‘Stand for Alaska’ has the lopsided advantage over ‘Stand for Salmon’ in terms of campaign funding

Want to know how it feels to be laid out in front of one of those big pavement rollers seen on highway projects?

Ask the folks at “Stand for Salmon,” the campaign asking voters to approve an initiative on the November general election ballot. They know.

Campaign manager Ryan Schryver thinks his group, mostly manned by volunteers, is being hugely outspent by a well-financed and huge opposition. As of Sept. 25 Stand for Salmon had raised about $432,000 in contributions in its campaign in favor of the ballot measure while

“Stand for Alaska,” campaigning against it, had raised about $9 million, according to the Alaska Public Offices Commission, the state agency regulating campaign disclosure.

“No on 1” is highly visible in the Anchorage roadside sign count and in advertising, but Schryver says the battle of the signs tilt toward “yes on 1” in coastal communities where salmon is important.

He admits the media juggernaut organized by the “no” group represents a huge challenge. Schryver hinted at an underground stealth effort at work in the yes camp, however.

David-and-Goliath outcomes are not unknown in politics. A good example is the near-miss on a 2014 oil tax repeal effort where a vastly underfunded citizen group hoping to overturn a controversial petroleum tax bill passed by the Legislature came within a whisker of victory at the ballot box despite huge expenditures spent to defeat repeal.

Many of the contributors to the campaign to defeat Stand for Salmon are a who’s who in the state’s resources and major business community.

Schryver’s group hopes there’s enough silent support for more salmon protection, the goal of the ballot measure, to overcome the heavy media opposition.

It has been a poor year for salmon fishing in many parts of Alaska including Southcentral Anchorage, and this will raise the profile of salmon protection among voters, although Schryver admits the conditions affecting salmon this year are complex and include ocean conditions.

The “no” campaign, meanwhile, doesn’t argue against protecting salmon but basically that current procedures for fish protection are working and that a cumbersome new permit procedure proposed in the ballot measure is overkill, designed really to throttle resource projects like the Pebble mine than to protect salmon.

There would also be a lot of collateral damage, such as in rural communities where reauthorization of wastewater discharge permits for community sewer and water projects will be more expensive because of a broader prohibition in the ballot measure of mixing zones in streams and water bodies.

One measure of public support for the initiative, however, is that over 1,000 people have made individual contributions, mostly small, to support the salmon initiative, while Stand for Alaska has reported a much smaller number of individuals but large donations by mining and oil companies, Schryver said.

“They (opponents) have a basic strategy of spending a lot on television, radio and print advertising. We have a fundamentally different strategy, of people talking to people. We believe one conversation with friends, families and neighbors will have the impact of 50 TV commercials,” he said.

To this point the “yes” campaign relies heavily on teams of volunteers knocking on doors and appearing before local chambers of commerce and other community groups.

The “yes”campaign has an active social media effort underway, including digital advertising, although this is no longer as inexpensive as it once was, Schryver said. The group has one media agency under contract, the Element Agency of Anchorage, a marketing and design firm, assisting with digital messaging.

Most of the firm’s work is in marketing but it is helping the campaign for the salmon initiative with targeted messaging through social media.

Schryver hopes the basic message of the yes group, protecting salmon, has enough latent power to win in November, particularly with a high voter turnout expected with governor’s candidates also on the ballot.

“If you grow up in Alaska, fish is a resource that touches you. When we talk the substance of our proposal (protecting salmon) we find a lot of support.” Schryver said.

“Our core message is that salmon is hugely important to Alaska’s economy and culture but that the state’s basic salmon protection measure (the anadromous fish permit) is largely toothless with its administration vulnerable to swings in state administrations and governor,” he said.

For example, for a period the anadromous fish permitting was taken away from the Department of Fish and Game, an agency charged with protecting fisheries, and placed under the state Department of Natural Resources, an agency charged with development of natural resources like minerals and oil.

The salmon permitting was later returned to the fish and game department.

Also, current state law provides no authority for the fish and game department to issue civil citations for violations of anadromous fish stream protections. There is authority for criminal charges but these must be brought by the Department of Law, and involve a more complicated procedure such that only the most serious violations would be prosecuted.

Another argument the “yes” group makes is that while the more complex procedure for anadromous stream permits proposed by the ballot measure is more complicated, and likely more expensive for developers, it would focus more attention on stream protection measures up front rather than having to repair damage later, Schryver said.

“We can look at the Mat-Su region (north of Anchorage) as an example. Millions of dollars have had to be spent in going back to fix road culverts that were improperly built for fish passage. It would have been cheaper to have done this right in the first place,” he said.

“From the broader perspective, we see a (salmon) resource under stress on many fronts and while the causes are complex including ocean conditions we should look at this as an early-warning signal. One thing that all fisheries scientists agree on is that in the midst of these uncertainties the most important thing is to ensure the protection of the salmon habitat,” Schryver said.