As we welcome the new year, the fisheries debate continues

We’re going to usher out the old year just as we welcomed it — discussing the salmon management situation in Cook Inlet. A lot of the allocation discussions of salmon resources statewide revolve around the local economic impact of the respective industries — commercial verses sport.

The commercial fishing industry has presented solid economic data for years showing their importance to Alaska’s economic base. All the ex-vessel values, processing costs, and transportation and shipping finances have been documented in detail, leaving little doubt of the importance and value of commercial fisheries to Alaska’s overall economic situation.

Only in the past few years has the sports fishing industry been able to present similar and generally comparable information. In 2007, the State of Alaska contracted with a nationally recognized company with expertise in determining the economic impact of hunting and sports fishing to do a study to document the value of recreational fishing to the state’s economy. The results were surprising, even to the sports users themselves.

One of the subunits addressed in the state study was called Southcentral Alaska (the area surrounding Cook Inlet) and the take-away thought from the study found that sports fishing had an overall economic impact of about $733 million dollars in that one year in Southcentral ($1.4 billion statewide). The Mat-Su Borough contracted with a University of Alaska economic research group (ISER) to tease out the borough’s portion of that $733 million. If memory serves, the study found a direct economic impact of around $118 million for that same year in the borough from sports fishing activities.

Now for our first head-to-head comparison — sports fishing value around Cook Inlet: $733 million; commercial salmon fishing value around Cook Inlet: $539 million. The commercial number was reached by multiplying the wholesale value of the fish in 2007 by a factor of seven to reach a more realistic overall value of the catch and its effect on the economy.

Over the last six months, some interesting things have arisen in print about the commercial fishing industry statewide. First, a recent comment piece by Amanda Coyne in her “Comment of the day” online posting stated that tax revenues to the state from commercial fisheries actually are less than those received from tobacco sales. She goes on to say that the state subsidizes the commercial fishing industry by as much as $60 million a year. This article is quite controversial in the “fish politics” debate.

Second, on July 23, then-Gov. Parnell wrote a letter to the Secretary of the US Department of the Interior thanking that agency for purchasing canned pink salmon to the tune of around $40 million to relieve a “serious inventory surplus” which was affecting pricing for both commercial fishers and processors. This could be argued as just another federal government “bailout” to help a struggling private sector industry.

And finally, a surprising twist was added to this whole discussion when Craig Medred reported on June 30 in the Alaska Dispatch, in an article entitled, “Turns out sport fisheries top commercial in total value,” that the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has been “cooking the books” in a major economic report. The report titled, “Fisheries Economics of the U.S.” from last April by the Department of Commerce, trumpeted federal success in boosting the value of US commercial fisheries while slamming the value of the nation’s sport fisheries.

This information was presented in various forms all over the country as fact. Under pressure from recreational fishing groups, NMFS has admitted that the reported commercial industry economic values were inflated by adding a significant amount of imported seafood value. The total value of commercial seafood in the US was more than doubled by including the value of imported farmed salmon, a commodity which is unpopular with Alaskan commercial fishermen. NMFS has further admitted that the report was written to portray this fisheries financial picture as domestic when, in reality, it was a global view.

Am I “slamming” the commercial fishing industry in Alaska?

No, that is not my intention. I merely want folks to know that commercial fishing is not quite the “knight in shining armor” in economic impact studies statewide — a role they would like us to believe exists.

An industry worth $539 million to an area is not to be ignored; nor is a $733 million industry. Both are needed for healthy resource management. Both need to be strong and vibrant industries. And both need fair allocations in fisheries resource management applications.