March 3, 2023 — Local leaders and state legislators this week joined the growing opposition to a lawsuit that could halt Southeast Alaska’s commercial troll fisheries due to what a conservation group in Washington state calls inadequate federal management of the fisheries’ impacts on salmon runs in that state and endangered killer whales that depend on them as a food source.
Opposition in Alaska has increased significantly since a magistrate in Washington issued a favorable preliminary ruling in December to Wild Fish Conservancy in the lawsuit it filed in 2019, which seeks the shutdown Southeast Alaska Chinook (king) salmon troll fisheries until their impact on the Southern Resident Killer Whales is assessed. The proposed order would essentially shut down Southeast Alaska fisheries for 10 months of the year, making them economically nonviable for many trollers, and a final ruling is pending.
Resolutions supporting the Southeast fisheries were approved by the Juneau Assembly on Monday and the Alaska State House on Wednesday, adding to numerous such resolutions already passed by other affected communities such as Ketchikan, Sitka and Petersburg. The House resolution was introduced by Rep. Rebecca Himschoot, a Sitka independent, who said the lawsuit threatens “a catastrophic stoppage, an unnecessary stoppage.”
“These are incredibly important fisheries to our regions, and I think that’s evidenced by the folks who have pulled together and supported the trollers,” she said. “They initially took on this lawsuit themselves, which is not easy to do when each of those vessels is a small business.”
Himschoot said the lawsuit affects about 1,500 people working in the fisheries and about $85 million in economic activity.
The resolution — asking the National Marine Fisheries Service, Alaska Department of Fish and Game and the state’s congressional delegation to take measures to keep the fisheries operating — passed 35-1 with both of Juneau’s House members voting in favor. The no vote was cast by Rep. David Eastman, a Wasilla Republican who regularly dissents on otherwise consensus measures and argued it’s improper for the Legislature to take such an action on pending litigation.