A sobering fish tale

I saw a notice in one of last week’s editions of the Frontiersman that the Mat-Su Borough is not planning to provide service to its facilities on the Deshka River this coming season. The borough has a campground on the river and has provided portable facilities, docks and fish cleaning stations in years past to minimize waste and garbage issues and to reduce bank trampling concerns. Buoys indicating “no wake” areas and aircraft landing locations also will not be deployed this year.

An email calling this to our attention was sent to the sports editor at the paper, who then forwarded it to me to see if I knew what was going on. This loss of service could be a big deal since ADF&G has restricted king salmon harvest for the second season in a row to the Deshka and only a few other locations within the Susitna River drainage, all of which are located on the west side of the river. Of the few systems where keeping a king will be allowed, the Deshka is, by far, the easiest and most accessible for the average Valley angler.

I called over to the borough to see why the reduction in service was planned and the one-word answer is “budget.” Or rather, the lack thereof. I spoke with a couple of different folks who confirmed that funds were lacking to provide the full services the borough has provided in the past and that only very limited services will be provided this coming season.

In my short discussions with borough staff, I was told this reduction in service would be similar to what was provided last year. Only very limited policing of trash and restroom maintenance is anticipated at this time. I understand the problem since this sort of work was part of what I used to manage back when I worked in the access section of ADF&G’s Sport Fish Division. It costs money to provide trash and restroom service, plus operate and maintain a campground and fish cleaning facilities.

This is just one example of a complicated problem caused by fishing access issues. I ran into this same problem with the dipnet fishery on the Kenai River way back in the 1990s, and the problem has been ongoing there since that time.

Here’s an outline of the situation: ADF&G establishes a fishery or through emergency orders and such, restricts users to one that folks want to use. Access may or may not be readily available. Sometimes ADF&G will address that issue and other times not, depending on the surrounding property ownership situation. When folks do come to participate in the fishery, they generate trash and both human and fish waste.

Somebody needs to provide facilities to deal with the human waste and collect and manage the trash and fish waste to minimize health issues, provide for a more pleasant participant experience (nobody likes tiptoeing through a “TP flower garden”) and look out for public safety (bears attracted to fish waste).

Parking, whether it be for a land or water vehicle, suddenly becomes an issue and oftentimes allowances must be made to address the increased foot traffic along the river banks to minimize environmental damage, which can then degrade fish habitat.

One can see this whole situation at the Eklutna Tailrace. Those familiar with the “before” and the “after” of that site’s development will begin to appreciate the costs beyond just the biological management concerns in establishing a specific fishery. That’s why most facilities that provide access to a fishery — whether public or private — usually charge some sort of fee. The free lunch everybody is looking for in using the fishery has to be paid by someone. It only makes sense to me that the user should pay, rather than the general taxpayer, many of whom will never set foot at one of these access facilities.

These sorts of problems start with ADF&G establishing the fishery for biological reasons, often with no consideration for the associated social issues mentioned earlier. The landowner is then left to deal with the health and public safety problems caused by the fishery. ADF&G is not equipped to run the day-to-day operations, but can often provide some level of funding to assist in dealing with the other problems.

I applaud ADF&G in its biological management of these fisheries. I just wish the department would also learn to look beyond the fish and consider the social and public safety concerns its “attractive nuisance fishery” has created fo r the landowner.

Howard Delo is a retired fisheries biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. You can leave him a message by emailing sports@frontiersman.com.