more challenges?” he asked.

Farvour is one of more than 200 commercial harvesters in Southeast Alaska who signed a letter addressed to US Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue and Chief of the US Forest Service, Vicki Christiansen, urging continued support for the Alaska Roadless Rule in the Tongass.

The letter was sent out originally to Perdue and Christiansen to express the fishermen’s concerns over an exemption. In early October copies were hand delivered to Alaska’s congressional delegation, who along with Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy favor that exemption.

They contend that the roadless rule hinders responsible timber harvest, mineral development and energy projects to lower costs, and that the exemption would benefit the economy of Southeast Alaska Opponents said removing of Roadless Rule protections in the Tongass threaten salmon habitat, food security, tourism and some of the wildest places remaining on earth.

“Please protect our livelihoods and Alaska’s salmon spawning grounds by selecting an alternative that broadly protects fish habitat, continues the phase-out of industrial scale old growth clear-cutting, and prioritizes the restoration of degraded watersheds and streams,” the letter from the fishermen read. “Commercial fishing is the economic backbone of Southeast Alaska. There are troll permit holders living in every single community in Southeast Alaska. Eighty percent of all the Southeast salmon permit holders – trollers, seiners, and gillnetters – are Alaskan residents.

“Our livelihoods rely on the health of the salmon, and salmon are reliant upon the health of the Tongass National Forest; these streams and rivers produce 80 percent of the commercial salmon harvested from Southeast Alaska each year,” they wrote.

A fact sheet compiled by the US Forest Service notes that Tongass fisheries biologists have recorded 14,873 miles of anadromous rivers and streams and 123,173 acres of lakes and ponds that support and produce wild salmon in the forest. Salmon-derived nitrogen has been found in trees more than 500 yards away from salmon streams, particularly in areas where bears feed on salmon,” the document notes, and “more than 50 species of animals feed on salmon when they return to spawn in freshwater.”

Snow Crab Quota Up, Red King Crab Quota Slides

Bering Sea snow crab are continuing to rebound from three years ago, prompting the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) to announce a 34,019,000-pound quota for the 2019-2020 fishery, up from 27,581,000 pounds in 2018 and 18,961,000 pounds in 2017.

Holders of individual fishing quota (IFQ) permits are allocated 30,617,100 pounds, with another 3,410,900 pounds allocated for community development quota (CDQ).

The fishery opened in Bering Sea district waters west of 165 degrees west longitude at noon on Oct. 15 and will remain open through May 15, 2020 in the Eastern Subdistrict, east of 173 degrees west longitude, and through May 31, 2020 in the Western Subdistrict, west of 173 degrees west longitude.

Due to closure of the 2019-2020 Eastern and Western Bering Sea Tanner crab fisheries, east and west of 166 degrees west longitude, retention of Tanner crab during the Bering Sea snow drab fishery is prohibited.

The quota for Bristol Bay red king crab, also opening on Oct. 15, was reduced to 3,797,000 pounds, down from 4,330,000 pounds for the 2018-2019 season, based on trawl survey studies, ADF&G said.

Harvesters with individual fishing quota will share in 3,417,300 pounds, a reduction from 3.9 million pounds a year ago. Holders of CDQ permits are allocated a total of 379,700 pounds of the red king crab, down from 430,800 pounds last year.

The Bering Sea Tanner crab fisheries east and west of 166 degrees west longitude were closed for the 2019-2020 season due to estimated mature male biomass in those Bering Sea waters being below thresholds required for the fishery to open. Last year the western district for Tanner crab opened with a total allowable catch of 2,439,000 pounds, down slightly from 2,500,200 pounds a year earlier. The eastern district was closed, as it was in 2017.

Pribilof district red and blue king crab remained closed due to failure to meet federal minimum harvest strategy thresholds required for the fishery to open. ADF&G crab biologists said that the stocks had been declared over fished. The total mature biomass also fell below minimum harvest strategy thresholds required for a fishery.

Pacific Cod Following their Core Habitat North

A new federal research, led by Ingrid Spies, a biologist at NOAA’s Alaska Fisheries Science Center, reports that there are strong indications that Pacific cod are moving north in the Bering Sea because of changing ocean temperatures, “Specifically, the effect of climate warming on the Bering Sea cold pool,” she said.

That cold pool is a body of water below 2 degrees celsius (35.6 degrees fahrenheit) left on the eastern Bering Sea bottom after sea ice retreats. It has a strong influence on distribution of walleye Pollock and most flatfish, and Pacific cod avoid it.

As ocean temperatures have warmed and sea ice diminished, the cold pool has shrunk and last year, for the first time in recorded history, the pool was gone.

“Until 2017, cod would usually avoid the cold pool – they’d bump into it and go no farther north,” Spies said. “Then in 2018, the cold pool was gone. There was nothing stopping fish from going north.”

That prompted more questions about where those cod were headed.

Biologists don’t know if the fish whole life cycle has shifted northward or whether they will return to their typical southeastern Bering Sea spawning areas for the winter and then undertake long feeding migrations north during the summer. “This emphasizes the need for continued northern and southeastern Bering Sea surveys and for tagging studies,” Spies said. “This is probably not the only species we will see changing. We really need to monitor the northern Bering Sea with surveys every single year until things stabilize,” she added.

The report indicates that until recently Pacific cod were rarely encountered in the northern Bering Sea. In the 1970s, fishery surveys reported “trace amounts” of cod. A 2010 survey, by the Alaska Fisheries Science Center, estimated that the entire northern population of Pacific cod amounted to approximately 3 percent of the large southeastern Bering Sea stock supporting the commercial fishery.

The 2017 summer survey however, recorded dramatically higher abundances in the north, a 900-fold increase since 2010. At the same time, southeastern Bering Sea abundances were down by 37 percent from 2016. Researchers noted that the increase in the north nearly matched the decrease in the southeastern Bering Sea. In 2018, survey results revealed more cod in the northern than southeastern Bering Sea.

Because cod show natal homing and spawning fidelity, they return to where they were spawned to spawn, the spawning population is considered representative of a population.

Spies’ team compared genetic markers of the northern cod with spawning fish from the three other stocks.

“We found that the northern fish were indistinguishable from the southeastern Bering Sea population,” she said. “That meant the fish were moving north from their historical southeastern Bering Sea habitat.”

Proposed Roadless Rule Exemption Puts Salmon Habitat in Jeopardy

The US Forest Service has released its draft Roadless Rule for Tongass National Forest in Southeast Alaska, with a preferred alternative calling for repeal of the rule for the Tongass.

Proponents of the exemption, including Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy and the state’s congressional delegation, praised the announcement, saying the roadless rule hinders responsible timber harvest, mineral development and energy projects to lower costs, and that the exemption would benefit the economy of Southeast Alaska.

Opponents said removing of Roadless Rule protections in the Tongass threaten salmon habitat, food security, tourism and some of the wildest places remaining on earth.

SalmonState Executive Director Tim Bristol said that for the last 18 years the roadless rule has protected the Tongass from logging roads and clear cuts that for decades were allowed to degrade, and in some cases destroy, some of the finest salmon and wildlife habitat anywhere in the world. The push to remove protections for the Tongass habitat comes in the wake of pressure from the timber industry, the state’s congressional delegation and governor in spite of public testimony against the move in Southeast Alaska.

Meredith Trainor, executive director of the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council, concurred. The Roadless Rule is great for the fishing industry. Intact forest helps protect salmon streams. "The shade is important," she said. "Leaving logs in the streams give salmon protection in their natal streams.”

Forest Service officials are in the process of scheduling public meetings and subsistence hearings, which will be made available on the Alaska Roadless Rule project website, https://www.fs.usda.gov/roadmain/roadless/alaskaroadlessrule.

Written comments may be submitted, until Dec. 17, on the Forest Service web at www.fs.usda.gov/project/?project=54511 or sent via email at akroadlessrule@fs.fed.us. Comments can also be mailed to USDA Forest Service, attn.: Alaska Roadless Rule, P.O. Box 21628, Juneau, Alaska, 99802, or fax to 907-586-7852. They can also be delivered in person at the Forest Service’s offices located at 709 W. 9th Street, Room 535B, Juneau, Alaska 99801.

AFDF is New Client for Salmon Certification

Pacific Seafood Processors Association has transferred the clientship and Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certificate for Alaska salmon to the Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation (AFDF).

The transfer concluded a deliberate and cooperative transfer process, according to the Oct. 12 statement from AFDF in Wrangell, Alaska.

On April 23, the Alaska salmon fishery successfully completed the full five-year recertification, and the current certificate is valid through Nov. 11, 2023. The organization initially received its sustainability certification from MSC in 2000.

AFDF is also the client for MSC certification of Pacific cod and the client for the Responsible Fisheries Management certification of Pacific cod and Alaska salmon. Housing both MSC and RFM Alaska salmon certificates and client groups under AFDF will lead to efficiencies for industry to coordinate and share resources, ideas and work products, AFDF officials said.

To sell Alaska salmon as MSC certified, primary processors are required to be members of the MSC Alaska Salmon Client Group and pay an equitable share of the cost of certification in proportion with the pounds of salmon purchased.

There are currently 37 AFDF members in good standing allowed to use the MSC certification for Alaska salmon, including Copper River Seafoods, Icicle Seafoods, Kwik’Pak Fisheries, LLC, Leader Creek Fisheries, North Pacific Seafoods, Ocean Beauty Seafoods, Peter Pan Seafoods, Silver Bay Seafoods LLC, and Trident Seafoods. The complete list is available online at https://www.afdf.org/wp-content/uploads/MSC-Alaska-Salmon-Client-Group-LIst-2019-10-2-FINAL.pdf

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Bristol Bay Fishermen Sue EPA

Five Bristol Bay entities speaking for fishermen, economic and tribal concerns sued the US Environmental Protection Agency on Oct. 8 in Anchorage, Alaska, challenging a Trump administration effort to remove Clean Water Act protections for the salmon rich watershed.

The complaint filed in US District Court alleges that “the proposed Pebble mine would destroy thousands of acres of critical habitat and miles of salmon streams that are essential to Bristol Bay’s commercial, recreational and subsistence salmon fisheries."

The Bristol Bay entities, speaking collectively as the Bristol Bay Defense Alliance, includes the Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association, Bristol Bay Economic Development Association, Bristol Bay Native Association, United Tribes of Bristol Bay and the Bristol Bay Reserve Association.

“My homeland will fight them tooth and nail and that’s why we are here today,” said veteran Bristol Bay harvester Robin Samuelsen, of Dillingham, Alaska, whose grandfather started the first cannery in Bristol Bay 150 years ago. “This mine threatens to wipe out our culture,” said Samuelsen, who contends that top leadership at the EPA has been making decisions behind closed doors to reverse its own determination in July 2014 regarding Section 404 (c) of the Clean Water Act.

Samuelsen also noted that the EPA had previously been critical of the proposed mine on the edge of the watershed that is home to the world’s largest run of sockeye salmon. The fishery is of great economic, cultural and ecological importance to residents of that area of Southwest Alaska, and many others engaged in commercial, sport and subsistence fishing.

In 2019 Bristol Bay produced a harvest of over 44 million salmon. The fishery generates annual revenues of about $1.5 billion and supports 14,000 jobs.

“Bristol Bay is the crown jewel of Alaska’s salmon industry,” said Andy Wink, executive director of the Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association. “There is simply no precedent for open pit mining coexisting with sockeye salmon on the scale proposed by the Pebble mine in Bristol Bay.”

“The EPA’s proposed determination to enact 404 (c) Clean Water Act protections is an important tool for safeguarding the world’s most productive salmon habitat, and we cannot allow it to be cast aside without due process,” Wink added.

“Because of our careful stewardship, Bristol Bay is home to the last fully intact wild salmon fisheries and cultures in the world,” said Ralph Andersen, president and CEO of Bristol Bay Native Association.

Last July, the EPA withdrew proposed Obama administration restrictions on mining in the Bristol Bay region, contending that those proposed restrictions were based on hypothetical scenarios and were outdated now that the Pebble Limited Partnership, a subsidiary of the Canadian global mining group Hunter Dickinson Inc., had submitted project plans.

The lawsuit contends that EPA’s withdrawal decision is not supported by the record and that EPA failed to acknowledge and explain its reversal. The lawsuit further claims that EPA improperly relied on factors, which Congress has not intended it to consider, and failed to consider relevant key factors in making its decision.