Legislature(2003 - 2004)
03/03/2004 03:30 PM Senate RES
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* first hearing in first committee of referral
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+ teleconferenced
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SB 347-COMM. FISHING MORATORIA, INCL. AK GULF
VICE CHAIR THOMAS WAGONER announced SB 347 to be up for
consideration.
SENATOR BEN STEVENS, sponsor, moved to adopt the CSSB 347(RES),
version \I, for discussion. There were no objections and it was
so ordered.
SENATOR STEVENS explained that he sponsored the bill at the
request of the Board of Fisheries, the North Pacific Fisheries
Management Council and the Gulf of Alaska Groundfish
Rationalization Task Force. The task force is a combination of
the Board of Fish, the Department of Law, the National Marine
Fisheries Service and the North Pacific Fisheries Management
Council that has been meeting for almost two years with the
mission to pursue approaches to provide harvest opportunities
under the Gulf of Alaska rationalization program in state waters
that does not conflict with state law.
He endorses this bill because he was asked to sponsor it by all
the aforementioned organizations and handed out information that
graphically indicated the growth rates of numbers of fishing
vessels and the dates they fished. In 1985, 2,700 vessels were
registered for halibut statewide and in 1991, there were 4,400.
In 1994, 3,400 vessels were registered and in 1995 when
rationalization was implemented, the number went down to 2000.
The same thing occurs in the sablefish industry.
This bill is an attempt to prevent the instability
that occurred during this period of deliberation. It
was instability for participants... the communities
that were dependent on harvesting that resource, the
instability that occurred for the managers of that
resource. We're now at another period in time, 10
years after implementation of that first
rationalization program, to where there's
contemplation of rationalization in probably the most
complex fishery in the North Pacific, which is the
Gulf of Alaska. There's more participants in that
fishery than in any other fishery in the state.
There's more communities involved than in any other
fishery in the state; there's more species involved
than in any other fisheries in the state.
SENATOR STEVENS explained that SB 347 has two main parts.
Sections 2 and 8 relate to statutes authorizing the Commercial
Fisheries Entry Commission (CFEC) to administratively establish
a temporary moratorium on entrants into the fishery. Sections 1
through 9 establish a moratorium in the Gulf of Alaska on
specific state water groundfisheries that were recommended by
the Gulf of Alaska Groundfish Rationalization Task Force.
VICE CHAIR WAGONER asked if this only pertains to Alaskan
waters.
SENATOR STEVENS indicated that is correct and added that it
pertains to state waters up to three miles offshore.
VICE CHAIR WAGONER led the committee to understand that the feds
have already had a vessel moratorium for about 12 years in
federal waters.
SENATOR GEORGIANNA LINCOLN asked what the difference is between
the original bill and the CS.
MS. CHERYL SUTTON, staff to Senator Ben Stevens, replied that
the CS has no substantive differences. The department had
requested certain terms to be used in the original bill. After
further research, the terms were changed on page 7 regarding
species terminology for consistency in statute.
SENATOR LINCOLN noted that the title was changed, also. She
asked for further clarification on the charts that Senator
Stevens handed out. His answer was that she referenced the
number of days during which a fisher could catch his/her quota.
It doesn't mean that a person could fish that number of days.
VICE CHAIR WAGONER answered that the numbers listed under 1980
to 1995 indicate the number of openings that were given to
halibut fishermen to catch an areawide quota. When the IFQ
system began, a fisher had 145 days total in which to catch
his/her percentage of the quota.
SENATOR LINCOLN said one of her constituents wanted to know if
this bill in any way would create more processor shares as has
been seen in the Bering Sea Crab Program.
SENATOR STEVENS replied no, the moratorium specifically prevents
migration into the fishery and doesn't develop any criteria for
allocation or long-term rationalization plans.
SENATOR KIM ELTON said:
The way I read the bill, especially the definition of
the Gulf of Alaska being north and west of Dixon
Entrance, it would seem to me that the provisions of
this bill or the moratorium would cover two open-
access fisheries that we have in Southeast Alaska, the
Inside cod fishery and some of the rock fisheries. I'm
assuming that it covers those fisheries. If not, maybe
the testimony can expand on it. If these fisheries...
are not over-capitalized, so they could handle
additional entry, how or would they be allowed or
precluded under provisions of the bill?
SENATOR STEVENS replied if fisheries in the Eastern Gulf fall
under 1,2,3 or 4 of the CS, the answer would be yes. In another
section of the bill, the CFEC could develop a vessel moratorium
if it determined it was necessary, but this bill doesn't
implement one there now unless it's listed in section 9.
MR. ED DERSHAM, Board of Fisheries, commented that the Southeast
groundfisheries have been outside the workgroup discussions.
During federal fisheries the state has a parallel fishery and
under the rationalization program as contemplated by the North
Pacific Fisheries Management Council, the state would not be
able to continue to have state water fisheries, because the
effort that would be freed up on the federal side would increase
the race for fish and management problems in state waters. In
order to get their arms around fisheries in the pot, longline
and trawl fisheries that take place inside state waters, a
temporary moratorium is the only way to stop new entry while
protection for the fisheries and communities are considered.
MS. ERIN HARRINGTON, Kodiak, said she supported the goals of the
legislation and requested that jig gear be included in section 9
that describes the gear types. Jigging is another way of
targeting cod and is a fishery that has new entrants. In 2002,
the last year that ADF&G has a fish report for the cod fishery,
54 boats landed cod in the jig fishery. By February 27, 2004,
there were 20 new registrants in that fishery. "A number of
people out there [are] doing what we call prospecting for
permits." She thought that was typical when rationalization is
being discussed. She supported giving CFEC the ability to
implement a moratorium or having the Legislature institute it.
SENATOR STEVENS responded that Ms. Harrington has valid concerns
that need to be addressed, but there is valid reasoning behind
deleting jig gear that would be explained later in the meeting.
MR. ARNE FUGLVOG, President, Petersburg Vessel Owners
Association, said he is also on the North Pacific Fisheries
Management Council. He appreciated the work everyone is doing to
come up with a rationalization program that compliments both
federal and state waters. He asked the committee to not include
the Eastern Gulf in the bill, because those fisheries do not
have problems with overcapitalization and reaching their quotas.
The Southeast fisheries don't have the aggregation of the
species that happens in the Gulf and Southeast outside waters
are not included in the federal Gulf rationalization program.
Lastly, he asked the committee to consider why there are
different fees for different gear types and to let the
participants know.
MR. ALVIN BURCH, Executive Director, Alaska Draggers
Association, said he is a commercial fisherman and owns two
vessels fishing out of Kodiak.
In my association, at any given time, I have between
35 and 55 medium to small vessels, basically trawlers,
but they fish a significant number of halibut Qs
[quotas] and also some pot fish.
I approve of the moratorium, but the devil is in the
details. In 1977, we tried to do a moratorium on the
shrimp fisheries. We had about 50 vessels fishing out
of Kodiak. Talk of that moratorium triggered, just as
Senator Stevens said, a run. Those 50 vessels
generated 175 permits that would have been legal to
fish aboard vessels... because every member on those
vessels got a permit card, made a delivery and became
a legal entity... The moratorium I would ask to be on
the vessel.
MR. ARNE THOMPSON, Executive Director, Alaska Crab Coalition,
said his boats fish primarily for crab in the Bering Sea, but
also fish for cod with pots in the Bering Sea and the Gulf of
Alaska and to a lesser extent in state waters. They have had a
lot of experience with limited entry programs and concurred
strongly with Mr. Burch's recommendation that the permit be
assigned to the vessel. If permits go to the people who have
been working on the vessels, you could end up with an additional
50 percent of permit holders.
4:20 p.m.
TAPE 04-19, SIDE B
MR. JOE CHILDERS, Director, Western Gulf of Alaska Fishermen,
said his members fish combination vessels that are primarily 58
ft. in length. They fish mostly in the groundfish, trawl and pot
fisheries. He said the fisheries have a tremendous ability to
stimulate coastal development in the Gulf of Alaska.
Rationalizing the fisheries jeopardizes the sustainability of
the existing infrastructure dramatically. The ability for the
whitefish industry to be prosecuted in a sustainable
rationalized manner is critical for plants to remain open for
salmon fisheries.
It's very important that this gets done. The reason
that we're here is because the federal fishery and the
state fishery have a lot of overlap. The federal
fisheries are actually managed across both state and
federal [indisc]. The state has a fishery called a
parallel fishery, which occurs inside state water
during the period of time when the federal fishery is
open. The federal fishery on the outside requires a
limited entry permit, an LLP they call it, License
Limitation Program, but you can actually fish inside
state water during the federal season without any
license other than just a fishing license. So, the
failure to close off the state water part of the
fishery creates an unlimited latency in these
fisheries. There is no way to rationalize the federal
fishery, because anybody can pile into state water to
fish during the federal season. It completely thwarts
any efforts on the federal side to do anything. So,
that's really why this is so important now....
Capacity reduction in fisheries is almost undeniable
that it has tremendous impact as far as improving the
fisheries in terms of economic efficiency, quality of
recovery, plant utilization, etc. The ability to react
nimbly to what is becoming a constant almost avalanche
of environmental problems with the Stellar sea lions
and now the sea otters.... The ability for these
fishermen to operate in a rationalized manner where
they can control their rates of harvest is essential.
So, we support the moratorium and we hope it goes
quickly.
MR. CHILDERS agreed that including Southeast fisheries is not
necessary, because they are not at all similar to the Central
Gulf and Western Gulf fisheries.
SENATOR STEVENS directed attention to page 10, lines 11 - 16,
where those fisheries are excluded. The language is a little
awkward because the regions are listed on page 7.
MR. CHILDERS pointed out that using the time period of 1998 to
present is a problem because the federal program has already
started using the 1995 - 1998 time period. Regarding Mr.
Thompson's concern about the fee structure, his vessels fish
multiple gear types and in multiple areas and they are looking
at spending thousands of dollars to register for a moratorium.
He also felt that licensing vessels is important, because a lot
of the fisheries are year-round where vessels are operated for
months on end and it's very common for those boats to have
multiple skippers.
SENATOR FRED DYSON asked what would happen if a vessel owner
loses a vessel or decides to upgrade under the proposed
legislation.
MR. CHILDERS replied that the bill has a provision that allows
the replacement of a vessel if it was lost or taken out of the
fishery. Today, if a person wanted to buy a new vessel, he would
sell his license with his old boat and pick up one of the many
LLP licenses "that are just laying around" to go with the new
one.
SENATOR DYSON asked if there is a way to transfer the license
from an old vessel to a new one.
MR. BURCH responded:
In the federal fisheries, you can retire a vessel and
transfer your license to a new vessel within a certain
vessel length. You can't take a 60-footer and transfer
that license to a 200-footer....
Senator Dyson brought up a real good point.... In my
case, my skipper died back before Christmas [and] page
10, line 10, would give the commissioner the authority
to release that data to me as the vessel owner in
order to get that permit so my new skipper could
continue to run the vessel.... That's something that's
very important; that's something we don't have now.
MS. CORA CROME, Director, Petersburg Vessel Owner's Association,
asked the committee to amend SB 347, section 9, to delete
fisheries 1 through 4 in the Eastern Gulf. The fisheries are not
overcapitalized and don't have an excess number of participants;
they don't have derby-style openings and never reach the quota.
They are one of an ever-smaller group of fisheries in this state
for which one can buy a $50 license. "We would like to see those
entry-level opportunities preserved."
She said that the North Pacific Council took the Eastern Gulf of
Alaska out of consideration under this rationalization program
early in the process, because of the reasons she already stated.
The association does not think that displaced fishers would
migrate to Southeast, but if that happened, it could be dealt
with under the CFEC moratorium program outlined in sections 2 -
8.
4:35 p.m.
SENATOR ELTON said it's important to note that Ms. Crome
represents the group of fishermen that would be affected if
rationalization out west pushed effort back into Southeast.
Southeast fishermen don't really think that would happen.
MS. CROME agreed and elaborated that for some reason groundfish
in the Eastern Gulf of Alaska is not aggregated in the volumes
as it is in other areas of the Gulf.
That's the reason we don't have a directed fishery of
any sort of large economic magnitude. We don't think
that for some of these large-scale operations in the
Gulf, it's not going to be a viable alternative....
In addition, there are some record-keeping problems
with those stocks that we would have to believe that
perhaps the people that have been harvesting that
resource in the past might not qualify under this
moratorium. For example, people that participate in
other fisheries sometimes take small amounts of cod to
use as bait for their other fisheries. That doesn't
ever get landed or recorded and that harvest wouldn't
be allowed under this moratorium....
MR. OLIVER HOLM, Chairman, Kodiak Fish and Game Advisory
Committee, said he participated in the last Gulf rationalization
Board of Fish committee meeting. It was the first time he had
seen the bill and the Advisory Committee has not had time to
take any action on the bill one way or the other. His comments
are on his own behalf.
The Advisory Committee does have an opinion about federal
management and rationalization.
That opinion is not very high as far as regarding what
the federal government has done in several other
fisheries about protecting the interests of the
communities, the effect on actual fishermen that
participate in these fisheries. There's been economic
consequences on the halibut fishery that we've
observed and I think definitely things could be done
better, but we're not very confident that the council
process is going to get us there. Therefore, we're
pretty much of the opinion that the state waters
fishery should be managed by the state and managed
separately and probably managed differently than the
federal fisheries.
In going to the meeting and my knowledge of the
fisheries in the Gulf, the different areas of the
state covered by the Gulf rationalization plan are
quite different in their fleets, where the percentage
of the groundfish resources that are available in
state waters, and the history of development of the
number of gear types that are used in some instances.
I guess having a blanket moratorium... is kind of
premature. I would be in favor of giving the CFEC the
tools to do the moratorium and then to go through the
hearing process before the Entry Commission.
The part of the bill dealing with the vessels'
licensing is problematic to me. We've seen it in
federal fisheries and it may be appropriate for some
fisheries that have a lot of absentee ownership,
corporate ownership, but other gear types in the state
waters fishery don't have much of that and I think it
should be considered up front that some of those
fisheries should stay as vessel operator on board-type
of permits as the state system generally has been -
with two recent exceptions that this Legislature
passed.
There are consequences to absentee vessel ownership
rather than the permit. Processors can own vessels....
which has an effect on who gets to harvest the
resource, the concentration of the resource and number
of hands that get to benefit from it in our
communities and that's the concern.
Putting the moratorium on vessel size in the vessel
category for all these fisheries means that these
fisheries, like groundfish and longlining pots that
are covered in this bill - these boats a lot of them
are smaller boats. A lot of them fish in a whole bunch
of different fisheries - halibut, state managed
fisheries and, with some exceptions, there aren't
vessel limits that they are dealing with. For the
entire period of this moratorium, you're freezing
these operators. If they want to continue
participating in the ground fisheries with their own
vessels, they're not going to be able to switch
vessels. They'll go to a bigger vessel that may be
justified in another fishery.
CFEC has ways of weeding out multiple permits based on
multiple landings off of individual vessels. That
certainly has occurred in other fisheries and it could
lead to too many permits in the state fisheries once
the CFEC gets to the actual licensing. In the Kodiak
tanner crab fishery, what they've done, they've taken
permits based on landings from one vessel and you
could apply, but you don't get all the points you
would get, if you're a small limit landing off of a
boat. If there are multiple landings off of one boat,
they don't get all the points. They have to split up
the points or they decide that one operator gets the
points. That way, when you come back to the point
system, some of those multiple landings and multiple
permits, go away. So, CFEC does have a way to deal
with that.
In some of these fisheries we have a large
participation, a lot of people - not generally the
trawl fisheries, but the other gear types. The
consequence to the working fishermen is that when you
have vessel ownership, that the people on the boat in
rationalization that are actually catching the fish
are probably going to get less money, because probably
more of the money goes to the owner. Less to the hired
skipper or the crew. That's been the pattern in
rationalized fisheries. I think, at least, for some of
these fisheries that we still want to go that way,
because of the effects on the community.
The jig fishery exemption probably we'd hope would
stay in the bill. The jig fishery generally has a
fairly low catch rate that's quite dependent on the
availability of cod, their schooling. Some times of
the year the cod just aren't available; they don't
bite. It's generally a slower fishery. A lot of people
who participate in the jig fishery are also going to
participate in the pot fishery in state waters or the
long ling fishery and would be getting permits under
this moratorium in those gear-types anyway.... I think
you really need to consider that you need to have an
open fishery where people can get started and go in
and out of it at will and I think the jig fishery is
the best fishery that's used for that.
MS. CATHY HANSON, Executive Director, Southeast Alaska
Fishermen's Alliance, opposed including the Eastern Gulf of
Alaska in this legislation, because effort probably would not be
redirected down into the Southeastern area. She was also assured
by the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council at the
beginning of the program that the Eastern Gulf would not be
covered in this program. "To see this pop up in this legislation
was somewhat of a shock and a surprise and it's not necessary."
MR. BRUCE SCHACTLER said he lived in Kodiak for 32 years and
represented himself and others like him. He is involved in
fisheries other than the ground fishery.
Many of my peers drive boats for people like Mr. Burch
and a tremendous amount of the people that own these
vessels. They're gone from this fishery if you put
this on to the vessel. In the halibut [and] sable
fisheries right now the majority of the people are
paying for their IFQs that they purchased. By taking
it right off the top of their crew, the captains of
the vessels are paying for those. If you don't like
it, just go find another boat to work on. The people
who have developed the fishery, the people that drive
this fishery, are the captains and the crews, not the
vessels.
As Oliver said and we found out during the American
Fisheries Act and further, it's real easy to buy a
vessel. A cannery can go buy 15 vessels if they want
and pretty soon the vessels are owned by the very
people that we talk about not wanting to have anything
to do with - this heavy consolidation of vessels into
corporate hands.
The jig fishery, briefly, is the slowest fishery on
earth. There's a lot of little boats in Kodiak. I see
them go by my house every morning and come back every
evening - a couple thousand pounds here, a couple
thousand pounds there. The guys are paying rent.
That's what this is all about. There ain't nobody
getting rich off the jig fishery.
The State of Alaska went out and created this bottom
fishery in state waters for its residents, for these
small boat guys to get out there and pay some rent for
some little economic development. To think about
excluding something like that, I think is a big
mistake. That is the point of the state fishery - was
for the state to come in and manage its own fisheries
not be driven by what the feds have screwed up for so
many years.... I would suggest how about anybody with
the federal fishery can just stay in federal waters
and they can't even fish in the state waters. Now, we
have no parallel fishery. We just have a state fishery
for state residents or for state people that aren't
fishing that never got an LLP. There's many ways to go
about doing this, but just to cop to the deal that we
have a Gulf rationalization program going on to
rationalize the screwed-up federal fishery and we have
to deal with it on their terms is, I think, a little
rash. I just don't want the state, through statute, on
a very short time-line, to get ahead of itself and do
something it may regret doing to its residents....
What happens during that timeout? What about the
people that have just barely entered the fishery? How
about people that are just barely able to start their
fishing, they just got out of school or whatever?
People who have just finally been able to buy a boat
big enough?... What has happened to this discussion
during this moratorium? The odds are that guy is
already cut out and he's never going to get back in.
So, this really isn't a time out; this is the camel's
nose under the tent. You start a moratorium and
anybody that hasn't been in the fishery unless you
people are going to take care of it in statute...
they're done.... I urge you to take this as slow as
you can.
SENATOR DYSON said he assumed that most of the small boat guys
are Alaskans and asked Mr. Schactler if he thought most of the
big boat owners are from the Lower 48.
MR. SCHACTLER replied that he didn't know that to be true. A big
contingency of boat owners live in Kodiak. "But, there are more
and more absentee skippers. Those guys who started those big
rigs are now old...."
SENATOR DYSON asked if he thought more of the big boat skippers
were from down South.
MR. SCHACTLER replied not really.
SENATOR DYSON said the committee shouldn't be considering
licensing a boat as opposed to the skipper on the basis of which
one would encourage the most Alaskan participation.
MR. SCHACTLER replied:
I think it should be based on participation, period,
and the participation by the people who are out there
risking their lives catching the fish, not the person
that may be in Palm Springs that owns the boat.
VICE CHAIR WAGONER thanked him and asked for further questions.
There were none and he said the bill would be held until Friday.
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