Fisheries

The Alaska Department of Natural Resources announced last week that Stuy Mines has applied for a hardrock exploration permit along Kaskanak Creek, southwest of the Pebble deposit.

The Stuy Mines company, registered in Washington state, is proposing a multi-year hardrock exploration program, which would include 12 holes a year. The activity could start after the state issues a permit and continue through 2027. To access the site, the company has plotted a pathway that it says mostly follows existing gravel bars along Iliamna Lake and that it would grade existing gravel only where necessary.

Stuy Mines’s primary owner is a company called Love and Above. Manager Greg Ellis has also worked as a screenwriter and a home developer in Washington state, according to his LinkedIn profile.

A joint news release from the Bristol Bay Defense Fund cited the EPA’s recent decision to veto mining at the Pebble deposit. The coalition, which includes the United Tribes of Bristol Bay, SalmonState and Katmai Services Provider, says the decades leading up to that decision show that Bristol Bay residents don’t want mining in the region. They also reiterated calls for watershed-wide protections against mining.

“We have always opposed mining around Kaskanak Creek and will continue to be vocal in our opposition to projects like this that threaten our pristine waters, salmon, landscapes, and way of life,” Igiugig Village Council President AlexAnna Salmon said in the news release.

Salmon said the creek is the home of Igiugig’s ancient villages and is important for traditional hunting and fishing. She said the village council is counting on leaders in Washington to enact protections for the entire watershed.

The deadline for public comments on the Stuy Mines application is March 14.

Written comments, questions or requests to view the full application packet can be directed to Sara Church at (907) 458-6896, faxed at (907) 451- 2703 or e-mailed to dnr.fbx.mining@alaska.gov.

Correction: The exploration activity could start after the state issued a permit until 2027, not between 2024 and 2027 as originally reported.

The National Weather Service has announced that it’s changing its marine forecast zones to provide more accurate weather information to fishermen and boaters.

The changes are slated to go into effect on Wednesday. They follow feedback from mariners calling for more accurate forecasts closer to shorelines, says Aviva Braun, the warning coordination meteorologist for the National Weather Service’s Anchorage office.

“What we were hearing over the years as an entire Alaska Region was that our forecasts were not accurate for the nearshore environment — that small boats, subsistence, fishermen, mariners that kept close to the coastline, were not seeing the big waves and strong winds that were portrayed and forecasted,” she said.

As it stands, there’s one marine forecast for coastal zones out to 100 nautical miles.

The new marine weather forecast aims to be more specific, creating two marine forecast zones instead of one — the “nearshore forecast,” from the shoreline to 15 nautical miles, and an “offshore forecast” from 15 to 100 nautical miles.

Braun says the marine weather zones will be re-numbered, some with new boundaries, so mariners should make sure to check those changes. Some large coastal areas, like Prince William Sound, have been broken into smaller weather zones.

“The entire point of this change is to create better forecasts for people who are fishing near shore, or who are using boats to travel, for instance,” she said.

Malcolm Milne is the president of the North Pacific Fisheries Association and has been commercially fishing out of Homer since 1994.

“It’s a good upgrade,” he said. “Because a lot of times the nearshore wind is a lot different than the offshore wind.”

Milne says he’s seen winds change from 5 knots to 40 knots in less than an hour near the Flat Islands, near Nanwalek — and the more accurate weather information, the safer crews can be.

“The forecasts, the more accurate they are, the more specific they are, that just allows you to decide when you’re fishing where and when to fish and where and when to travel,” he said.

He says mariners now have cell phone service on the water and can use weather apps like Windy in addition to the marine forecasts.

For more information about the changes to the marine weather forecast and the zone maps and boundaries, go to the National Weather Service website at weather.gov/alaska/marine.

Parts of the Kenai River are still frozen over. But the Alaska Department of Fish and Game has already closed the early and late king salmon runs to sport fishing — also shutting down the beleaguered Cook Inlet east side set-net fishery before fishermen can gear up.

“This is my 53rd year coming up as a set-netter, and I have never experienced this,” said Ken Coleman, vice president of the Kenai Peninsula Fishermen’s Association.

He said he’s never seen the fishery close completely this early. Fish and Game does release a preseason forecast for the early king salmon run every winter, to give guides and fishermen a sense of what to expect before the summer starts.

This year, the department projects just 2,900 kings in the early run and 13,630 in the late run — falling below the goal range set by the Board of Fish of 15,000-30,000 fish. In a pair of emergency orders released Thursday night, the Department of Fish and Game said that meant it would close all sport fishing for king salmon in the river. Another emergency order closes Deep Creek and the Anchor River to sportfishing.

Changes have been hard on fishing guides who long relied on taking clients on king salmon trips. As counts have continued to decline and closures have become more common, they’ve pivoted to fishing for sockeye, halibut and trout.

But for set-netters, whose fishery also closes when the king sport fishery does, there’s no plan B.

Coleman said his phone has been ringing nonstop since the orders came out.

“They’ve been asking, is there any way to make a change? Is there anything mechanical that we can do, as set-netters, such as fishing less, or fishing shallower nets?” he said.

Legal action and out-of-cycle proposals to the Board of Fish both failed last year.

Coleman said the best they can hope for is that, in the middle of the summer, the department makes another assessment and gets to a point where it’s able to reconsider opening the fishery, at least partially. But he said that seems unlikely.

The Alaska House of Representatives passed a resolution to protect Southeast Alaska’s troll fishery on Wednesday. House Joint Resolution 5 calls for state and federal agencies to defend Alaska’s troll fisheries from a lawsuit that seeks to hold them accountable for the decline in killer whales in the Puget Sound area. The legislation passed on a 35-to-1 vote.

Rep. David Eastman, serving District 27 in Wasilla, was the only “no” vote.

The complainant is the Wild Fish Conservancy, a conservation organization based in Washington. Their official position is that terminating Southeast’s king salmon troll fishery might allow Chinook salmon to migrate back down the coast through key hunting grounds of the Southern Resident killer whales.

The resolution to protect Alaska’s troll fishery was introduced by freshman Rep. Rebecca Himschoot of Sitka, who sits on the House Special Committee on Fisheries.

Many of the region’s local governments have passed similar resolutions opposing the lawsuit, including Juneau, Petersburg, Wrangell, Ketchikan and Sitka.

The Alaska House of Representatives voted 35-1 on Wednesday to approve a letter urging state and federal officials to fight a lawsuit that could shut down a major king salmon fishery in Southeast Alaska.

“This fishery has come under attack,” said Rep. Rebecca Himschoot, I-Sitka, and the sponsor of the letter, House Joint Resolution 5, which now goes to the Senate.

The resolution has broad bipartisan support in the Alaska Legislature, where lawmakers view the issue as one about an outside group attacking Alaskans’ way of life.

“This resolution is much more than about Southeast Alaska fisheries … it’s about defending our state resources and our right to our own fishery,” said Rep. Sarah Vance, R-Homer, speaking in support of the resolution on Wednesday.

Since 2020, the Washington state-based Wild Fish Conservancy has been fighting the National Marine Fisheries Service in court, arguing that the agency acted illegally when it approved a 2019 document that provides Endangered Species Act coverage for all of Southeast Alaska’s salmon fisheries. That document allows fishermen to catch salmon also sought by endangered species.

The Wild Fish Conservancy wants to preserve killer whales that live in or near Puget Sound; that group of whales, known as Southern Resident Killer Whales, was listed as endangered in 2005.

Those whales consume king salmon in Southeast Alaska waters, and king salmon are highly prized by fishermen. Commercial trollers, mostly in small boats, use hooks and lines to catch kings to sell.

McDowell Group, now known as McKinley Research Group, has estimated that 1,450 fishermen — including crew and boat owners — participate in the Southeast troll fishery, which has an economic impact of $85 million.

About 44% of that economic activity is from the king salmon harvest, McDowell estimated.

In court, attorneys representing Wild Fish Conservancy have argued that the amount of king salmon taken by commercial fishermen is so large that it impacts the survival of the whales and prevents their population from growing.

After a preliminary ruling by a U.S. District Court judge in 2021 favored the Wild Fish Conservancy, a magistrate judge was assigned to conduct further analysis. The resulting report, released in December, reached a similar conclusion and recommended voiding the document that provides Endangered Species Act protections for the winter and summer Chinook salmon troll fishery.

That would leave only a two-month spring fishery, which fishermen say is too small to make a living and would result in the effective closure of the fishery.

The district court judge in charge of the case has yet to make a final determination.

The state of Alaska and various fishery groups have sided in defense of the federal fisheries service, and in late February, Gov. Mike Dunleavy said on statewide talk radio that he would appeal a negative decision to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court, if necessary.

The resolution passed by the House this week offers legislative support for the cause and calls on the state’s congressional delegation to work to keep the fishery open, even if the judge rules it closed.

Cities across Southeast Alaska have passed similar resolutions of support, and the city of Sitka went so far as to approve a $25,000 donation to the Alaska Trollers Association, which is fighting the lawsuit as well.

In a visit to Wrangell this week, Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, said it’s possible that a closure of the fishery could turn into an economic disaster, but he hopes it doesn’t come to that.

“This lawsuit is ridiculous,” Sullivan said in comments first reported by KSTK-FM in Wrangell. “Think about what they’re trying to do: shut down this fishery. Estimates are that it could impact Southeast by $100 million for orca problems in Puget Sound. They’re not asking for the fishery in Puget Sound to be shut down. They’re not asking about the pollution in Puget Sound. They’re looking at shutting down our fishery here. Idiotic, and an abuse of the Endangered Species Act.”

The Juneau Assembly has joined Petersburg, Wrangell, Sitka and Ketchikan in supporting Southeast Alaska’s king salmon troll fishery against a lawsuit that could threaten its future.

A resolution passed by the Assembly on Monday night opposes a lawsuit filed by the Wild Fish Conservancy, a Washington-based environmental group. The group says the federal government hasn’t adequately addressed the fishery’s impacts on the food supply of Southern Resident killer whales in Puget Sound.

Assembly member Carole Triem drafted the resolution. At a committee meeting earlier this month, she said it’s important for Juneau to support the trollers.

“It’s a lot less visible in Juneau than it is in Petersburg, Wrangell, Sitka or Ketchikan – the size, and the impact of the commercial fishing industry – but it’s still a pretty big part of our economy,” she said.

More than 550 fishing and seafood processing jobs in Juneau, including those that rely on the king salmon fishery, brought in $27 million in wages in 2014.

In December, a magistrate judge recommended halting the winter and summer king salmon troll fisheries in Southeast Alaska. A final decision from a federal judge in Washington is expected to come soon.

Assembly member Maria Gladziszewski questioned whether the resolution would have much impact, since the magistrate judge already issued a recommendation.

“It just seems ill-timed,” she said. “It would have been better, of course, even a year ago, before the judge decided. You don’t really help a legal case by a resolution from an assembly.”

But Triem said the Alaska Trollers Association expects to fight the decision. The trollers argue that other factors – like pollution in Puget Sound – are more to blame for the whales’ population decline.

“The Trollers Association does anticipate a lengthy appeals process,” Triem said. “So in terms of timing, I think even though there’s been a decision made, it’s still appropriate for us to be signaling our support because it is an ongoing process.”

Several Southeast communities have contributed money to the Alaska Trollers Association’s legal defense fund. Juneau’s resolution did not include a donation.

Sitka Rep. Rebecca Himschoot has introduced a resolution in the Alaska House of Representatives urging federal and state agencies to defend the troll fishery.