Legislature(2017 - 2018)HOUSE FINANCE 519
04/14/2017 01:30 PM House FINANCE
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| Audio | Topic |
|---|---|
| Start | |
| Spring Revenue Forecast: Powerpoint | |
| HB103 | |
| HB76 | |
| HB128 | |
| SB3 | |
| HB167 | |
| Adjourn |
* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
| + | TELECONFERENCED | ||
| + | HB 76 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| + | HB 128 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| *+ | HB 167 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| + | SB 3 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| + | TELECONFERENCED | ||
| += | HB 103 | TELECONFERENCED | |
HOUSE BILL NO. 128
"An Act relating to management of enhanced stocks of
shellfish; authorizing certain nonprofit organizations
to engage in shellfish enhancement projects; relating
to application fees for salmon hatchery permits; and
providing for an effective date."
4:27:17 PM
REPRESENTATIVE ORTIZ, SPONSOR, thanked the committee for
hearing HB 128. He noted Ms. Decker had mentioned pieces of
a puzzle being put together to help spur the development of
Alaska's mariculture industry. He opined that HB 128 was
one of the pieces of the puzzle. He read the sponsor
statement:
Enhancement of Alaska's shellfish industry holds the
potential of expanded economic opportunities in
Alaska's coastal communities and increased resilience
of the State's fisheries portfolio.
To tap this potential HB 128 allows qualified non-
profits to pursue enhancement and/or restoration
projects involving shellfish species including red and
blue king crab, sea cucumber, abalone, and razor
clams.
The bill creates a regulatory framework with which
Alaska Department of Fish and Game can manage
shellfish enhancement projects and outlines criteria
for issuance of permits. It sets out stringent safety
standards to ensure sustainability and health of
existing natural stocks. The Commissioner of ADFG must
also make a determination of substantial public
benefit before a project can proceed.
In addition, the bill sets the application fee for a
shellfish enhancement project at $1,000 and amends the
application fee for a salmon hatchery permit,
increasing the fee from $100 to $1,000.
HB 128 plays an important role in the development of
mariculture in Alaska by providing a method to
increase the available harvest of shellfish for public
use in an environmentally safe manner.
Co-Chair Foster reviewed the available testifiers in the
room and online.
Vice-Chair Gara asked about Representative Ortiz's
reference to a provision in the legislation about
protecting against contamination or danger to wild species.
He asked if the representative was referring to wild
shellfish or wild fish also. Representative Ortiz asked if
Vice-Chair Gara was talking about salmon.
Vice-Chair Gara responded affirmatively. He wanted to make
sure there were provisions in place to ensure that there
was no danger of contamination that would spread to wild
fish or shellfish. Representative Ortiz deferred to DFG.
His understanding was that a totally different enhancement
process was being discussed. He thought the shellfish were
staying in one area without intermixing. He asked DFG to
add to his comments.
4:31:34 PM
FORREST BOWERS, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, DIVISION OF COMMERCIAL
FISHERIES, DEPARTMENT OF FISH AND GAME, explained that the
enhancement or rehabilitation projects that would be
promoted under the bill would target existing stocks. For
example, there was a King Crab stock around Kodiak. The
abundance level was too low to harvest. The efforts that
would be undertaken with the bill would attempt to restore
the stock to a level where fisheries could occur. The bill
would allow for a restoration of native existing stocks
rather than introducing a new species into an area where
they were not native.
4:32:42 PM
MARY HAKALA, STAFF, REPRESENTATIVE DAN ORTIZ, added that a
definition was provided on page 9, line 3 of the bill. The
bill specifically spoke to shellfish. The definition
detailed that shellfish was exclusively indigenous to state
waters. She highlighted a provision on page 5, line 11
regarding collecting brood stock. The permit holder would
be directed to (where feasible) first take shellfish native
to the area in which the shellfish would be released. She
continued that in some case where an entity was restocking
depleted stock it could take from another area. She thought
there were strong directives in the bill.
Vice-Chair Gara was mainly concerned with protecting native
stock. He asked if the bill authorized hatcheries beyond
the relocation of shellfish from one area to another or if
it had more to do with enhancement that did not involve
hatcheries. Mr. Bowers responded that hatcheries could be
used as tools for enhancements. However, there were other
methods available.
Vice-Chair Gara asked if there were rules in place to avoid
contaminating native fish with hatchery species. Mr. Bowers
replied that all of the shellfish that would potentially be
involved in one of the projects would undergo pathological
testing for disease. The department had a genetics policy
that ensured that genetic diversity of native stocks was
maintained. In addition, the department had fishery
management policies dealing with harvest rates to avoid
overexploiting stocks.
Vice-Chair Gara remarked that he was not a scientist. He
asked for assurance that there were rules in place to do no
harm to native stocks. Mr. Bowers responded that the
department's directive was to do no harm. The department's
interest was in conserving the wild resources of the state,
enhancing them if they became depleted, or rehabilitating
them. The department would not permit a project if it
thought it would do harm.
4:36:17 PM
Representative Wilson asked how the issue was different
from mixing wild salmon with farmed salmon. She wondered if
the state would be raising shellfish in a separate way and
then mixing them with wild shellfish. Mr. Bowers answered
that there were a number of ways in which enhancement could
occur. One approach to shellfish enhancement was to take,
for example, female King Crab bred and fertilized naturally
in the wild, brought into a hatchery where they would span.
The juvenile crab would be raised up to a certain size and
released into the wild. Essentially, they would be
naturally produced organisms that had been helped to
survive a vulnerable life stage. They would not be a
hatchery-produced fish. They would be native and placed
back into their native habitat. He suggested that other
approaches might include moving organisms such as abalone
closer together. Speculations had been made that their
reproduction was limited because the individuals were
geographically too far apart to breed successfully. There
were other approaches as well including back planning
hatchery-produced organisms to speed up natural recruitment
to allow fisheries to happen more quickly. In the case of
the fish Representative Wilson mentioned, some interior
hatcheries were non-native species like Rainbow Trout. He
noted that triploid organisms could not reproduce
naturally. They were introduced into areas such as land-
locked lakes where they could not interact with wild
salmonids.
Representative Wilson discussed the general concern about
releasing them [enhancement fish] into the wild potentially
causing issues with the population. She wondered how to
address the concern. She asked for clarification.
4:40:12 PM
Mr. Bowers responded that the native organisms would be
placed back into the area where they would have been
produced in the wild. He cited the example of Kodiak Red
King Crab. The department was not moving organisms into
places where they were not native. He noted that the
existing hatchery programs were situated in areas where the
department believed straying and interbreeding between
hatchery and naturally produced fish would be minimized.
There were protections in place. He reemphasized he was
speaking about native organisms.
Representative Wilson asked if any other states had similar
programs. Mr. Bowers was not aware of any.
Representative Guttenberg reiterated the information Mr.
Bowers had provided. He asked if there had been lessons
learned regarding overharvesting issues that would help in
avoiding recreating problems from the past.
Mr. Bowers replied that in the case of Red King Crab, some
of the declines were due to over fishing. There had also
been changes in the North Pacific eco system that made the
environment less favorable for shellfish than it was 30
years to 40 years ago. The department had learned a
significant amount about conservative management of
shellfish stocks because of their volatile history. In
general, the department's harvest policies were much more
conservative at present then they were 30 years or 40 years
ago. The department has spent a significant amount of time
working on the issue with the Alaska Board of Fisheries.
The department's stock assessment was better than it used
to be. With regard to other research, the department
believed some of the stocks had not rebuilt because they
were recruitment limited. In other words, there were not
enough juvenile crab being produced to overcome predation
and natural mortality to rebuild the stock to levels where
harvests could be sustained. The intent of the bill was to
overcome the recruitment limitation in order to get the
stocks back to a sustainable level. Enhancement would help
to provide additional harvest opportunity.
4:44:52 PM
Representative Guttenberg asked if the department would be
able to monitor the habitat changes to determine the
success of the harvest. Mr. Bowers indicated that the major
benchmark of success would be abundance or stock size,
which was measured through annual surveys. Even fisheries
that had been closed for several years, such as Kodiak Red
King Crab stocks, were still surveyed annually.
Representative Ortiz furthered that in addition to
overharvesting being a contributing factor to decreasing
stocks in shellfish in Southeast Alaska, sea otters and
other predators have influenced stock levels.
Representative Guttenberg referred to page 9, Section 6 of
the bill. He asked about the definition of a shellfish
facility. He thought the definition was placed within the
definition of farmed fish. He asked for clarity. Mr. Bowers
answered that the section simply adds shellfish to the
exemption provided in the farmed fish definition. The
existing language exempted salmon hatcheries from the
farmed fish definition and added shellfish operations to
the exemption under the bill, as they were wild fish.
4:48:58 PM
Representative Guttenberg asked if shellfish hatcheries
were being added. Mr. Bowers responded that a hatchery
could be used. It was one tool for enhancement or
rehabilitation. Shellfish produced in a hatchery or any
other enhancement operation that would be permitted under
the bill would not be considered farmed fish.
Co-Chair Seaton spoke of segments of shoreline in his area
that did not have clam populations return after an
earthquake. He wondered if the state had been successful in
reestablishing subsistence and sport harvest areas that had
reduced stocks such that they were not available for
harvest. He also wondered about an overly large population
of pink salmon interfering with other stocks. He wondered
if the bill would apply to his examples. He wondered if
there were concerns about filter feeders. Mr. Bowers
appreciated Co-Chair Seaton bringing up his question about
clams in South Central Alaska. They were stocks that had
declined significantly over the previous several decades.
They would be candidate stocks for rehabilitation under the
bill.
Co-Chair Seaton clarified that he was talking about the
harvest of stocks from beaches and repopulating the beaches
- not bringing in stocks from another area. Mr. Bowers
answered in the affirmative. He relayed that the department
would look for the nearest available stock that had surplus
biomass available which would be used as brood stock. He
was unaware of concerns that had been raised by increasing
any shellfish populations to their native or historical
biomass levels. It would be a reasonable part of sustaining
eco system diversity.
Representative Pruitt made a joking remark. Representative
Ortiz responded in kind.
Co-Chair Foster OPENED Public Testimony for HB 128.
4:53:34 PM
GINNY ECKERT, ALASKA KING CRAB RESEARCH, REHABILITATION AND
BIOLOGY PROGRAM, JUNEAU, spoke in support of HB 128. She
was a fisheries professor at the University of Alaska
Fairbanks. She provided additional background information
indicating her shellfish expertise in Alaska. She had been
doing research on King Crab since 2007 to investigate the
feasibility of rehabilitation. She had learned a
significant amount about King Crabs in their early years of
life. She was convinced that one bottleneck was their early
life history. For example, in Kodiak when she went looking
for small baby King Crab she did not find them in the
places they had been historically. She had worked on
methods to rear King Crab in a hatchery. She had also
conducted experimental out-plantings to determine which
habitat would best promote survival for juveniles. She also
looked at predation. She reported that she had not done any
experiments in areas where there were wild stocks. She
indicated that some of the concerns that had been discussed
such as genetic issues were real and viable. However, crabs
were very different from salmon and other fish. King Crabs
were reproducing in the wild. She reported that the goal
was to increase the survival of offspring that had been
produced in the wild. She noted that in some cases the
rehabilitation could increase genetic diversity through the
process. She reported examples of hatchery production in
the wild to restore wild stocks including a huge effort on
the east coast to restore wild oysters and an effort on the
west coast to restore Abalone.
4:57:16 PM
TOMI MARSH, OCEANS ALASKA, KETCHIKAN (via teleconference),
spoke in support of HB 76 and HB 128. She believed HB 128
was very important because it allowed an infrastructure in
order to enhance some of the wild stocks that needed
rehabilitation due to predators or environmental changes.
She emphasized that Oceans Alaska supported both pieces of
legislation.
4:58:34 PM
ANGEL DVOBNICA, ALEUTIAN PRIBILOF ISLAND COMMUNITY
DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATION (APICDA), reported she was also a
member of the Mariculture Task Force. The association had
submitted letters of support on both of the mariculture
bills. The Aleutian Pribilof Island Community Development
Association was one of six groups in the Community
Development Quota Program and represented six communities
in the Aleutian Pribilof Region. She provided additional
information regarding the association. She opined that HB
128 was necessary to bring a certain program out of its
research phase into implementation. The association saw
tremendous opportunity in mariculture in Western Alaska for
increasing access to commercial and subsistence fisheries
and to better understand in impacts of climate related
ocean changes on important fisheries species and building
resiliency to those changes. The communities of APICDA were
heavily invested in fisheries and were very interested in
mariculture development. Such development could play an
important role in diversifying the existing seafood
operations. She indicated that both mariculture bills had
wide support throughout Western Alaska and thought both
were necessary. She added that on a personal note as a
Dungeness crab fisherman in the Southeast she would support
Representative Pruitt's amendment.
5:01:08 PM
Co-Chair Foster CLOSED Public Testimony on HB 128.
Co-Chair Foster indicated amendments for HB 128 were due on
Tuesday, April 18, 2017 by 5:00 p.m.
HB 128 was HEARD and HELD in committee for further
consideration.
Co-Chair Foster relayed that there were two additional
bills to be heard before the end of the meeting.