Copper River update

The Copper River District commercial salmon fishery will resume at 7 a.m. Thursday for a 12-hour period, but the Chitina dipnet fishery will remain closed at least through June 9 due to a low sonar count.

Standing up for dipnetters

State Sen. Bill Wielechowski, D-Anchorage, last week sent this letter urging the Department of Fish and Game to curtail Cook Inlet commercial fishing to free up more salmon for dipnetters.

A new approach on the Yukon

Commercial fishermen will have a 12-hour shot Tuesday, from noon to midnight, to harvest summer chum salmon in District 1 on the Lower Yukon River.

What's really interesting about this opener is that fishermen can use only beach seines and dipnets, rather than the usual gillnets.

The Alaska Board of Fisheries acted this year to authorize the new, nonlethal gear types as a way to allow chum fishing without seriously impacting the expected poor Chinook run.

Fishermen using beach seines and dipnets will be required to release incidentally caught Chinook back to the water immediately, and alive.

"In the event that a Chinook salmon is killed by these gear types, the dead Chinook salmon must be recorded on a fish ticket and forfeited to the state," says this press release.

Dipnet supremacy?

The House Special Committee on Fisheries will hold a hearing at 10 this morning on House Bill 18, which would give "personal use" or dipnet fisheries priority over all other fisheries except subsistence.

The bill sponsor is state Rep. Bill Stoltze, R-Chugiak.

You can listen to the hearing by teleconference.

Here's a Matanuska-Susitna Borough resolution favoring HB 18.

And here are a bunch of letters from commercial fishermen opposed to the bill.

Fishy bill filed

The Alaska Legislature today released a bunch of bills prefiled ahead of the 2013 session, which opens Jan. 15.

Deckboss looked them over and found only one of real relevance to the commercial fishing world.

House Bill 18 — An Act providing priority to personal use fisheries when fishing restrictions are implemented to achieve a management goal. Sponsor: Rep. Bill Stoltze, R-Chugiak.

Cook Inlet's fortnight of fish

Gillnetters at ease in the Kenai River. Deckboss photo

The Alaska Board of Fisheries is now two days into a meeting set to last a solid two weeks, until March 5.

That's obviously a long, long time to talk fish. But the talk always runs at length whenever the topic is Upper Cook Inlet finfish management.

The board has more than 210 proposals before it — ideas from anyone and everyone looking to tweak, modify or flat-out revolutionize the fisheries.

Deckboss reviewed the proposals and frankly found little to get too excited about. Most are pretty arcane, so we're unlikely to see any genuine revolutions or knockout victories from this marathon meeting.

That's mainly due to the bitter battles of the past, which seem to have created pretty much of a stalemate between the commercial, sport, subsistence and dipnet fishermen competing for salmon in Alaska's most popular fishing hole.

But certainly we'll keep an eye on the meeting, open to the public at the Egan Center in downtown Anchorage.

If I had to pick one area of interest, it would be the proposals from commercial fishermen to restrain a growing rival — the dipnet fisheries that draw thousands of Alaskans each summer to the Kenai and Kasilof rivers to scoop up salmon returning from the sea. One proposal would cut annual household limits to prevent "excessive harvest beyond actual food needs."

Hmmm, can't imagine a fight over that.

Board's task: define 'subsistence way of life'

The Alaska Board of Fisheries today begins a tedious, two-day session to clarify how it defines the expression "subsistence way of life."

This isn't just an academic exercise. A Fairbanks judge ordered this.

The weekend board meeting is the latest twist in an old struggle over the question of whether the dipnet fishery at Chitina should be classified as a subsistence fishery or a "personal use" fishery.

Why does this matter?

Well, commercial salmon fishermen at the mouth of the Copper River, downstream of Chitina, greatly fear a subsistence designation because that would give dipnetters a priority to the fish.

Superior Court Judge Michael MacDonald, in his Dec. 31 ruling, stopped short of overturning the board's 2003 action classifying the dipnet fishery as personal use, not subsistence.

But the judge said the board had failed to properly apply a key provision in state law that refers to the "subsistence way of life."

The judge ordered the board to define "subsistence way of life," and then reapply the law.

OK.

So, the board will meet today and tomorrow at the Hilton hotel in downtown Anchorage to work on its definition and take public testimony. Presumably, each of the seven board members will have a dictionary and thesaurus close at hand.

All kidding aside, this is a hot issue. The board received nearly 100 written public comments prior to the meeting.

A looming fish fight in Juneau

We've got a potentially hot legislative hearing scheduled for this morning on House Bill 266.

Rep. Bill Stoltze, R-Chugiak, says his bill "directs the Board of Fisheries to place restrictions on sport and commercial fisheries before putting restrictions on personal use fisheries when the harvest of a stock or species is limited to achieve an escapement goal."

Translation: Cook Inlet salmon dipnetters could keep fishing after sport anglers and commercial gillnetters are shut down.

Click here to find Stoltze's full sponsor statement plus the actual text of HB 266.

The hearing begins at 10:15 a.m. in the House Special Committee on Fisheries.

Listen here.

A setback for Chitina salmon dipnetters

Looks like a Fairbanks judge has declared the Alaska Board of Fisheries the winner, for the most part, in a lawsuit challenging the board's denial of subsistence status for the Chitina dipnet fishery.

Here's the 35-page ruling.

The popular dipnet fishery, of course, is upstream of the famed Copper River commercial salmon fishery.

While siding with the defendants on most counts, the judge is requiring a bit more work of the board. One assignment: define the term "subsistence way of life."

Oh, that should be a snap, right?

Legislators to processors: Pay up!

The Alaska Legislature wrapped up its 2009 session Sunday and near as I can tell, our elected officials didn't pass very much affecting the commercial fisheries.

Probably the most significant item to make it through was Senate Bill 1, raising the state's minimum wage from $7.15 to $7.25 an hour through this year. Employers thereafter will be required to pay at least 50 cents an hour more than the federal minimum wage.

The federal minimum will go to $7.25 after July 24, so the minimum in Alaska starting next year will be $7.75.

Seafood processors fought a hike in the state minimum.

In a letter to legislators, Joe Plesha of Trident Seafoods Corp. said the Seattle-based processing company employs some 4,000 people in its shore plants and ships, and they all start out at minimum wage with regular raises every six months.

A 50-cent bump, he said, will increase the company's costs by more than $4 million.

"A large increase in costs will make it more difficult for the industry to reinvest in its operations as well as impact the price it is able to pay for the fish delivered to its plants," Plesha wrote.

SB 1 becomes law, of course, only if Gov. Sarah Palin signs it.

Here's a look at what became of a few other pieces of legislation:

• House Bill 20, to expand state loans for energy efficiency upgrades to fishing vessels, passed the House but stalled in the Senate.

• House Bill 207 and Senate Bill 163, to boost insurance claim amounts available to injured or ill fishermen from the state Fishermen's Fund, each had strong committee runs but failed to advance to a floor vote.

• Senate Joint Resolution 22, opposing a commercial fishing association lawsuit the resolution sponsors consider a threat to dipnet fisheries (Deckboss, April 11), passed the Senate but didn't move very far in the House.

By the way, a lot of the fightin' words in the original resolution were dropped from the version that passed the Senate, specifically the reference to the "inordinate and potentially unfair, unethical, and disproportionate influence of the commercial fisheries industries on fisheries management in Alaska."

A resolution carries no weight of law. It's essentially just an opinion or request.

Bills that failed this session aren't dead. Lawmakers work on a two-year cycle, so bills filed this year will remain in play during the 2010 session.