Fisheries

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will reconsider certain aspects of the Pebble company’s permit application to build a large gold and copper mine at the headwaters of Bristol Bay. The 81-page report comes just three months after the Environmental Protection Agency vetoed the mine in a separate process.

“It’s a bit surprising and a bit confusing,” said Dennis McLerran, who worked as the regional EPA administrator during the Obama administration.

The EPA in January determined that the mine would have “unacceptable adverse effects on salmon fishery areas.” Using its powers under the Clean Water Act, it essentially vetoed the mine plan, and any future plan that would have a similar impact on the same waterways. Many opponents of the project hailed that as the final blow.

McLerran said the EPA decision nullifies any permit the Army Corps could issue.

“EPA has now made a final determination, and so in any event, the Corps could not issue a 404 permit for the mine,” he said, referring to the applicable section of the Clean Water Act. “So it is a bit surprising and a bit confusing as to why the Corps entertained the appeal and issued a remand on it.”

At the heart of the Corps’ decision is whether its permit denial adequately assessed certain risks the mine would pose to the environment and its effects on communities in the region. In its April 25 announcement, the Corps’ Pacific Ocean Division Engineer Brig. Gen. Kirk Gibbs said he found specific portions of Pebble’s appeal warranted another look, although he noted that that doesn’t mean the Corps will reauthorize Pebble’s permit.

The report analyzes each of Pebble’s reasons for its appeal. It said that five of the company’s points didn’t need additional consideration, and portions of three did, including the Corps’ assessment of whether and how the project would benefit communities (pg. 47 – 56). The Corps will also revisit how it assessed the possibility of a catastrophic failure of a dam that would contain waste from the mining operation (pg. 62 – 65) and the potential damages to fisheries (pg. 67).

Pebble spokesperson Mike Heatwole said the announcement shows the company’s appeal holds water, and that they aim for the mine to meet environmental requirements for permitting.

“A mine in Alaska, and in the United States, has to coexist with that fishery,” he said. “We know that for the residents of Bristol Bay, it’s an important not only commercial but cultural resource. And all of that has to be factored into this project at the end of the day.”

The Bristol Bay Defense Fund, a coalition of mine opponents, called the Army Corps’ remand a refusal to overturn its permit denial, and said that it will merely “clarify” that decision.

Still, United Tribes of Bristol Bay Executive Director Alannah Hurley said, this is another reason why opponents are pursuing watershed-wide protections through federal legislation.

“Not only to address this project, with this company that is refusing to give up, but the many other active mining claims throughout the region,” she said.

The Army Corps’ Alaska District now has to review the decision to deny Pebble a federal permit — and take the EPA’s veto into consideration in the process.

Alaska’s mariculture industry was awarded $49 million in federal funding last year to develop the state’s burgeoning kelp market. Now, industry leaders are looking across the Pacific Ocean for inspiration on how to keep the state’s kelp scene growing.

Nick Mangini is a kelp farmer and mariculture director for the Southwest Alaska Municipal Conference, one of the organizations in charge of distributing the funds. He was in South Korea earlier this month touring kelp farms and processing facilities. Asian countries – including South Korea – make up the bulk of the world’s kelp market.

“Every time I go to a conference or something where it’s all mariculture-related business people, whether that be farmers or industry, you kind of get this buzz and everybody gets excited,” said Mangini. “And it’s what keeps us going right now.”

Mangini and his colleagues are looking to countries like South Korea for inspiration as Alaska overcomes well-documented hurdles in its own budding industry. For one, the state has a processing gap when it comes to kelp – that’s where Mangini says the South Korean farmers have a big advantage.

“They bring in the kelp and hand lay it out in a field and let it air dry, where we don’t have that climate that would allow that, number one,” he said. “And rules through the FDA [Food and Drug Administration] are just going to be way too stringent to make something like that happen.”

Mangini said many kelp farms in South Korea also use seaweed and shellfish cultivation in tandem to maximize their crop.

“So, 70% of the species of kelp that’s most similar to what I grow comes straight off a farm and goes straight into an abalone culture to feed the abalone year round,” he said.

The South Korea visit was sponsored by the World Wildlife Fund and included other kelp farmers and processors from North America and Europe. Mangini said connecting with them was just as informative as meeting with the trip’s South Korean hosts.

“Possibilities for future collaborations with people from the East Coast and the West Coast, people from Canada and Alaska, even into Europe. Just seeing the different products and species and processes that everyone uses was a big part of this for us all too.”

Mangini was one of Alaska’s first kelp farmers. He put in his application for a plot by Near Island – right near the City of Kodiak – in 2016 and harvested his first crop the year after that. Two other people started out the same year as him.

It’s taken off since then; there’s currently 82 mariculture operations in the state, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and just last year, Alaska kelp farmers harvested 650,000 pounds of seaweed.

That’s a tiny fraction compared to South Korea’s production. But Mangini says Alaska’s mariculture industry has the potential to be a leader by volume — just like its finfish fisheries. He said another big step is getting commercial fishermen to see the industry’s value as a source of income in between fishing seasons.

“I would just hope that we could work together and they could see this as an opportunity for them to use their boats or even, you know, have their own farms in the future,” he said.

Mangini said with federal funds on the way there’s real momentum for the industry in the state. He’s hopeful lessons from the trip will help ease some of the growing pains.

A proposed marine sanctuary in the Pribilof Islands has drawn major pushback from the commercial fishing industry, ever since the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration accepted the nomination last June.

The Aleut Community of St. Paul — the tribal government for the Pribilof Island community of around 500 people — says the sanctuary designation would give it greater authority to protect the region’s vast ecosystems and resources, including rich fishing grounds and habitat for the federally protected northern fur seal.

The national marine sanctuary would be named Alaĝum Kanuux̂, or Heart of the Ocean — and if approved, it would be the first of its kind in Alaska, possibly creating a new precedent for resource management in the state.

Lauren Divine is the director for the tribe’s ecosystem conservation office. She said the sanctuary designation would make the tribe a co-manager for the region’s resources, which are currently managed by the State of Alaska and the National Marine Fisheries Service.

“That co-management aspect is really important because it’s a step towards self determination, sovereignty,” Divine said in an interview. “It really speaks to going back to Indigenous stewardship of lands and waters, which have operated successfully and sustainably since time immemorial.”

Divine also said the sanctuary would act as a spotlight, bringing tourism, research, and education dollars to the region.

NOAA accepted the tribe’s nomination last year, which set off panic bells in the commercial fishing industry. Many in the industry have voiced concerns that bringing in another co-manager could threaten the industry, even though NOAA and the tribe say the change would not affect fishing regulations.

Commercial fishing representatives railed against the proposed sanctuary during an April 6 meeting in Anchorage, which NOAA hosted to clear up confusion within the industry.

Todd Loomis is the director for Ocean Peace, a commercial fishing company that runs a half dozen catcher-processor boats in the area. After watching a presentation about the sanctuary nomination process, he told NOAA representatives that it was still confusing, and uncertainty was bad for business.

“I saw a lot of wiggle words in terms of the authorities, what applies and what doesn’t apply. And it did not provide any comfort,” said Loomis.

A big concern for opponents is the Alaska pollock fishery in the Bering Sea. It’s not only the largest fishery in the region; it’s the largest in the United States. NOAA valued the 2021 fishery at about $383 million.

Dennis Robinson is the president of the Qawalangin Tribe of Unalaska, where he is also the city’s vice mayor. He’s concerned the proposal will threaten a fishery that NOAA touts as a poster child of sustainability.

“These are the best managed fisheries in the world and you want to put a sanctuary in the middle of it,” said Robinson, commenting on behalf of the tribe. “We are opposed to it.”

The issue has caused so much rancor that both of Alaska’s U.S. senators, Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, have chimed in. In February, they wrote a joint letter to NOAA asking the agency to revoke the nomination.

Despite the industry’s fears, supporters say the sanctuary would not create any new fishing regulations. Divine, from the tribe in St. Paul, said the designation would not prevent fishing in the region, and any new regulations would still have to go through the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, like they currently do.

“Sanctuaries, by legal definition, cannot exclude fisheries. That’s not an activity that they can prohibit,” said Divine. “Commercial fisheries will continue into the future. Subsistence fisheries will continue into the future.”

While the Bering Sea is incredibly rich and biodiverse, it is also experiencing vast changes, largely due to climate change. Seabirds, fish and marine mammals have all been affected.

George Pletnikoff is from the neighboring Pribilof community of St. George. He told attendees at the NOAA meeting that pushback against the sanctuary has been based on misinformation and scare tactics.

“It’s not a boogeyman,” said Pletnikoff. “It’s just an attempt to take care of our home. It’s dying, and you know it’s dying. And I don’t know other ways to do it.”

The sanctuary process is long and complicated. While NOAA has accepted St. Paul’s nomination, representatives from the federal agency said they have not made a decision about initiating the next step, which would be a multi-year designation process.

Bristol Bay should see relatively strong sockeye runs this summer, though they’re not expected to be near last year’s record-breaking run and harvest.

Around 50 million sockeye are forecasted to return to the bay, according to the state’s forecast for the 2023 fishing season. The total escapement is projected to reach 13 million with around 37 million fish available to harvest.

That’s a good deal lower than last year, and it’s also lower than the average over the last 10 years. But looking a little further back, this summer’s run is still expected to be 40% above the bay’s long-term average.

The University of Washington produced its own forecast for Bristol Bay’s 2023 season.

The strength of the salmon returns varies across river systems, and the Nushagak District, on the west side of the bay, has seen some of the biggest sockeye runs and highest harvests in recent years.

“I think the reason why we’re getting these big runs in the Nushagak is because the warmer winters allow for a longer growing season,” said Tim Sands, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s management biologist for the area, at a recent presentation in Dillingham. “So there’s just that extra growing period where there’s more food for them to eat. And they get a little bit bigger. And as they’re bigger going out to the ocean. They’re more competitive and they survive at a little higher rate.”

In the 2023 commercial fishing outlook, the department also raised concerns about fishermen under-reporting of king salmon harvests and said tenders should expect to be boarded and checked for undocumented king salmon.

Here’s a rundown of this summer’s forecasts and regulations by district.

Nushagak

The Nushagak District is forecast to see 16.3 million sockeye this season, with the run almost evenly split between fish that spend two and three years in the ocean. The Wood River’s forecast is 8 million sockeye, the Nushagak’s is 7 million and the Igushik is set to see almost 2 million.

Low king salmon runs up the Nushagak River pushed the Department of Fish and Game to designate them a stock of concern last fall.

In an effort to conserve king salmon, the Board of Fisheries adopted three triggers, only one of which the district needs to meet for the season to open.

The latest the district will open is June 28. But new, optimum escapement goals mean managers will likely manage the fishery more conservatively than in past seasons, because the regulations allow them to let more sockeye escape.

Sands said that the triggers tell the department when to start fishing, and the new escapement goals determine how hard they fish throughout the season and how many breaks they take in order to protect kings.

“My goal is going to be to try and keep the escapement on the Wood River below 3 million escaping on the Nushagak River below 2 million, and trying to get enough king and chum salmon up the Nushagak River so that we can start climbing out of this stock of concern hole we’re in,” he said.

The triggers to open fishing are as follows:

• In the Nushagak River, once 420,000 sockeye, or 6% of the forecast, are projected past the sonar.
• In the Wood River, once 800,000 sockeye, or 10% of the forecast, are projected past the counting tower.
• If neither of these triggers are met, the season may open on June 28.

Asked during the presentation how the department would project those runs, Sands said they were going to use as many sources as possible.
“Aerial survey is certainly included,” he said. “We’re going to have test boats in the district – [Bristol Bay Science and Research Institute] is running that project – subsistence harvest. Whatever we can gather that will inform that decision, we’ll use.”

The district’s triggers delay commercial fishing in June. But the department said even after fishing is open managers will work to balance commercial fishing opportunity with escapement of kings, chum and sockeye throughout the season; set net fishermen should expect some closures into the second week of July, and drift openings will be timed to allow kings and chum to swim through the commercial district.

Chum runs up the Nushagak have also been extremely low; they haven’t met the escapement goal in the last three years. Sands said the department also considered recommending that species a stock of concern last fall but that ultimately they felt the chum didn’t qualify. However, Fish and Game is asking fishermen to avoid areas where they may catch higher numbers of kings and chum.

“If we don’t make chum salmon escapement goal for the next three years, we will be talking about chum salmon stock of concern plan and that will be much more restrictive than what we’re doing now for kings, because it’ll mean that what we’ve done for kings has not worked to protect chums,” Sands said.

Other regulatory changes include increasing the distance from set nets to the shore along Ekuk beach.

“We’re working on getting a map made with those new coordinates,” Sands said. “So the drifters will be able to find the coordinates into their plotters, and see where the furthest offshore the buoys can be. And then so that set netters can make adjustments as well.”

Once the coordinates are finalized they will be posted to the department website and on the district’s map.

Togiak

Togiak is expected to see 680,000 sockeye, which is below average in recent years, but slightly above average in the long term. The available harvest will be almost 500,000 fish.

The transfer date for Togiak permits changed at the recent Board of Fisheries meeting. It used to be July 17. Now, permit holders who have fished elsewhere in the bay can’t fish in the Togiak District until the mid-point of the escapement goal has been reached. Those who started out fishing in Togiak can’t fish in any other district of the bay until that midpoint goal has been reached.

While the Nushagak is the only river in Bristol Bay that still has a king salmon escapement goal, the state’s outlook says Togiak’s king runs are also expected to be poor, following a trend over the past several years, and that fishermen should expect reductions to their weekly fishing schedule in the last two weeks of June in the Togiak River section.

Naknek-Kvichak

The Naknek-Kvichak is expected to see 18 million sockeye this summer. The Kvichak River is forecasted to have a run of 8 million sockeye, the Naknek could see over 6 million and Alagnak forecast is set at 4 million.

It will have four day a week openers until June 23, after which the managers will schedule openers based on the sockeye run.

That district also faces new regulations this year. For one, people can now go online to get subsistence salmon permits for the Naknek River. Subsistence users can only fish with set gillnets in the special harvest areas of the Naknek, Alagnak and Wood Rivers.

The Board of Fisheries also approved a new subsection for the Naknek River special harvest area, which allows commercial fishing there when the Naknek River’s escapement has passed the midpoint of the escapement goal range and is projected to exceed the upper-end goal. A boundary line coordinate for Kvichak and Naknek sections has been changed to align with the district like at Johnson Hill.

Egegik

Egegik’s forecast is at 11 million sockeye, with over 9 million available to harvest. Almost half of the run is expected to be 1-3 fish, or salmon that spend one year in freshwater and three in the ocean.

Egegik’s season will start with fishing three days a week through June 16 to allow kings to escape, according to the outlook. After that the department will schedule additional fishing openers based on the strength of the sockeye run.

Ugashik

Ugashik District is expected to see around 3 million sockeye, bringing available harvest to 2.5 million. Almost half of that river’s run will be 1-2 fish. This summer, the late season schedule for Ugashik will be aligned with other districts on the fishery’s East Side.

Tourists are lured to the Kenai Peninsula every summer by the promise of big catches from the decks of saltwater fishing boats. That promise looms large in local lore: a sign proclaiming Homer the “Halibut Fishing Capital of the World” is the first thing anyone sees when they enter the city. And each spring, hundreds of boats each spring venture into Kachemak Bay for the annual Winter King Salmon Tournament.

But as regulations on halibut and king salmon fishing have ramped up in the last decade, charter guides have branched out into another species: rockfish. This year, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game is limiting rockfish harvest by emergency order to make sure the population doesn’t plummet to a point of no return.

“Things are OK. We’re just on an increasing harvest trend that is likely to lead to unsustainable levels,” said Mike Booz, area management biologist for the department’s division of sportfish.

Booz traced that trend back, in part, to 2014, when the council that manages fishing in Alaska’s federal waters passed a catch-sharing plan to allocate halibut harvest between commercial and sport fisheries in the Gulf of Alaska and Southeast. Charters had to limit how much halibut they were allowed to catch. Booz said right away, charters started going more for rockfish.

Meanwhile, the department has tightened regulations on king salmon fishing, too, including closures and decreased bag limits. That’s as king salmon across Alaska continue to suffer.

Ray DeBardelaben owns Long Live the Kings lodge in Soldotna and is president of the Kenai River Professional Guide Association. He also takes clients out on his saltwater boat, the O’Dea, out of Homer.

He’s been fishing since the 1980s, when he said it was possible to get a 200-pound halibut. He said he no longer targets the clientele that expects that sort of fishing.

“That clientele’s gone for me,” he said. “So I’ve really just spent money on marketing and got new clients. They pull up a halibut that’s 25, 30 pounds. And the first thing they say is – ‘wow.’”

He said there are still days when he’ll take clients out to fish for halibut, alone or for halibut and king salmon, together. But he said he started focusing more on trips for halibut and rockfish over the last seven years.

Rockfish are found further offshore — as far as the Chugach Islands in Cook Inlet, on the other side of Kachemak Bay State Park. They’re also found in Resurrection Bay, in the Chiswell Islands area, Booz said.

“That is a long way for a charter vessel to travel,” said Brian Ritchie, a charter operator out of Homer and vice president of the Homer Charter Association. “And it does increase fuel costs. But it’s something that businesses here have shown they’re willing to take on, and it’s something that we certainly adapted to.”

He said Homer-area fishermen have been eyeing rockfish abundance for a few years. Recently, the total rockfish harvest in Cook Inlet salt water skyrocketed to over 50,000 fish a year — a 300% increase from the historical average between 2006 and 2013, according to Fish and Game. Most of the increased harvest of the species has been black rockfish, the department said.

Booz said rockfish, as a species, are susceptible to overharvest. They don’t migrate much, but instead stick to the spots they like, which makes them easier to catch.

“Because we know right where they’re going to be, every day,” Booz said.

Rockfish are also slow to mature, and live a long time. Black rockfish can live to be 50 years old.

Booz said that makes it hard for them to bounce back, too — which has happened to rockfish fisheries in the Lower 48. He said that’s another reason to be conservative with restrictions.

The new bag limits are three a day in Cook Inlet, down from five, and three in the Gulf Coast area, down from four. In both areas, just one of those fish can be non-pelagic.

Booz said this week’s announcement is an emergency order, for this season. Any longer-term regulation changes would have to pass the Alaska Board of Fisheries later this year, at its Lower Cook Inlet finfish meeting in Homer in November. Proposals to the board were due earlier this week.

Ritchie said fishermen in Cook Inlet are getting more used to diversifying, as regulations continue to shift. This year, for example, charters can’t fish for halibut on Wednesdays and some Tuesdays throughout the season.

“That kind of uncertainty, when it’s your business and it’s your job, can be stressful. And I think it’s been stressful the last two years, especially, for Homer-area businesses and operators,” he said.

Andy Mezirow, a Seward charter boat captain and member of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, said new plan to set up a recreational quota entity system, included in this year’s federal omnibus bill, will likely help with the pressure on rockfish because it could allow charters to catch more halibut.

Another challenge for charters has been increased gas prices, said DeBardelaben, who will start taking clients out for the season later this month. He’s also had to diversify in freshwater — with king runs suffering on the Kenai River, he instead takes clients out to fish for sockeye.

He thinks there’s been a mentality shift.

“I’ve had to change my attitude on how much fish do I need, how much fish do I want,” he said. “And I try to pass that onto my customers — the attitude of, ‘We’re going to go out and we’re going to have fun, and we’re going to catch some fish and we’re going to eat it.’”

He said clients want the experience of going out and catching fish, no matter the species.

Southeast Alaska’s pink salmon run is predicted to be weak this summer. The region’s commercial harvest is expected to increase by just five percent this year compared to last year, according to a report from the Alaska Department of Fish & Game released earlier this month. But it’s forecast to be more than a 60% drop from the last odd-year harvest in 2021.

Pink salmon runs in Southeast peak in odd years and fall in even years.

The 2023 pink salmon harvest is predicted to be around 19 million fish, with a probable range of between 12 and 19 million. That’s what the department classifies as a weak run. It’s nowhere near Southeast’s record harvest of 2013, which saw more than 89 million pink salmon.

The estimate comes mostly from analysis of juvenile pink salmon abundance indicators collected by researchers in Southeast in previous years.

The Alaska Department of Fish & Game only publishes harvest forecasts for pinks in Southeast Alaska because they say they don’t have enough data from other salmon species to accurately predict harvests.

But they do set harvest limits, and king salmon trollers will face a 23% reduction in allowable harvest this year. That’s a decrease of 44,000 fish. It leaves around 53,000 king salmon allowed to be harvested by all other gear types under the international treaty that governs wild king harvest. Hatchery-produced kings aren’t part of that agreement.

Even so, runs of embattled Southeast king salmon are supposed to meet the lower end of their escapement goals on many of the rivers monitored by Fish & Game this year. The Stikine River near Wrangell is an exception — it’s not forecast to meet its escapement goal range of 14,000 to 28,000 kings.

ADF&G’s harvest prediction for Southeast also indicated that last year’s salmon harvest in the region was around half of the previous year’s. It was the 33rd highest harvest since 1962.

But that doesn’t mean last year’s prices were low. Even though the 2022 harvest was half of the previous year’s (58 million catch), the total preliminary value at the docks for Southeast increased by $12 million to $144 million. That rise in value came primarily because the price per pound of chum salmon increased by half compared to the previous year, at a region-wide average of $1.18 per pound.