June 8, 2017 — There are more signs that the hook has been set for Alaska’s biggest fisheries fight in a decade.
As members of the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council and the International Pacific Halibut Commission gather in Juneau this week, salmon-supporting groups have been holding meetings about a double-barreled proposal to significantly strengthen legal protections for rivers that contain salmon.
That proposal has major implications for the state’s construction and mining industries.
Speaking Wednesday in downtown Juneau, Emily Anderson of the Wild Salmon Center said the proposal — now in the Legislature and simultaneously being considered for a 2018 ballot measure — is intended to fix a law created at statehood.
“It’s a very old law. It’s actually a holdover from the territorial government. It was changed just a little bit, but it’s very, very simple,” she said.
The law is Alaska Statute 16.05.871, which says in clause (d) that the commissioner of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game should approve a project that disrupts a salmon stream “unless the commissioner finds the plans and specifications insufficient for the proper protection of fish and game.”
“The only standard there is the proper protection of fish and game. So what does that mean?” Anderson asked. “There’s nothing in statute, there’s nothing in regulation that actually defines what the proper protection of fish and game is. That’s a problem.”