Saving Seafood

Alaska governor’s budget proposal would trim some fishery programs

February 3, 2020 — Cuts proposed by Alaska governor Mike Dunleavy to his state’s Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) next fiscal budget could be felt in a number of commercial fisheries, reports Alaska Fish Radio‘s Laine Welch.

Dunleavy, a Republican elected in 2018, has proposed nipping $1 million next year from the agency’s nearly $67m budget, of which $36m comes from state general funds, according to Welch.

That would mean the closure of an office in Southeast Alaska and the elimination of red king crab assessments. Cuts also are on deck for stock assessments for Southeast urchin and sea cucumber fisheries, which will likely reduce dive time, Welch reported.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Controversial mining company coached Alaska’s governor to lobby White House

December 23, 2019 — A mining company secretly collaborated with the governor of Alaska to lobby the Trump administration to move forward with a mining project that Environmental Protection Agency scientists warned could devastate the world’s most valuable wild salmon habitat, according to newly released emails obtained by CNN.

Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s office was given detailed talking points, ghostwritten letters and advice on lobbying strategies by Pebble Limited Partnership executives, emails show. Dunleavy and his office then used that material, sometimes adopting the company’s language word for word, in an effort that culminated in President Donald Trump promising favorable action on the mine, according to emails.

One striking example of the governor using Pebble’s language is an official letter Dunleavy sent to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in April about the length of a public comment period on the mine’s draft environment impact statement.

Read the full story at CNN

Alaska lawmakers, Native group join dispute over Pebble mine

September 11, 2019 — Alaska lawmakers and a Native corporation have joined the dispute over a Canadian company’s potential investment in a large copper and gold mining project.

Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy wrote a July letter supporting investment in the Pebble Mine by Wheaton Precious Metals Corp. of Vancouver, Canada, The Anchorage Daily News reported Monday.

Dunleavy’s letter came after groups opposed to Pebble wrote to Wheaton President Randy Smallwood discouraging its involvement.

Pebble opponents argue the project threatens the Bristol Bay salmon fishery in southwest Alaska. Potential developer Pebble Limited Partnership maintains it can operate the mine safely without threatening the fishery.

Read the full story at the Associated Press

ALASKA: Gov. Dunleavy encourages Canadian company weighing investment in Pebble mine

August 29, 2019 — Gov. Mike Dunleavy told the head of a Canadian mineral company that he would support his decision to invest in the Pebble copper and gold project, after the company received a letter from anti-Pebble groups arguing against the investment, according to a letter from the governor.

Dunleavy, who has taken a neutral stance on the project, told Randy Smallwood, president of Wheaton Precious Metals Corp., that the state will stand by the company’s possible investment in Pebble, according to the July 30 letter from the governor obtained through a public records request.

“I understand your potential investment would be structured to financially support Pebble’s completion of the permitting process,” Dunleavy said in the letter. “Every permittee deserves that opportunity, and it is my mission to assure that any project attempting to stake claim in Alaska is afforded this basic right.”

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

Commercial Fishermen, Indigenous People Unite to Fight Mine in Alaska

August 15, 2019 — In the sleepy and remote village of Dillingham in southwestern Alaska, there has historically been tension between the indigenous populations, who take a subsistence approach to catching salmon, and commercial fishermen, who take in half a billion annually by trawling one of the world’s most productive fisheries at Bristol Bay.

Both groups, however, are united against a potential mining project that they believe would devastate their way of life.

The Pebble Mine is a large deposit of gold, copper and molybdenum located at the headwaters of Bristol Bay. The deposit was first discovered in the 1980s and multinational corporations began seriously pursuing its development in the 2000s.

Read the full story at the Courthouse News Service

CNN: EPA reversal on Pebble Mine came after Trump met with Dunleavy

August 12, 2019 — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency changed its position on the Pebble Mine project after Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy met with President Donald Trump, according to a CNN report.

Although the EPA’s decision not to oppose the mining project was made public on 30 July, staff scientists at the agency learned of the decision a month before, soon after the meeting. Dunleavy met with Trump while Air Force One was in Alaska on 26 June on the way to the G20 summit in Japan.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Looking at budget cuts’ impact on Alaska fisheries

July 17, 2019 — Just under $1 million was cut from the commercial fisheries division of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game under Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s budget vetoes, leaving it with an $85 million budget, half from state general funds.

“To give the governor credit, he recognized the return on investment,” said Doug Vincent-Lang, Fish and Game commissioner. “It’s a theme I had all the way through the Legislature that we take a $200 million budget of which about $50 million is unrestricted general funds and we turn that into an $11 billion return to our state. And I think he got that.”

Vincent-Lang added that Dunleavy also did not veto the travel budget for the Board of Fisheries and its advisory committees.

It’s indefinite still how the budget cuts will play out, and Vincent-Lang said he is trying to avoid staff cuts to the 700 commercial fisheries positions.

“I suspect we may have some but we will try to do that through vacancies and a variety of other things as we have retirements,” he said.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

Alaska ports hope to keep fish tax: ‘We can’t get answers’ says Stutes

July 11, 2019 — One fisheries item that appears to have escaped Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s veto pen so far is his desire to divert local fish taxes from coastal communities into state coffers.

Dunleavy’s initial budget in February aimed to repeal the sharing of fisheries business and landing taxes that towns and boroughs split 50/50 with the state. Instead, all of the tax revenues would go to the state’s general fund – a loss of $28 million in FY 2020 to fishing communities.

“There is a recognition that these are viewed as shared resources, and they should be shared by Alaskans,” press secretary Matt Shuckerow said at the time. “So that’s kind of what this proposal does. It takes shared resources and shares them with all Alaskans, not just some select communities.”

The tax split remains in place, and the dollars are still destined for fishing towns, said Rep. Louise Stutes (R-Kodiak), who also represents Cordova, Yakutat and several smaller towns.

“It’s general fund revenue and that has been appropriated to the appropriate communities,” Stutes said in a phone interview. “What we can tell right now is it slipped by unscathed because it appears he did not veto that revenue to the communities that generate the dollars. So, it looks like we’re good to go there.”

What’s not so good is the nearly $1 million cut to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s commercial fisheries budget.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Alaska ports hope to keep fish tax: ‘We can’t get answers’ says Stutes

July 10, 2019 — One fisheries item that appears to have escaped Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s veto pen so far is his desire to divert local fish taxes from coastal communities into state coffers.

Dunleavy’s initial budget in February aimed to repeal the sharing of fisheries business and landing taxes that towns and boroughs split 50/50 with the state. Instead, all of the tax revenues would go to the state’s general fund – a loss of $28 million in FY 2020 to fishing communities.

“There is a recognition that these are viewed as shared resources, and they should be shared by Alaskans,” press secretary Matt Shuckerow said at the time. “So that’s kind of what this proposal does. It takes shared resources and shares them with all Alaskans, not just some select communities.”

The tax split remains in place, and the dollars are still destined for fishing towns, said Rep. Louise Stutes (R-Kodiak), who also represents Cordova, Yakutat and several smaller towns.

“It’s general fund revenue and that has been appropriated to the appropriate communities,” Stutes said in a phone interview. “What we can tell right now is it slipped by unscathed because it appears he did not veto that revenue to the communities that generate the dollars. So, it looks like we’re good to go there.”

What’s not so good is the nearly $1 million cut to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s commercial fisheries budget.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Alaska gives federal agency long Pebble Mine to-do list

July 9, 2019 — If you thought the administration of newly elected Alaska governor Mike Dunleavy would use the US Army Corps of Engineers’ (USACE) invitation for comments on its draft environmental impact statement for the proposed Pebble Mine to offer up an unconditional love letter on behalf of the massive copper, gold and molybdenum open pit mine in Bristol Bay, think again.

The state’s Office of Project Management and Permitting (OPMP) instead coordinated with seven state agencies, including the Department of Natural Resources, to submit a tedious 96-page to-do list for the federal agency to satisfy. OPMP’s cover letter offers no opinions about whether the project, which commercial harvesters and others fear will imperil the world’s largest sockeye salmon population, is a positive or negative development.

The letter requests details, for example, about pipeline trenching plans and soil erosion, as well as the contents of drilling muds, the likelihood of turbidity in streams and the potential impact on the lodging industry. It asks for the possible effects on fish from a concentrated spill of metal-laden sediment.

“Although much of the information the state has provided the USACE previously has been incorporated into the DEIS, further work is necessary to ensure potential effects to the human environment from each alternative are adequately evaluated and described in the [final environmental impact statement],” the letter, signed by Kyle Moselle, OPMP’s associate director, wrote.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News