Legislature(1997 - 1998)
09/12/1997 01:10 PM House FSH
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* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
HB 149 - PREFER CONSUMPTIVE USE SALMON FISHERIES CHAIRMAN AUSTERMAN announced the committee would hear HB 149, "An Act relating to the management of salmon fisheries; and providing for an effective date," sponsored by Representative Kohring, and other fishery-related issues. He noted this meeting would the first of a series of meetings to be held around the state. He cautioned the public to keep the testimony constructive and not bring up issues of allocation between gear groups or areas unless these points are specifically addressed within HB 149. He indicated Representative Ivan was on his way but was experiencing "plane problems" and should be present shortly. Number 051 TERRY HOEFFERLE, Bristol Bay Native Association, came before the committee to testify. He stated, "While the processes of the Board of Fish are not always ones that yield results that everybody likes, or that you like, I think the board process is one of the things that is unique and very fine about the way that we regulate and manage fish and game in the state of Alaska. I think that HB 149 interferes dramatically in that board process and I think that I would simply like to recommend that the legislature stay away from the board's allocation issues. In talking about allocation, I think that there's a major problem with this legislation in that it assesses a 5 percent measure on all salmon species statewide while the sports fishermen focus their efforts on king salmon and coho salmon primarily. And I guess that what I would foresee happening, should this legislation be enacted, is that the count of all salmon species statewide is just going to keep on being inflated by hatchery fish and so on, low value species and if the 5 percent is assessed the state in all five salmon species, what's going to happen is that the coho fishery and the king fishery for too will become dominated by the sportfish industry. A major reallocation. I would suggest that if this bill do move forward that that 5 percent assessment be made by species rather than salmon across the board. There needs to be some way of somehow or other breaking up or making finite the mathematical application of this formula. I would also just like to offer the observation, or maybe it's a question, to the committee and to the department about how the department would be able to manage a very large or an increasingly large state sport fishery in river in season. And I guess I don't see the department as having the resources that would be required to do that at this time. I think that there are some conservation issues that that ability to regulate (indisc.)." Number 098 MR. HOEFFERLE thanked Representative Ivan and Speaker Phillips for their efforts to bring an additional subsistence hearing to Dillingham in the near future and thanked the representatives in attendance for holding this meeting. MR. HOEFFERLE referred to the fishing crises that was experienced in the Bristol Bay area last year and said, "The Governor has requested a federal disaster declaration under the Magnuson Act to help us -- help our fisheries recover. The Governor has asked initially for $10 million piece of assistance from the federal government and under the Magnuson Act that would require $2.5 million dollars of state match. I know the Governor is going to go back to the legislature to ask for that money. And I guess that I would like to ask this committees support in supporting the Governor's request in securing match funds to help us reestablish our fisheries. We're staggering under the impact of the last season, poor return coupled with poor market prices. So anything that you can do in that regard would be deeply appreciated." Number 132 CHAIRMAN AUSTERMAN asked for clarification on the extent of economic disaster. MR. HOEFFERLE replied, "There have been run problems from the Chigniks all the way up to Norton Sound. How extensive the economic crunch is in some of the areas north of us I can't really say. I know in the Chignik fishery the return is somewhere between 25 and 30 percent of what it has historically been over the last 5 years or the last 10 years or the last 15 years. As you probably are aware, the fishermen in that fishery -- the communities that are encompassed by that fishery are nearly totally dependent upon the fishery. The number of households, the percentage of households in Chignik Bay, Chignik Lagoon, Chignik Lake, Ivanoff Bay and Perryville, the percentage of those households that are completely and totally dependent upon the fishery, I would suspect are probably 80 to 85 percent. They're devastated by this poor return and the poor prices. We move into Bristol Bay, recent research that the Bristol Bay Native Association and the Bristol Bay Economic Development Corporation have conducted indicates to us that 30 percent of all of the households in Bristol Bay are totally dependent upon the fishery for their income. They have no other income going into those households other than what is provided by the fishery. That comes out to be probably 950 families region wide. Over half of the families, probably 57 percent of the families in Bristol Bay, a major source of their income is the salmon fishery. In terms of how devastating it was, my understanding is that there are about 200 fishermen, give or take 20, that fish for Peter Pan Fisheries, located here in Dillingham. When Peter Pan had a payday there were only 14 boats that had any pay coming to them at all and some of their pay was as low as $36. The average boat fishing for Peter Pan finished the year with a $20,000 debt to the cannery. I suspect it will take eight years, ten years perhaps, in my conversations with other people who are much more intimately familiar with the fishery than I, it will probably take eight years for us to recover from this one very, very bad season. Many fishermen that fished at Ugashik this year had such poor seasons that they had to borrow money to get home. They could not even afford to buy gas to get them home." CHAIRMAN AUSTERMAN asked, "Of the $10 million and the $2.5 million from the state that you're talking about here, what will that be used for?" MR. HOEFFERLE indicated that was "still being determined." He said, "This is the first time that there's every been a request for this kind of assistance under the Magnuson Act and so the Department of Commerce is not sure what kind of programs that it can bring to bear on the situation. And I think, very frankly, that the state doesn't know the magnitude of the problems that we have before us." Number 202 REPRESENTATIVE MARK HODGINS asked if the fish didn't enter the rivers due to the high water temperatures. MR. HOEFFERLE said he couldn't speak to the reasons for the poor salmon returns. He pointed out some fishermen owe more on their boats than the market value of their boats and in those cases, creditors may seize permits instead of boats and subsequently, fishermen would loose their means of livelihood. He indicated this may accelerate the loss of Bristol Bay permits out of the local areas. Number 239 MR. HOEFFERLE described types of public assistance which might become available to fishers in need with the help of the federal disaster funds. Number 265 JOE MCGILL was next to come forward to testify in opposition to HB 149. He spoke in support of the Board of Fisheries process to allocate. He then brought up HB 285 and said, "I'd like to see one thing put in there and it's something that is more of a problem than a lot of people are willing to admit and that's outsiders putting their self down as residents to save money." He referred to HB 285 and asked, "How many points are you allowed to get before you loose?" MR. MCGILL added, "I would like to see management get more help and more money in this area. Before, when the state didn't have money, $80, $90 thousand dollars a year, we'd have smolt programs and all kinds of research. Now we don't have any. One example is our herring fishery that before we used to have biologists out there and they would figure the opening when the herring was ripe, you know to call for the openings. Now they have fishermen in test fisheries testing in stages. They see fish around they're apt to get a bunch of fish that are not ripe yet and have an opening when the fish is not ready to harvest. I figure that a few years ago we must have cost -- well the year before last must have cost the fishermen $1.5 million, and of course that (affected) that raw fish tax and everything out of that. It would pay for the extra (management) out there of course. Maybe with a smolt program and stuff we wouldn't have had this trouble. I mean they're coming up with a lot of different reasons that the fish is not here this year and I know when I fished here the water was warmer and everything else, but we're going to have wait another year to find out (indisc.) true or not -- rather they disrupted it to water temperature will keep the fishermen coming in. It think there are good examples, in `63 when they were getting fish early in Southeastern then the earthquake came and the fish just disappeared. The next year they had a heck of a good run." Number 339 CHAIRMAN AUSTERMAN thanked Mr. McGill for bringing up the topic of management. He said, "I think that's part of the overall fisheries (picture) is whether we're managing at first correctly and whether, secondly, if we're not managing correctly, is it a problem with funding or is the problem that we don't do enough research?" He inquired whether Mr. McGill remembered more research being done in the past. MR. MCGILL indicated there was more done in the past. He said, "We had beluga scaring programs, the smolt programs. There seemed to be more people out there tagging." CHAIRMAN AUSTERMAN said, "You'd think with all the oil wealth though, we'd have those kinds of programs." MR. MCGILL acknowledged the chairman's point and added, "There has never in the history of the salmon been a program where they've followed the fish for several cycles to see where they go to high seas, if they intermingle and where they feed at and how much years like this el nino would affect where they go." He suggested the el nino occurrence kept the fish offshore where the high seas fleet could harvest them. He concluded, "I think one of the big things is getting more money for management." Number 395 ED CRANE, President, Alaska Seafood Council; President, Commercial Fisheries and Agricultural Bank (CFAB), came before the committee to testify. He testified in agreement of Mr. Hoefferle's testimony on the economic impacts in the region. He said, "The numbers that I've seen suggest to me that there's some $60 to $80 million missing compared to a five year average, missing from this regional economy this year. I would stress that's only the first dollar, in other words, it doesn't count the number of times any particular dollar may turn over before it heads into Anchorage." MR. CRANE added, "CFAB is among maybe one of the more significant lenders in Bristol Bay as well as in other fisheries of the state. And I don't have any reason to believe that CFAB is necessarily going to be any part, at least at this time, this season, for the foreseeable future, in creating new and additional pressures on our borrowers. I think mid-July we had already written letters to all the Bristol Bay borrowers we could identify and we've been processing a lot of modifications and extensions since then, but the thing is we can only -- the most we can do, or the most any lender can do is to relieve or defer a certain amount of pressure for a certain amount of time. There's nothing we can do that will address the need that fishermen and others have for cash flow and immediate cash flow." MR. CRANE stated, "I believe we in this state are going to suffer or have to deal with the results of this Bristol Bay shortfall and the rather generalized shortfall around the state for many years to come. And I would urge this committee and all of your colleagues in the legislature, and I think I've seen it enough to recognize there's often a difference between politics and reality, but I believe that our state is going to bear and must bear the cost, the effects of this shortfall one way or another and I frankly would like to see not necessarily this committee specifically, but the legislature as a whole perhaps be more constructively responsive to what has happened and is happening in rural Alaska as a result of the shortfall." Number 516 REPRESENTATIVE VIC KOHRING, prime sponsor of HB 149, announced that he joined the committee via teleconference. CHAIRMAN AUSTERMAN asked Mr. Crane if the Alaska Seafood Council was involved with advocating for the Department of Fish and Game's budget. MR. CRANE replied that the Alaska Seafood Council supported increased fish management and research budget. He said, "There are competing pressures I understand, in the legislature, for funds and there are a lot of things I would not disagree with you or any of your colleagues on. At the same time, the health of our fisheries is not a constructive place in which to continue trying to save money." Number 567 REPRESENTATIVE HODGINS asked if enhancement was a concern in this area or only research and management. REPRESENTATIVE KOHRING made his statement regarding sponsoring HB 149, "We have a problem here in the Mat-Su Valley and I think the fishing season that just concluded up here once again reflected that we have a problem here. That problem is a lack of fish in our rivers to the extent where I personally feel that there's a jeopardizing of the sustained yield of that resource to the extent where we might even see, frankly in some of the streams anyway, the extinction of some of these species of fish." He indicated there were "substantially reduced numbers of salmon" in the Mat-Su river drainages. REPRESENTATIVE KOHRING said, "I know it's hard to attribute specifically the cause and it's hard to make a direct correlation between perhaps the intercept of salmon in the high seas or in Cook Inlet but the bottom line is we have a serious problem. And the bottom line is that it does seem that when commercial fishing activity does occur, particularly in the lower Cook Inlet, we seem to see a decrease in numbers of fish. And in some cases likewise when the fishing is restricted commercial wise we seem to see more fish in our rivers up here as well. So we feel that that correlation is there and hence, that's why I filed this legislation, HB 149, to direct the Board of Fisheries to give first priority of the resource, after sustained yield goals are met, to the personal consumptive user - the sports fishermen, subsistence user, the personal user like the dip netter and so forth." REPRESENTATIVE KOHRING concluded, "I and many of us here in the valley are not against the commercial industry. We recognize the fact that folks in the commercial industry need too. but we just see this as a problem where our resource is endangered and it's having a negative impact on our economy and we respectfully request that we get a more equitable, a larger share of that resource and hopefully my legislation, if I was so fortunate to get it through would enable us to accomplish that goal." CHAIRMAN AUSTERMAN asked the sponsor if there was a significant increase this year in salmon returns. REPRESENTATIVE KOHRING replied, "There were select areas where we saw larger numbers of fish, we saw more kings certainly at the onset of the season. In fact, there were substantial kings in the Deshka River and some of the other streams, but on balance we saw greatly diminished numbers and I think Fish and Game certainly recognized the problem too. That's why they, once again, as they've done in recent years, placed major restrictions on our rivers and streams. They placed restrictions on the use of bait and the numbers of fish you can catch. Believe me I had many many unhappy people here that were calling and expressing their concern saying that they could not catch the fish up there that they would like to catch simply to put food on the table - to fill up the freezers for the winter." Number 700 ROBYN SAMUELSEN, Commercial Fisherman, came forward to testify against HB 149. He said, "I wish you'd keep your damn problems in Cook Inlet and not spread them throughout the rest of the state." He then identified himself as a 30-year Bristol Bay commercial fisherman. He said, "House Bill 149 is nothing more than a reallocation plan that was spawned in the Cook Inlet area that has now boiled over to the rest of the state of Alaska. This bill is bad public policy and truly shows the public process adopted by the Board of Fish is meaningless in the eyes of this Alaska legislature. House Bill 149 is strictly a political move by a group of state representatives from the Anchorage Mat-Su area to satisfy a small number of greedy sports fishermen lodge owners. It has nothing.... TAPE 97-23, SIDE B Number 001 MR. SAMUELSEN referred to the time he served on the Board of Fish and said, "I was never out to get any one user group. I have made hundreds of allocation decisions and I can truly say that I made those decisions on the best available information provided to me by the Department of Fish and Game's staff and through the public comment process. House Bill 149 is a guarantee to sports fishermen that they would get 5 percent of the return in salmon stocks. Well let's take a look at Cook Inlet and see how HB 149 helps those folks in Cook Inlet that are in need of sport fish. Cook Inlet sports fishermen caught 89 percent of the returning king salmon, 33 percent of the silver salmon, 22 percent of the pink salmon and 7 percent of the returning chums. These folks are already over the 5 percent direct allocation as provided in HB 149. In fact, HB 149 would do nothing for those sports fishermen who spawned the idea of this bill. They already are catching 13 percent of the total return in salmon to Cook Inlet. I then ask myself, `Why is this bill continuing on forward?' I could only come up with a simple answer, `greed.' In the Bristol Bay region this bill would have a devastating affect on the commercial fisheries. In 1997, the Department of Fish and Game forecasted a harvestable surplus of sockeye salmon of 24.8 million fish. Actual surplus was 12 million. How would this bill address the margin of error in forecasting. It doesn't. If HB 149 is passed based on the preseason forecast of 24.8 million return in Bristol Bay sockeye, the allocation to the sportfish industry would be 1.2 million fish. Sport fishermen, under HB 149, would be able to take all the king and silver salmon returning to the rivers of the Bristol Bay. This bill would basically shut down the entire Bristol Bay commercial fishery during the month of June. How can you people even consider doing this to the people of Bristol Bay because of a few in Cook Inlet. Most, 80 to 90 percent of the sport fishing effort in Bristol Bay is nonAlaska residents. They are commercially guided. How are you going to protect local Alaska residents sport fishermen from the hordes of nonresident sport fishermen. Nonresident sportfish guide license numbers are growing at alarming rates. In 1994, the nonresidents license totalled 227,088 license versus resident license 183,000. And that number of nonresident licenses continues to grow and outnumber resident licenses. Who are you people representing? Nonresident sport fishermen interests? It sure appears the case to me. It takes bills like HB 149 that are driving the subsistence issue and turning rural Alaskans backs to the state legislature." Number 035 MR. SAMUELSEN then informed the committee that the present level of Fish and Game management and funding for that management is not acceptable in rural Alaska. He said, "You people have cut and cut and cut into the Commercial Fish Division budget where it is damn near a joke. Why is sportfish dollars -- every sportfish license that is bought goes right back into Sportfish Division. They're an over financed organization in the state of Alaska. Our funds that we contribute, through the commercial fish process, are put in the general funds. Why don't you give us what is due to us that we've paid in for like you do for the sport fishermen?" MR. SAMUELSEN continued stating any reallocation is best done by the Board of Fisheries and said, "I think we should limit the amount of commercial sport guides throughout the whole state. This isn't just germane to Cook Inlet. It's happening in Southeast, it's happening in Kodiak, it's happening in Bristol Bay." He then voiced support for HB 19, relating to establishing data collection on charter business, and HB 56, relating to establishing a program to buy back limited entry permits. CHAIRMAN AUSTERMAN explained he would encourage testimony outside of HB 149. MR. SAMUELSEN indicated that he had some bad experiences when previously testifying via teleconference. Number 077 CHAIRMAN AUSTERMAN called for an at-ease at 2:03 p.m. He called the meeting back to order at 2:07 p.m. ROBERT HEYANO, Commercial Fisherman, came before the committee members to give his testimony. He testified that he participates in the commercial salmon fisheries and a partner in a sports fish camp on the Nushigak River and is against HB 149. He said, "I think it's poorly piece of legislation. In my opinion it's another attempt to revive the failed F.I.S.H. Initiative. The concerns that I have with the bill is that although it allocates 5 percent of the salmon to subsistence to personal and sport fishing interests, the way I read it is that it could allocate our larger number of salmon species that are of particular high interest to the sportfish industry in this area that (indisc.) primary king salmon and the coho salmon. You run the numbers, and as Robin stated, that could very well shut down the commercial fishery for those species here in Bristol Bay, based on the amount of other species that are available included in the 5 percent." MR. HEYANO continued, "The information I've seen, especially here in the area I'm familiar with, is there's a large portion of the sport fishing activity happens from out of state residents. And I think there's other ways to correct that problem without passing this bill. I think we could, you know the Board of Fish has that prerogative and I think we could impose different season and bag limits for a nonresidents similar to what we do on the hunting regulations. I think another thing we can do is maybe limit the number of nonresidents per commercial operator. In my opinion, if this bill is passed, the people who are going to reap the largest benefit are going to be those commercial sportfish organizations or businesses. The other reason I'm opposed to this particular piece of legislation is because I think it chips away at the integrity of the current board process which is in place and I'm a strong supporter of that process." He then voiced concern about fewer dollars appropriated to the Commercial Fisheries Management Division through the years. MR. HEYANO said, "I would urge you caution on just thinking that limiting the charter business or commercial sportfish interest is that your problem would go away. I think here, and especially out in rural Alaska, there's very little or a very small amount of local residents who are currently participating in that industry and it's pretty natural type of industry for them to get into. A lot of them have the land base, private land in which they can operate out of. They have the basic knowledge and the basic equipment to do it. What they lack is the marketing expertise and maybe some of the business sense that it takes to make that type of business work for them. I think if you're going to limit the number of commercial operators, then you also need to limit the number of clientele or customers they can take. Because it does no good to limit the operation to 10 people and have them taking out 100 customers a piece. Where if you had 10 people or 100 taking out 10 I think the end result would be the same. So I would urge caution on thinking that limiting the commercial operators is going to take care of the problem." CHAIRMAN AUSTERMAN suggested that different areas may have to be individually set up regarding charter business limitations. Number 185 THOMAS TILDEN, Subsistence and Commercial Fisherman, was next to address the committee. He testified against HB 149 saying, "I think the bill left more questions than answers for me. For instance, I was concerned about how you would, or how the legislature would define `consumptive user and their gear' and how does that compare to a sport fisherman and his gear? Another question that popped into my mind is how would you determine the need for the consumptive user and how would you determine the need for all of the sport fishermen? I guess some of the positive things as I read this, I thought maybe that might happen would be is that if you had a consumptive user and a subsistence user and they were getting allocation, I'm sure that you would look to expand the fish board to put a subsistence fisherman on the Board of Fish and a consumptive user on the Board of Fish." MR. TILDEN continued, "Sport fisheries has grown quite dramatically in this particular area. I grew up in a little village called Portage Creek which is 40 miles east of here. In the `60s there was no sport fisheries at all up in that area. There was zero, there was nothing. And now you go up there and it's boats ramming boats. It has grown so much and I think it's kind of an overflow of the Cook Inlet area." MR. TILDEN said, "I think when you look back five years and see how much it has grown and how much more of the resource they're using and if you start projecting, take that growth and start projecting it in a five year or ten year average, they're going to be taxing that resource tremendously. And where does that put the commercial fishermen. It will eventually ace out the commercial fishermen. We saw growth here in our commercial fisheries in the `60s and `70s and we did something about it. We started the permit system and I think the sport fishery should look at doing something similar. We, as commercial fishermen, contribute a lot of jobs I think to the area, to the state, to the state coffers." Number 260 MR. TILDEN concluded, "You cannot have good management unless you fund it fully. Here in our area, we need more research done on our fisheries. I've approached our managers here about expanding our fishery too. we have a heck of smelt run out here and there was a proposal to do a pike fishery here at one time, but there's no research." He added that subsistence and habitat protection should receive more funding as well. "Habitat protection, with all of this increase in sports fishermen, they're destroying some of the habitat in some of the rivers upriver, particularly this year when the river has been extremely low. And there's no monitoring of that, there's absolutely no monitoring of that. The planes fly into the area, drop off their sports fishermen. They're walking around on these eggs. And there is no monitoring, there's no checks and balances here that needs to be done. So we do need management fully funded. We need a sonar on the rivers here so we have an accurate count of how much salmon are actually going by." Number 282 JERRY LIBOFF, Commercial Fisherman, came before the committee to testify. He thanked the committee for their visit to Dillingham. He said, "You guys being here is to me probably the classic and most important single reason that I can think of why I want the state to maintain managing fish and game resources versus the federals." He indicated he is a 30 year resident of the area, he is commercial fisherman, manages two village corporations and does some accounting. He said he is also opposed HB 149 saying, "I think for managers for commercial and sportfish managers in a mixed stock fishery, it could sometimes be real difficult to try to allocate that 5 percent or 9 percent or 27 percent whatever we decide the personal use fishery is supposed to get in a particular river system or a particular area. An allocation between the two, in terms of numbers, is one thing but to achieve those numbers, is another thing and it can be really difficult. In order to do that you might wind up shorting another fish resource in the mixed stock fisheries. For example, in this river system we have king salmon that run kind of the same time as sockeye salmon, and if this fish initiative was in existence and we had to get X number of fish upriver for the sports fishery to catch in kings -- the kings quite often run with the reds in order to do that, you might end up getting an over escapement of reds upriver and an under escapement or an under catch of reds out in the commercial district. So it's one thing to put it on paper but another thing to manage this in a mixed stock fishery you could wind up actually doing more damage than good." MR. LIBOFF also stated that he did not like the university lands trust bills which have twice passed the legislature but was vetoed twice by the Governor. "The mandate for the university is to basically generate as much revenue off that land that they get as possible and what that has meant in the past is basically wholesale, either selling, or leasing out either large tracks of land. In this area what would happen and what has happened in the past when that's happened is we get more competing interest for our fish and game resources." He gave an example of a local tract of land which would effect local subsistence practices and that the university does not include the public process in their considerations of land disposal. Number 363 MR. LIBOFF commented in support of HB 123, which is a tax obligation loan program. He said, "A lot of my tax clients and accounting clients that I've dealt with have used that program, used it successfully to save their permits from the IRS." He concluded, "In addition to specific families making use of that program, it has been a real good tool to convince the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to deal with the state on saving permits. The IRS has always fought to be able to seize permits and sell them due to back taxes that are owed but with this program in place, for the years that we had it, which was for four or five years before it sunsetted last year, the IRS was willing and continuously dealt with the state and individuals to try to do a work out with them. Without this program, we have much less leverage with the IRS to convince them to back off. And if for no other reason, it becomes a very good negotiating tool with the IRS to get them to change their hard stance on this, I think it's an important program to have in place. Much beyond the 200 or 300 people that have made use of it." REPRESENTATIVE HODGINS questioned where legislative process is with HB 123. AMY DAUGHERTY, Legislative Administrative Assistant to Representative Austerman, said HB 123 was currently in Senate Resources. TOM WRIGHT, Legislative Assistant to Representative Ivan, confirmed via teleconference that Representative Ivan would be persevering this legislation this coming session. Number 414 BERNICE HEYANO, Bristol Bay Permit Brokerage, Bristol Bay Economic Development Corporation, testified in support HB 123. She said she is aware of many people utilizing the tax obligation loan program over the last year. Number 447 HARVEY SAMUELSEN, Commercial Fisherman, came before the committee to testify. He said he is against HB 149 saying, "That's Fish and Game's job, not the legislature's job. Our legislators down in Juneau seem to hate rural Alaska and anybody who lives in rural Alaska. We got hardly any voice down there anymore in Juneau and now these people that's making all of these dreams are for themselves, not all of Alaska. In the old days, we had a bunch of legislators that ran from their districts, got elected and when they got down to Juneau they all worked for Alaska then. Now we got a different type of legislator down there. Most of them." Number 477 MR. SAMUELSEN then suggested that Alaska become two different states and added, "Sport fishing has really grown in this area. I'm really concerned. I know one sports fishing lodge, they don't hire from here, they don't hire their guides from here - kids that know how to run skiff and kicker and know how to survive. One sport fishing lodge, his selling point is, he sends all of his guides through Orvis School out in the states, wherever Orvis runs it's school and these guys are graduates from there. And they come up and work and take the jobs away from kids up here. I think there should be something done if they're going to use the resources of Alaska, 50 percent or more should come out of Alaska. I don't know how you'd do it but it would certainly put a lot of kids to work." He then voiced support for the offshore factory trawler fleet and indicated some knowledge about recent high seas salmon interception by Japanese. Number 620 CHAIRMAN AUSTERMAN thanked Mr. Samuelsen for his testimony and asked his opinion on allocation in light of the increasing populations in the Anchorage area. Number 640 MR. SAMUELSEN said, "I think that allocation issue shouldn't be brought up in the legislature. That's what these boards are appointed for." He concluded, "People get mad at the fish and game boys. There's a lot of people in this room that weren't around when the feds had the say so during the old territorial days. It wasn't all a bed of roses when the feds had it. It was horrible. You had one game warden in this area and he was a dictator. You couldn't just pick up the phone and phone up Juneau, you had to call Washington, D.C. or somebody. A lot of people don't realize that. It's going to be good for a year or two if the feds take over, I'm pretty sure, until the greenies take over back in Washington, D.C., and all these guys that figure that'll be a good deal are going to be kicking their asses. I don't trust the federal government. I don't trust the state government either, but I trust state government a little bit more than I do the federal government." RON BOWERS came forward and thanked the committee for coming to Dillingham. TAPE 97-24, SIDE A Number 000 MR. BOWERS spoke in support of the $100,000 provided to Alaska Marine Safety Education Association (AMSEA) and described some of the local benefits that money provides. He asked for additional support this year. GERON BRUCE, Legislative Liaison, Office of the Commissioner Department of Fish and Game, testified via teleconference providing information on the department's budget regarding commercial fisheries. He indicated those dollars are general fund monies and said, "Since fiscal year `92, over the last six years, the Department of Fish and Game has lost almost $11 million in general fund appropriations. And that is a very significant amount of money." Number 046 MR. WRIGHT apologized that Representative Ivan had not made the meeting and spoke about HB 285. He said, "Those suspensions and revocations are found on the bottom of page 2 and the top of page 3 where if a person accumulates 12 or more points during a consecutive 48 month period, the Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission (CFEC) can make determination about a suspension or if 16 or more points during any consecutive 16 month period for violations occur, then the CFEC can also make a suspension and revocation can occur after 18 or more points during any consecutive 72 month period. These numbers aren't set in concrete. They're something that we worked with a recommendation made by one of the fishermen in the Bristol Bay area from South of Naknek, I believe." He indicated that once this gets into the committee process, they'll certainly be looking for any assistance from the Bristol Bay fishermen and also fishermen from around the state in helping to refine this and if this is what they want to see happen. CHAIRMAN AUSTERMAN asked if Representative Kohring was on line, but there was no response for several minutes. Then Representative Kohring indicated he was listening. Number 068 MR. CRANE asked about how HB 123 would effect CFAB permit loans. He pointed out that points assessed through the policies in this legislation would carry with permits during sale transfers. Number 100 REPRESENTATIVE KOHRING indicated that he was willing to modify some language in HB 149. He said, "I'm not trying to be hard-nosed about this. I'm just simply trying to help folks in Southcentral Alaska who are really hurting here, and many of which are being restricted from getting fish they were simply trying to put on the dinner table and fill their freezers with to feed their families. The bottom line is that we here in the Mat-Su are at the end of the line so to speak as far as the route that the fish take. We're at the terminal point here and our residents are just simply not getting an adequate fish in our rivers here. And of course Fish and Game does recognize the problem and they're recognizing it by restricting our access to those fish." CHAIRMAN AUSTERMAN said he hoped for more problem solving at the next House Special Committee on Fisheries meeting scheduled for September 30, 1997.
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