UCIDA explains non-participation in fish workshop

Editor’s Note: This letter was sent to Frankie Barker at the Mat-Su Borough, Gov. Bill Walker, members of the Alaska Legislature, and 30 other people, including the editor of the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman.

Thank you for the invitation to attend the Mat-Su Fish and Wildlife Commission Fish Research Workshop.

For some time, United Cook Inlet Drift Association has been aware of and has been following the commission’s efforts to create a research plan to further its allocation agenda. Aside from the clear allocative nature of the proposed plan, we also object to the commission’s plan for spending $1.6 million of state tax dollars for the following reasons.

Existing research has clearly defined the factors that are limiting salmon production in the Mat- Su: impaired/polluted water bodies; the introduced and now abundant invasive Northern Pike populations; invasive elodea, disease and parasite occurrences; beaver dams blocking salmon passage; warm water temperatures that are lethal to most salmon populations; improperly installed road culverts that block salmon movements; unregulated habitat destruction due to 4x4’s, ATVs and air boats; and known poaching occurrences. There are plenty of known problems, with already identified solutions, that are limiting salmon production in the Mat-Su Basin.

Considering the current $3.5 billion state of Alaska budget deficit, we recommend that the funds the commission is proposing to spend on workshops, planning and research be returned to the state of Alaska. Governor Walker has been very clear that we, as a state, should not spend additional funds on studying what needs to be done. It’s time to roll up our sleeves and get to work.

With limited funding available, efforts need to be coordinated and focused. Alaska Department of Fish and Game has the legal charge and responsibility to develop and maintain salmon stocks throughout Cook Inlet and the state. Fish and Game has the scientific staff to establish research priorities, when needed, and develop work plans to maintain salmon populations. We suggest that Fish and Game do its job. We believe it is inappropriate for a local group, such as the commission, to construct a plan for furthering their parochial agenda and presume that state and federal agencies will follow along.

The commission has not received a state or federal mandate and the commission represents only its own interests.

Funding for further Chinook salmon research was just eliminated by the new state administration. Since the funding for the commission’s plan originally came from Governor Parnell’s Chinook Salmon Research Initiative, why is the plan not targeted toward restoring Chinook salmon stocks? We also raise the question: is it appropriate for Fish and Game employees to participate in this workshop when the commission’s plan would directly compete with Fish and Game and other state agencies for increasingly scarce funding sources?

We cannot condone wasting funds on meetings, planning and research when primary threats to salmon production in the Mat-Su, and solutions, are already identified. UCIDA believes that if this money is not going to be spent on killing pike, eliminating elodea, notching beaver dams, replacing culverts or reducing pollution sources then the funds should be returned to the state of Alaska.

In addition, after reviewing the gap analysis and other documents you provided, we noticed multiple errors and omissions that will affect the discussions and possible outcomes of the workshop. The gap analysis is clearly designed to advance the concept of weak stock management, which has never been recognized as the primary method of salmon management anywhere in the state. The gap analysis also indicates that the current low economic value of chum and pink harvest somehow diminishes their importance. This is an example of one of the many misrepresentations contained in your documents. The drift fleet and set net fisheries have repeatedly requested to be allowed to harvest more chum and pink stocks. At the present time commercial fisheries harvest less than 10 percent of the chum and pink stocks, leaving an immense harvestable surplus.

To convene a “stakeholder” group at this stage of the process is disingenuous at best. Goals, objectives and their rankings within the plan have already been decided by the core planning team. Some members of this team have a history of making false statements about and attacking the commercial industry for more than a decade. This biased perspective is indelibly built into the core of this plan.

These are just a few examples of why only Fish and Game should plan and conduct fishery research.

For all of the above reasons, UCIDA will not participate in the commission’s fish research workshop.

David R. Martin is President of the United Cook Inlet Drift Association in Soldotna.