Addressing the court's concerns

The National Marine Fisheries Service is grinding through a tedious process that, once complete, could form a bulwark against the lawsuit aiming to shut down the Southeast Alaska salmon troll fishery.

Steller sea lion proceedings grind on

The National Marine Fisheries Service has released a draft environmental impact statement pertaining to endangered Steller sea lions in Western Alaska.

This is something NMFS produced only because a court ordered it to.

The agency, as you will recall, imposed tough restrictions on commercial fishing for mackerel and cod along the Aleutian chain beginning in 2011.

A bunch of angry industry players, as well as the state, sued NMFS, arguing the closures simply weren't justified on the notion that fishing boats were starving Stellers.

A federal judge upheld the fishing restrictions but said, tut-tut, the agency failed to do an EIS.

So here it is, a mere 1,281 pages in two volumes, for your reading pleasure.

Commercial fishermen are hoping this arduous EIS process might lead to a relaxation of some of the fishing restrictions.

Meantime, they have an appeal pending in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

Fishing restrictions to stay in place in Aleutians

Federal Judge Timothy Burgess today declined to lift controversial commercial fishing restrictions the federal government imposed to protect endangered Steller sea lions in the Aleutians.

But the judge, in a 13-page ruling, gave the National Marine Fisheries Service a March 2, 2014, deadline to complete an environmental impact statement.

Burgess, as you might recall, in January held that NMFS should have done the EIS before imposing the fishing restrictions.

The accidental Chinook

The federal government today posted two huge documents on its plan to limit the "accidental" catch of Chinook salmon in the Bering Sea commercial pollock fishery.

To see the 718-page environmental impact statement and the 342-page regulatory impact review, click here.