Saving Seafood

ALASKA: Borough to ask feds for fishery disaster declaration

January 21, 2021 — The Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly voted Tuesday to ask the U.S. Secretary of Commerce to declare a sockeye salmon fisheries failure and economic disaster in the Upper Subdistrict of the Central District of Cook Inlet in response to a year that saw fewer and smaller fish, as well as lower-priced fish.

According to a memo to the assembly from Kenai Peninsula Borough Mayor Charlie Pierce, the borough has not received a response from the state regarding a request from the assembly last month for Gov. Mike Dunleavy to declare an economic disaster in the Upper Cook Inlet fisheries region.

The same memo says that a provision in the Magnuson-Stevens Act authorizes the U.S. Secretary of Commerce to determine whether or not there is a commercial fishery failure “due to a fishery resource disaster as a result of natural causes” or “man-made causes beyond the control of fishery managers to mitigate,” among others.

Read the full story at The Peninsula Clarion

Pebble petition: Alaska governor appeals on mine’s behalf

January 15, 2021 — On 8 January, Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy announced the state would take action to appeal the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ decision to deny a permit application for the Pebble Mine.

The Pebble Limited Partnership submitted its plan for a mine in Alaska’s Bristol Bay region almost two years ago. The 1,500-page document was immediately and widely panned by scientists, fishery managers, fishermen, and many representatives of Bristol Bay’s Native tribes.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Pebble petition: Alaska gov appeals on mine’s behalf

January 13, 2021 — On Jan. 8, Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy announced the state would take action to appeal the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ decision to deny a permit application for the Pebble Mine.

The Pebble Limited Partnership submitted its plan for a mine in Alaska’s Bristol Bay region almost two years ago. The 1,500-page document was immediately and widely panned by scientists, fishery managers, fishermen and many representatives of Bristol Bay’s Native tribes.

“Bristol Bay residents and Alaskans have been clear that we will not trade one of the world’s last robust salmon fisheries for a gold mine, and the Army Corps decision affirmed that this toxic project is too risky for our home and does not serve the public interest,” said United Tribes of Bristol Bay Deputy Director Lindsay Layland, who participated in our Expo Online Pebble Mine panel in November.

Alaskans living and working in the region have fought the mine’s development for more than a decade, primarily because of the risks it would pose to the wild salmon habitat. The benefits to the region, they have said, would be short term, since the mineral rights are owned by Pebble’s parent company, Northern Dynasty Minerals, a Canadian company.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Alaska governor plans appeal of mine project denial

January 11, 2021 — Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy said the state will appeal the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ rejection of a key permit for a proposed copper and gold mine in a region that supports the world’s largest sockeye salmon runs.

Dunleavy, in a statement Friday, called the corps’ decision flawed and said the state has to keep a federal agency “from using the regulatory process to effectively prevent the State from fulfilling a constitutional mandate to develop its natural resources.”

The corps in November determined the project was “contrary to the public interest,” a finding lauded as the right one by Alaska’s U.S. senators, who, like Dunleavy, are Republicans. The corps’ decision stood out following their release of an environmental review last summer that the developer of the Pebble Mine saw as positive and as laying the groundwork for key federal approvals.

Canada-based Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd., which owns the Pebble Limited Partnership, the company working to advance the project, also has said it will pursue an appeal.

Alannah Hurley, executive director of United Tribes of Bristol Bay, said it’s “pretty enraging” that Dunleavy “is proving that he will go above and beyond for this project.”

“It just shows how out of touch he is with Alaskans,” she said.

Read the full story at the Associated Press

Alaska’s commercial fishery managers appear to be spared big budget cuts next year

December 29, 2020 — As Alaska faces its toughest budget squeeze ever, the state’s commercial fisheries are set to get a bit of a breather. But it is due more to fund swapping than lawmakers’ largess.

For the commercial fisheries division, the largest within the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, the preliminary FY2022 budget released by Gov. Mike Dunleavy reflects a slight increase to $72.8 million, compared to nearly $68 million last year.

“I think we did really well this year,” said Sam Rabung, commercial fisheries division director, speaking last week at a United Fishermen of Alaska webinar. “Where we’re at right now, the legislature actually restored many of the cuts that we sustained in FY20 and the governor didn’t veto all of them so we got some funds back in FY21,”

“In a nutshell, we are being reduced $783,500 in general funds but to offset that, we are being granted $855,000 in increased authority for using what we call GFP, our general fund program receipts from commercial crew licenses,” he added. “We’ve been collecting more revenue from crew licenses every year than we have authority to use. It’s kind of like creating a piggy bank and it keeps building and that money rolls forward. We’re going to be able to utilize those funds now in lieu of general funds. So it’s pretty much a wash.”

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

CATHERINE CASSIDY: Is Alaska open for business? Not from where I stand.

December 18, 2020 — A freak storm descended on Cook Inlet this month. The fallout threatens my family business and hundreds of thousands of dollars in capital investment. Over a thousand other similar businesses around Cook Inlet face the same peril. The disaster? Earlier this month, Gov. Mike Dunleavy made the bizarre decision to effectively shut down the commercial salmon fishing industry here.

At the very end of a four-year process intended to bring the Cook Inlet salmon fishery into compliance with the Magnuson-Stevens Act, the state announced that it would refuse to cooperate with the program and basically forced the closure of federal waters in Cook Inlet to commercial fishing.

Before you conclude that this action was some kind of noble defiance to federal overreach, you should know that the state of Alaska already has multiple collaborative agreements with the federal government on managing numerous other fisheries in Alaska, including crab, cod, rockfish and salmon.

Read the full opinion piece at the Anchorage Daily News

ALASKA: Worry for commercial fishermen and Peninsula communities after Cook Inlet fishery closure

December 9, 2020 — Federal managers voted Monday to close a huge swath of Upper Cook Inlet to commercial salmon fishing, capping a two-year fight over the fate of the fishery and its 500 permit-holders.

Fishermen and representatives from the Kenai Peninsula turned out in droves to the North Pacific Fishery Management Council meeting to oppose the closure and advocate for lighter conservation measures.

But when representatives from Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s administration said the state was unwilling to manage the area’s fisheries alongside the federal government, the council voted unanimously for the closure.

The 10-0 vote shuts down drift gillnet fishing in waters farther than three miles offshore, from the southern tip of Kalgin Island to Anchor Point. Fishermen like Georgie Heaverly of Anchorage said the area is a crucial fishing ground, and the closure will reverberate across industries.

“Fishermen have been leaving the fishery already for the last several years,” she said. “It’s hardly economically viable, and this really is the nail in the coffin.”

Read the full story at Alaska Public Media

Commercial fishermen outraged by state of Alaska’s proposal to close much of Cook Inlet

December 7, 2020 — A Dunleavy administration proposal to shut down a large chunk of Cook Inlet to commercial salmon fishing has drawn a tidal wave of opposition from Alaska fishermen.

The state’s proposal, alongside two other viable options, is under consideration by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, as the federal government prepares to assume oversight of the salmon fishery in federal waters.

The state has managed salmon fishing in those waters — west of Homer and Ninilchik off the southern Kenai Peninsula — for decades.

But two Cook Inlet groups representing commercial fishermen filed a lawsuit in 2013 challenging the state’s management. A federal appeals court sided with the groups in 2016. It ordered the council, which oversees fishing in most federal waters off Alaska, to include the inlet’s federal waters in its fishery management plan.

The council is expected to decide the issue on Monday, after taking public testimony at a virtual meeting. The court has given the council until Dec. 31.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

Southeast Alaska organization asks the governor to declare a region-wide economic disaster

December 2, 2020 — An organization representing Southeast Alaska communities is asking that the governor declare a region-wide economic disaster due to the loss of the 2020 cruise ship season and “the collapse” of the salmon fishing season.

Southeast Conference sent a letter to Gov. Mike Dunlevy on Nov. 17, describing an economic disaster of “unprecedented proportions.”

“A disaster declaration will start the process to allow the hardworking Southeast Alaskans to get federal disaster aid. This help is vital to our regional communities and economy,” said Markus Scheer, the president of Southeast Conference.

It is not uncommon for a community or region to request for the governor to declare a disaster after a bad fishing season to access federal aid. It is also not uncommon for the governor to declare a disaster after a specific event like a wildfire, earthquake or winter storm.

Read the full story at Alaska’s News Source

ALASKA: Reply All: Bristol Bay associations sign new letter to Dunleavy

October 30, 2020 — We’ll be setting our clocks back this weekend, but a passionate letter-writing exchange in Alaska is making this feel like a moment from the distant past. Unlike your average political correspondence, the parties involved in this exchange are laying pretty plain how they really feel.

This series of missives between Gov. Mike Dunleavy and two state legislators, Reps. Bryce Edgmon and Louise Stutes, is one component of the fallout of the controversial Pebble Tapes, in which activists posed as potential mine investors and recorded Pebble and Northern Dynasty executives Tom Collier and Ronald Thiessen bragging about the mining conglomerate’s use of the governor’s office to launder communications for the White House.

“Your letter does not address Pebble’s blunt characterization of you and others within your administration as acting behind closed doors on Pebble’s compensatory mitigation plan,” Edgmon writes in an Oct. 26 reply to the governor, which started with a September message from Edgmon and Stutes. “Similarly, we note that your letter does not address Tom Collier’s admissions that he interfered in Alaska’s election process. Silence on these points undercuts the integrity of state government in ways that go far beyond Pebble, and we urge you to speak to them.”

The letter recognizes Alaska Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan for making direct statements against the project after the Pebble Tapes called attention to their tendency to fade into the background when it came to Pebble.

Read the full story at National Fisherman