Mat-Su lawmakers anticipate fight over salmon allocations
Published Monday, April 7, 2008
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Stumble It!ANCHORAGE — Legislators in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough are gearing up for a fight over fish because they say people in the fastest growing area of the state are getting shortchanged when it comes to salmon.
As the legislative session nears an end, the lawmakers are hoping to tilt the balance of power away from commercial fishermen and more toward sport anglers, and other users. They are proposing measures that could revolutionize fishery management in Cook Inlet.
“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.
Mat-Su lawmakers argue 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.
People in Mat-Su 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:
Those include:
— Language in next year’s state budget that 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 center. Backers suggest the managers are too close to commercial fishing interests in Soldotna.
— A bill introduced by Green that would 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 in the Senate and House that would 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 in the Mat-Su region. It also would take a look at buying out commercial fishermen.
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.
Community Discussion
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Fight over fish.
Commercial salmon fishing is halted off California. There are virtually no viable returning runs. Don't look to Oregon for salmon conservation. The trawlers of Washington state head north, but one floating fish factory just sank...
How will Alaska deal with and sustain a resource...
With Pebble mine?
Failed fish hatchery technology from Oregon?
These people refuse to see the truth of Valley environmental degradation, scouring floods, northern pike infestations and pressure after pressure being introduced as more ya-hoos move in to collect "their PFD checks" and "their fish and game resources" that We evil commercial fishermen brought back from decimation and collapse.
Shutting off Cook Inlet is not the solution nor is this proposed BOF composition, talk about picking a fight after ignoring scale samples and lots of monitoring done scientifically and NOT politically.
What's the use, these nimrods won't be satisfied until every last commercial fisherman is gone.
Welcome to fisheries management, Florida style.
Maaybe that's what Huggins prefers, being from Florida.
Stoltze is just a bull-headed reactionary and Lyda is manipulating to piss off the Governor.
In the meantime, science and reality are ignored and we are going to manage this resource by politics, what a blow for all the rational work preceding this latest urban hissy-fit.
This is just disgusting and a provocative insult to all the generations who commercially fished long before the new breed of legislators showed up to claim the pie.
The legislature is "proposing measures that could revolutionize fishery management in Cook Inlet," and I do not believe that ADF&G has even conducted a real stock separation study! The idea sounds to be to shut down or buy out a portion of the fishery. Every time the escapement falls below expectation F&G shuts down the northern district, but keeps the southern district and drift-netters fishing! The fish still have to swim past point A (southern district) to get to point B (northern district). It is definitely a knee-jerk reaction!
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