Fisheries

Southeast trollers want to see an increase in their share of hatchery-produced chum salmon.

In testimony before the Alaska Board of Fisheries on Wednesday, trollers asked for management revisions that would give them more time and opportunity to target this increasingly valuable species.

The logic of the troller’s request is not hard to follow. Seiners catch fish by the hundreds or thousands, gillnetters catch fish by the tens or hundreds, and trollers catch fish one at a time. And so they want more time.

In the not-too-distant past chum were hardly worth catching — and they wouldn’t often be caught on king or coho gear. Sitka troller Matt Lawrie told the Board of Fish that his fleet has figured out how to land chum.

“While these methods and gear have improved catch rates, trolling is still a hook-and-line fishery, and as such can not compete with net fisheries without extensive access in time and place.”

Since trollers began targeting chum several years ago, they’ve found it difficult to hit their allocation.

In 2003, trollers sold chum for around $.16 per pound. More recently, it’s been as high as $.90 per pound — an increase of over five-fold — though the price remains extremely variable.

Proposal 227 asks the board to reauthorize the Chum Salmon Troll Management Plan for Northern Chatham Strait, and to allow trollers to fish 7-days-a-week — that’s up from 4 consecutive weekdays.

Still, even though hatcheries like Sitka’s Northern Southeast Regional Aquaculture Association and Juneau’s DIPAC are producing millions of chum, the commercial pie can only be divided into three pieces — troll, gillnet, and seine.

Linda Danner, who chairs the Chum Trollers Association, voiced her support for proposal 176, which would reallocate hatchery-produced chum in favor of trollers. But she understood it would come at a price.

“To improve the number of fish caught by the gear group lowest in allocation requires some other gear group to give up fish.”

Danner argued that the net fisheries dominate the hatchery boards and the state’s Regional Planning Teams, and that trollers stand little chance of improving their lot without the Board’s support.

“If the two privileged gear groups on these boards are unwilling to participate in fair and reasonable sharing, the gear group lowest in allocation will never be able to out-vote them. That’s the loophole. We call it Two Wolves and a Sheep Voting on What’s for Dinner.”

The Northern Southeast Regional Aquaculture Association — or NSRAA — has added two new chum release sites in Southeast this year: Crawfish Inlet, about 35 miles south of Sitka, and SE Cove on Kuiu near Kake. Crawfish Inlet, especially, may be a good site for trollers, who already are converging in Sitka Sound to fish for Deep Inlet chum.

Nevertheless, mistrust is hard to overcome. Hatchery fishing schedules for the three different gear groups have been a source of tension — especially in the terminal areas, or “honey-holes,” where returning fish are most concentrated.

Sitka troller Dave Ritchie remains skeptical of NSRAA’s capacity to resolve the issue.

“Trollers have appealed proactively and repeatedly to the NSRAA board to correct its allocative problem. Due diligence, and seeking our fair share of the honey-hole allocative harvest has been met with indifference, disgust, and hostility.”

A final chum proposal doesn’t really slice the pie at all — it would just allow trollers to keep their forks in it. Proposal 229 was submitted by Sitka troller Matt Donohoe.

“229 is not asking for time in a terminal harvest area. It is not seeking to displace any existing fishery. No gear group conflicts would result.”

Donohoe’s proposal would allow trollers fishing in the Homeshore area to cross into Northern Chatham Strait without picking up their gear. It would save time, Donohoe said, and give trollers more access to chum.

“Yesterday, Mr. Chairman, when you asked Carl Peterson what could be done to help bring trollers up to their allocation, I was in the audience like some sort of kid who, you know, had to go to the bathroom. I know! I know! Pass 229 and pass 227. Thank you.”

The Alaska Board of Fisheries took almost two full days of public testimony at its Sitka meeting, before moving into the so-called “Committee of the Whole,” where they will attempt to consolidate similar proposals, and iron out other details with the stakeholders and the public, before moving into formal deliberations.

 

The Walker-Mallott administration announced Wednesday that it’s set up a working group to address the transboundary mining boom near Southeast Alaska. The news comes as British Columbia’s mine-regulation agency plans meetings with Alaska fishermen and tribal groups.

Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott head ups the working group, which includes commissioners of the state departments of Natural Resources, Environmental Conservation and Fish and Game.

It’s looking into longstanding concerns about British Columbia mines slated to open or reopen on rivers that flow through Southeast Alaska.

“We view the entire range of activity on that side, which can affect the waters and the habitat of those river corridors, as important to Alaska’s interests and to our national interests and we will engage and pursue that interest vigorously,” Mallott says.

He says the group is just getting started and is gathering information from regulators, mining critics and supporters.

A new transboundary mines group, Inside Passage Waterkeeper, recently petitioned the administration to seek government-to-government talks with British Columbia’s premier.

The group wants the governor to ask for a moratorium on new tailings storage dams, including one being tested at the Red Chris Mine in the Stikine River watershed.

Mallott says he’s not yet ready to pursue any particular course of action.

“My desire is that we not seek specific responses until we understand fully what we are engaged with. But that doesn’t mean that anything is off the table, either,” he says.

B.C. Premier Christy Clark is an ardent advocate of mining. She’s added staff to the provincial mining agency to speed permitting, so new projects can open sooner.

Bill Bennett, her energy and mines minister, came to Anchorage in November to explain his government’s approach and actions.

He met with state officials and addressed Alaska’s mining association. But says he realizes he was not meeting with the right people.

“We need to make a second trip. Whether I go along on that trip or not is still up in the air. But we certainly need to reach out and give the people of Southeast Alaska an opportunity to meet and talk to our officials,” he says.

Bennett wants to engage fisheries and tribal groups, where provincial officials can explain their mine-review process. It’s unclear whether environmental groups will be included.

“We’re not really going to come to Alaska and be lectured,” he says.

Details of mine ministry’s visit, such as dates and locations, are not set.

But fishermen and tribal members are among those most strongly protesting mineral development near cross-border rivers.

“We would welcome Mining Minister Bill Bennett with open arms. That’s one thing that’s been lacking is consultation and transparency,” says Rob Sanderson Jr., who co-chairs the United Tribal Transboundary Mining Work Group and is a vice president of the Tlingit-Haida Central Council.

Both groups cite August’s Mount Polley tailings-dam breach in eastern British Columbia. A report reviewing what went wrong there estimated a similar dam would fail every five years, releasing hazardous water, silt and rock.

Sanderson says that raises questions about the future.

“We’re doing this to protect our environment for our children and grandchildren and the yet unborn. We want them to enjoy the same things that we are enjoying right now – pristine rivers and clean water,” he says.

State officials at a lower level are already talking to British Columbia’s mining ministry.

Department of Natural Resources Large Mine Project Manager Kyle Moselle says he urged staff to travel to Southeast when they met in Vancouver in January.

“The point that I made to them or stressed to them was that many of the stakeholders that I’ve talked with … feel frustrated or disenfranchised from British Columbia’s administrative process, their environmental review process,” he says.

British Columbia has also recommended the issue be put before the Pacific Northwest Economic Region. That’s a cross-border development think-tank.

Southeast Alaska Conservation Council Mining Coordinator Guy Archibald, who is also part of Inside Passage Waterkeeper, says that’s not the best approach.

“They’re an economic development organization and they don’t really have any working groups for environmental protection,” he says.

Meanwhile, the state’s new working group will meet again in a few weeks.

Lt. Gov. Mallott, its chairman, says while he hopes it will have an impact, it faces limits.

“Alaska has no triggers to pull that would allow immediate action,” he says.

Some king salmon reared in Southeast Alaska are traveling farther north as ocean temperatures rise.

This news was delivered to the Alaska Board of Fisheries as their spring meeting opened in Sitka Monday afternoon.

The king salmon hatched in Southeast’s four top-producing river systems, the Alsek, Situk, Taku, and Stikine, are going very far afield.

“All four of these stocks are considered outside-rearing, or what we term the far-north migrators,” says Sportfish Coordinator Ed Jones. “This means that shortly after the juveniles enter the marine environment to rear, they essentially take a right and head out to the Gulf of Alaska and Bering Sea.”

Although the Taku, Alsek, Situk, and Stikine produce most of Southeast’s king salmon, Jones said that there are seven smaller stocks that the department considers “inside rearing.” Once these fish enter the marine environment as juveniles, Jones said they remain in regional waters until maturity.

The Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission is defending itself against a recent state report pointing out inefficiencies and legislation that could dissolve the agency.

Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission Chair Bruce Twomley is worried about the agency’s future, especially after a bill was introduced last week to dismantle the commission as a cost saving measure.

“We would like to get to the end of this session so that we can do what we can do at our end to try to suggest savings. We hope we’re still in a position to do that. We hope we’re still intact at the end of this session,” Twomley says.

The Department of Fish and Game released a report earlier this month that draws attention to backlogged permit application cases, a slow work pace by the three commissioners who head the agency, and alternatives to the agency’s organizational structure. The commission responded Monday to the report in writing and posted it on its website.

The commission doesn’t take issue with the whole report. Twomley recognizes it includes a lot of praise for the agency and he stands firmly behind one of the report’s recommendations to maintain the three commissioners until all the cases are complete.

“We think that is a very sound recommendation,” he says.

Since its creation in 1973, Twomley says the commission has been going through a deluge of thousands of applications to limited entry fisheries and is now down to the last 28 cases. The report recommends those be complete by the end of June. A more reasonable time frame, says Twomley, is by the end of 2016.

He defends why the commission takes so long to adjudicate cases.

“Some cases are more than 15 years old because we had more than 23,000 applications to work through and the reason is really the volume and complexity of the cases, and the fact that these huge caseloads arrive almost at the same time,” Twomley says.

Rep. Louise Stutes’ House Bill 112 would eliminate the commission by transferring duties to Fish and Game and a division of the Department of Administration.

Twomley says the survival of the agency is vital. He says the commission will likely limit one or more fisheries in the near future, but wouldn’t name them. He says the work the commission does is complicated and specialized.

Twomley has been a CFEC commissioner since Gov. Jay Hammond appointed him in 1982.

“The only reason I’m sticking around is because I think there is some critical work to be done, but if someone wants to force my retirement, that would not be the worst thing that could happen to me. It would not be good, however, I think for the agency or the task and the remaining employees at the agency,” Twomley says.

CFEC has 28 full-time employees including the three commissioners.

The House Fisheries Committee on Tuesday heard an agency overview from the CFEC commissioners. Committee chair Stutes said the Fish and Game report wouldn’t be discussed, but committee members alluded to details in the report through their questions, like the slow pace of adjudication.

Stutes says her bill to eliminate the CFEC will get its first committee hearing March 5.

“The Breach” is a documentary chronicling director Mark Titus’ love story with wild salmon, a fish he’s always considered sacred.

The Seattle-native started fishing when he was two, and says that started a lifelong appreciation for salmon. Titus, an independent filmmaker, decided to take this infatuation and put it on the big screen.

“I came up with this idea of telling a love story of salmon and there were people that rolled their eyes,” Titus says.

After four years of fundraising and production work, Titus is screening “The Breach” in a 12-stop national tour that came to Juneau Friday.

The film traces mankind’s exploitation of salmon from Europe to the Pacific Northwest. Dams, mines, over-fishing and hatcheries are presented as threats, leading to the fish’s dwindling population.

“It’s an animal that is so sacred that it deserves to have a chance to live and thrive because it feeds everything,” Titus says.

Titus says the documentary’s title comes from the image of salmon beating their heads against a dam as they attempt to swim upstream—an image of pursuit that reminded him of Shakespeare.

“It really kind of resonated with the idea in Henry V of ‘Once more dear friends, unto the breach’ and let’s just keep moving forward,” Titus says.

Most of the film was shot in Alaska—the last place in the world Titus says is doing anything to protect salmon.

The film focuses on Bristol Bay in Southwest Alaska, where locals rely on fishing for income and subsistence. Many residents are in conflict with The Pebble Limited Partnership—which seeks to build a mine near the headwaters of two of Bristol Bay’s major rivers.

Titus explores the dilemma of whether industry and nature can coexist for the sake of a stable economy — a question he says has no easy answer.

“I think the real question about what’s going on in Bristol Bay is not about whether the world needs more copper — the question is what do we value as a society,” Titus says.

“The Breach” had its world premiere in Ireland last summer, where it won the International Feature Documentary award at the 2014 Galway Film Fleadh Awards.

Dillingham Rep. Bryce Edgmon was one of more than 200 people to view the film at the Juneau screening in the Rockwell Ballroom. He thinks the film is an educational, accurate portrayal of salmon history.

“Well I think it tells the whole story,” Edgmon says. “It really lays out the thread that we have incrementally destroyed salmon habitat.”

Edgmon was raised in the Bristol Bay area, and says most residents oppose the Pebble Mine project because of the threat it poses to their fish resource.

“Salmon is the king 12 months out of the year in Bristol Bay,” Edgmon says.

Alaska voters in November passed a ballot initiative that requires legislative approval of large-scale mining within the Bristol Bay Fisheries Reserve. Anchorage Rep. Andy Josephson has taken that a step further, introducing a bill that would require the departments of Fish and Game, Environmental Conservation, and Natural Resources to sign off on such projects.

Titus says he attempted to interview supporters of the Pebble Mine project for “The Breach,” but was unsuccessful.

The film ends on an ambiguous note, with the fate of Bristol Bay’s fish undetermined. Titus says “The Breach” is less about the politics of salmon and more about an emotional connection to the fish.

“It strikes a chord in people’s hearts, and that’s why I made this film,” Titus says.

After its Alaska tour, the film will go on to screen in New York City and Washington D.C.

The Alaska State Board of Fisheries opens a ten-day meeting in Sitka this morning.

On the agenda for the board are 107 proposals for changes in management to Southeast Alaska’s herring, salmon, and groundfish fisheries.

There are 16 proposals alone on Sitka Sound herring, from a variety of concerned stakeholders, including the Sitka Tribe of Alaska and commercial herring seiners.

There are also proposals this year to allow the harvest of black cod in pots in state waters. Previously, all fishing for black cod has been done using gear called a longline, which has individual hooks. The pot proposal is an effort to combat predation by sperm whales on longline gear.

There are also proposals concerning the harvest of lingcod and rockfish, including a proposal to require sport fishermen to release some species of bottomfish only after first returning them to deep water.

The Board of Fish does not tackle each of the 107 proposals individually. Instead, a stakeholder group called the “Committee of the Whole” consolidates similar proposals. Committee work is expected to take up at least three mornings this week.

Public testimony will be taken by the board this afternoon (Mon 2-23-15) beginning at 1:30 PM.

The board is scheduled to meet in Sitka through March 3. The public is welcome to listen in — either in person at Harrigan Centennial Hall — or via the livestream.

View the BOF agenda.
View other BOF meeting information.