State to talk fish at public meeting Wed.

WILLOW — Upper Cook Inlet and Mat-Su salmon fisheries management is the topic of a public meeting at 3 p.m., Wednesday in Willow.

Rep. Mark Neuman said the meeting was set after he requested the Alaska Department of Fish and Game commissioner and her appropriate staff come to the Valley and talk to residents about how fisheries were managed here this year.

“It is so important that people get the opportunity to talk to the people who make the decision that affect their lives,” Neuman said.

Alaska Department of Fish and Game Commissioner Cora Campbell, a representative from the Alaska Department of Commerce and members of the Mat-Su Valley legislative delegation will attend the meeting at Willow Island Resort, Mile 71.5, Parks Highway.

Neuman said the public meeting is the third in a series of meetings the commissioner is in town to attend. He said she will meet first with the Valley’s legislative delegation, then industry representatives, followed by the public meeting.

Members of Alaska’s Congressional delegation last week joined Gov. Sean Parnell in urging federal authorities to declare a disaster for Upper Cook Inlet Chinook salmon fisheries.

“I ask your prompt review of this matter due to the importance of these fisheries to the local, regional, state and national economies,” Parnell wrote in his letter to Acting U.S. Secretary of Commerce Rebecca Blank asking for the disaster designation. “The region has seen significant unanticipated decline of important fishery resources and while the cause of the decline is undetermined, it may include reduced ocean survival rates or other unknown factors.”

Neuman said it’s important the people who make decisions that impact local people know the real-life outcomes of their decisions.

“I want people to be able to look her in the eye and share their experience and concerns,” he said of Campbell’s visit.

Locally, low salmon return numbers equal hundreds of millions in lost revenue for the Mat-Su Valley, he said.

“People are very upset because of the lack of fish returning to our tributaries for a variety of reasons,” Neuman said. “All sides are concerned about it.”

The meeting will be hosted by one of the businesses Neuman listed as hard hit by the salmon crisis. He said Farley Dean at Willow Island Resort used to make 25 percent of his income on Fourth of July weekend. This year he made $150.

“People deserve an explanation as to what happened,” Neuman said. “Director of sport fish, director of commercial fish — that’s their job to make sure there is fish here. But somewhere along the line those fish are not getting to the tributaries.”

Contact managing editor Heather A. Resz at heather.resz@frontiersman.com or 352-2268.