Here's that Cook Inlet lawsuit.
This is the gist of the 16-page suit, as stated in the introduction:
Plaintiff seeks declaratory judgment with respect to "emergency" regulations issued by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (the "Department") and the Alaska Board of Fisheries (the "Board") restricting commercial salmon fishing in Cook Inlet. These regulations will affect at least half of the regular fishing periods during the most important commercial salmon fishing window this summer by placing significant restrictions on those days. These emergency regulations were issued without public comment or due process on June 30, 2011, well after the 2011 fishing season started, and will have an immediate impact on commercial fishing beginning July 9, 2011.
KSRA & MBRC want to close down comm fish in UCI entirely one proposition at a time. The BOF consists of Four members who are in the back pockets of KSRA & MBRC and with big money backing eventually succeed. Unfortunate but the writing is on the wall. The States system is not looking out for all user groups. Special interest is influencing the BOF decisions.
ReplyDeleteThe link may not be working properly to the lawsuit.
ReplyDeleteThe new regulations are meant to move northern district sockeye (a stock of concern), coho and chum salmon through the central district drift fleet while allowing harvest of Kenai and Kasilof sockeye, the main money fish for central district commercial fishermen.
ReplyDeleteThe expanded corridor can be fished by the drift fleet up to six out of seven days, with one regular weekly opening with no area restrictions, during most of July.
The expanded corridor is designed to fish the drift fleet as a more terminal fishery on Kenai and Kasilof reds, instead of an intercept fishery on northern district sockeye, coho and chums.
The BOF took action to correct regulatory errors that were made by the Department - the real question is why were there regulatory errors in the first place - and why does this pattern of having to correct regulatory errors keep on happening - not just in Cook Inlet but around the whole state?
Unfortunately, the link to the lawsuit doesn't seem to be working. I myself am unable to open it, despite repeated reposting.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is that my blog platform, Blogger, does not allow the posting of documents such as PDFs.
This means I must use a file hosting site. I use one called Scribd.
As regular visitors to Deckboss know, Scribd is less than ideal. In fact, it is slow, clunky, draped with annoying ads. In short, it's garbage.
As soon as I can figure out a better way to bring you important documents such as this Cook Inlet lawsuit, I will throw Scribd overboard.