Fish board nixes request

April 17, 2007

By MATT TUNSETH

Frontiersman

PALMER - Alaska Board of Fisheries members on Monday rejected an emergency petition by Cook Inlet commercial fishermen that sought to change the focus of inlet sockeye salmon fisheries management.

By a 4-3 vote, the board rejected the petition, which would have directed biologists to emphasize achieving established escapement goals as their primary management objective.

Worried that the petition could negatively affect Valley salmon fisheries, Mat-Su fishermen and government officials opposed the petition based on the grounds that it was potentially harmful to Mat-Su fisheries and failed to take into account the public process.

In a letter opposing the petition, Mat-Su Borough Mayor Curt Menard said it was unfair to take up such a weighty issue without allowing for the full board process. The fish board typically meets every three years to discuss issues related to Cook Inlet.

“Residents of the Matanuska-Susitna Borough oppose adoption of “out-of-cycle” emergency regulations that would allow the (Alaska Department of Fish and Game) discretionary authority to provide ‘extra' fishing time to harvest additional sockeye salmon of Kenai Peninsula origin,” Menard wrote. “Granting commercial fishery managers such flexibility could have significant biological and allocation impacts.”

The mayor's blue ribbon panel on fisheries also came out opposing the petition, both because it was out of the regular cycle and because of the fear that increased fishing time on Kenai-bound stocks could harm Yentna and Susitna River system returns.

After discussing the issue by teleconference and taking no public testimony, board members Jeremiah Campbell, Larry Edfelt, John Jensen and Bonnie Williams voted to reject the petition, while Art Nelson, Robert Heyano and Mel Morris voted to support it.

Had the petition passed, Cook Inlet fisheries managers would have been able to allow more fishing time to inlet commercial fishermen as a way of limiting Kenai and Kasilof escapements, which in the last two years have exceeded goals set by the board.

The petition was strongly supported by commercial fishing groups, but opposed by sport fishing organizations, which said that mandated closure “windows” in the current management plan enable large pulses of fish to escape commercial nets.

In arguing for the petition, Nelson said Monday that the windows don't allow managers enough flexibility to manage for the upper end of the escapement goals and cause commercial fishermen to miss out.

“That has been resulting in lost opportunity,” Nelson said.

Nelson also rejected the idea that managing for the upper end of the escapement goals would have a negative effect on Northern Cook Inlet streams. Instead, he said the petition simply clarified rules already in place.

“It doesn't mean trying to stay in the upper end ... means we're going to sacrifice lower ends of escapement goals on other stocks,” Nelson said.

Board member Larry Edfelt, however, said that making a change to the commercial fishery by petition was, in effect, a way for commercial fishermen to circumvent the regular board process in order to grab more fish.

“It's not fair to the users and the process to be dealing with allocative issues by emergency petition,” Edfelt said.

Big Lake's Howard Delo was recently named to the Board of Fish and was among a handful of Valley residents listening to the teleconference Monday at Fish and Game offices in Palmer. Delo said that if he were on the board, he would have joined the majority in voting against the petition, based solely on the fact that the issue wasn't taken up during the normal process.

“If I was sitting on the board, I would vote against it and suggest it be taken up as a proposal in cycle,” Delo said.

Contact Matt Tunseth at 352-2265 or matt.tunseth@frontiersman.com