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kenai
Starting Member
USA
11 Posts |
 Posted - 04/08/2008 : 18:17:27
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NEW AND IMPROVED "FISH WAR"
It appears that Cook Inlet commercial fisherman are hard at it again.
They are again attempting to convince the public that poor freshwater sport fishing
has nothing to do with their relentless and in many cases, "round the clock"
gillnetting out in Cook Inlet. Commercial gillnetting has been completely
banned in most places in the United States but Cook Inlets remaining commercial
fishermen do still desperately cling to their scraggly old gillnets.
It appears that a "NEW AND IMPROVED FISH WAR" is currently brewing
because the public living in and around Anchorage has again concluded that
the reason they are not catching fish in northern Cook Inlet districts is because gillnetters
are catching millions of salmon in central Cook Inlet before those fish can reach those districts.
Anchorage sport fisherman appear to have concluded that changing the Board of Fish
composition and moving the department of Fish & Game up to Anchorage, will allow
Anchorage residents more direct access to the department and the board.
These changes are viewed as giving the average resident more control over what happens
out in Coo k Inlet. These residents are pushing Senate Bill 284 to transform the makeup
of the Alaska Board of Fisheries from a seven person board to a nine person board.
The addition of two subsistence fishing seats to the board, appears to be a direct attempt
to at least dilute the substantial control Cook Inlets commercial fishermen have exerted
over the Board of Fish in the past. This attempt appears to be focusing in on diluting
commercial fishing's control of these fisheries by pulling the people who make the decisions
closer to Anchorage and forcing the Board of Fish to carry more members who participate
in subsistence fisheries.
All in all this new "FISH WAR" appears to just be a different tentacle of the same old octopus.
Resident Alaskan's have been involved in this "FISH WAR" for many decades. Usually what
happens is that freshwater sportfishing dwindles down to almost nothing and then the public
starts firing off broadside shots at the commercial fishing industry. Senate or House bills fly
through the wind for a few months and then some "NEW" and very great "SOLUTION" is arrived at.
Then the commercial fishing industry goes into "hyper-overdrive" generating funds to support a gigantic
law suit against WHO EVER was responsible for generating the changes. These gillnetter's will continue
generating legal funds and suing everyone in sight for years until whatever changes that were made
are totally dissolved INTO OBLIVION.
End of story.
Mat-Su, Kenai fish war brewing
SPORT VS. COMMERCIAL: Legislators want more salmon for northern Inlet.
By WESLEY LOY
wloy@adn.com
Published: April 7th, 2008 12:01 AM
Last Modified: April 7th, 2008 05:00 PM
JUNEAU -- Mat-Su legislators who say people in their area are getting shortchanged
on salmon are pushing measures that could revolutionize fishery management in
Cook Inlet, the state's most popular fishing hole.
The lawmakers have rolled out a package of legislation to tilt the balance of power in
the Inlet from commercial fishermen to sport anglers and other users. And with a week
left in the legislative session, they're hoping to land something big.
"What you're seeing is a manifestation of the frustration," said Chugiak Republican Rep.
Bill Stoltze, who represents a chunk of the Matanuska-Susitna Borough.
People in Mat-Su, the state's fastest growing region, are worried salmon numbers are
dwindling in the Susitna River and other drainages and they want changes now, Stoltze said.
He along with Senate President Lyda Green, R-Wasilla, and other Mat-Su lawmakers
unveiled a trio of actions this session:
• Language in next year's state budget would close down the Department of Fish and
Game commercial and sportfish management office in Soldotna and move the staff to
Anchorage, the state's population cen- ter. Backers suggest the managers are too
close to commercial fishing interests in Soldotna.
• Green introduced Senate Bill 284 to transform the makeup of the Board of Fisheries,
which regulates commercial and sport salmon catches. The bill would change the board
from seven to nine members, with six seats reserved for sport, dipnet and subsistence
users and three for commercial fishing interests.
• Resolutions are nearing a vote in the Senate and House to create a Cook Inlet Salmon
Task Force, to be composed of 10 legislators appointed by Green and House Speaker
John Harris, R-Valdez. The task force would look at how to boost salmon returns to the
Inlet's northern reaches -- that is, the Mat-Su region -- and would explore a buyout of commercial fishermen.
The heart of the Mat-Su delegation's argument is that commercial fishermen are netting
salmon that otherwise might swim to popular northern sportfish streams.
It's an assertion commercial fishermen and some lawmakers dispute.
Both sides can point to studies and statistics to bolster their argument, but the fisheries
and the science are highly complex.
Some studies say increased sportsfishing pressure, storm water runoff and other byproducts
of Mat-Su population growth and development are ruining salmon habitat, and voracious pike also are taking a toll.
Of the three legislative items, the task force seems to have the best chance of passing this session.
Millions of salmon return from the ocean to Cook Inlet streams each summer to spawn, and
demand for the fish is intense. That's because more than half the state's population is clustered around the Inlet.
Commercial gillnetters, guides who take tourists on sportfishing trips, dipnetters and other
factions long have jockeyed for advantage in Cook Inlet's perpetual fish fight.
In the middle are the managers -- the Board of Fisheries and the state Department of Fish
and Game. Their job is to first protect the long-term health of the stocks, and then to divide
the available fish among various users.
The task force resolutions themselves are loaded with fighting words, declaring that Cook
Inlet sport and dipnet fisheries "far exceed" the value of commercial harvests, and that the
board and department are failing their duty.
Sen. Charlie Huggins, R-Wasilla, said Mat-Su residents have lost confidence in the managers.
"Our people feel like they've been abandoned by the Board of Fisheries," said Huggins, who
chairs the Senate Resources Committee.
The task force could bring out new information on how to help returns to northern streams, where
the fishing is becoming poor, he said.
Sen. Tom Wagoner, R-Kenai, objected Sunday to an attempt by Huggins to bring the task force
resolution directly to the Senate floor for a vote.
Wagoner said the resolution hadn't received a public airing in any committee. He also suggested
that commercial gillnetters aren't the problem with Mat-Su salmon returns, and that legislators
who might serve on a task force have no business trying to do a job best left to the
Board of Fisheries and the state's professional fisheries managers.
"None of us in this group are biologists," Wagoner told his colleagues.
For the resolution to come to a floor vote, it first will have to clear a gatekeeper: the
Rules Committee chaired by Sen. Gary Stevens, R-Kodiak.
Stevens wouldn't say Sunday whether he'll allow the resolution out of his committee.
But he did say he doesn't much care for the task force idea.
First, he said, lawmakers don't yet know how much task force meetings, travel and so
forth will cost. Second, Stevens said he believes the Board of Fisheries, not the Legislature,
should decide how to allocate the state's fish among users.
But Stoltze said his office has received more public feedback on salmon than any other
issue this session, and the issue can't be ignored.
"You wouldn't see this much high-level activity if there wasn't a real problem," he said.
http://www.adn.com/money/industries/fishing/story/367974.html
Find Wesley Loy online at adn.com/contact/wloy or call him in Juneau at 1-907-586-1531.
-------------------
Don Johnson
ccpwow@gci.net
Don
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NEW AND IMPROVED "FISH WAR"
