Legislature(2015 - 2016)BUTROVICH 205
02/01/2016 03:30 PM Senate RESOURCES
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| Audio | Topic |
|---|---|
| Start | |
| Overview: Salmon Genetics | |
| Overview: Fiscal Effects of Commercial Fishing, Mining and Tourism | |
| Adjourn |
* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
ALASKA STATE LEGISLATURE
SENATE RESOURCES STANDING COMMITTEE
February 1, 2016
3:31 p.m.
MEMBERS PRESENT
Senator Cathy Giessel, Chair
Senator Mia Costello, Vice Chair
Senator John Coghill
Senator Peter Micciche
Senator Bert Stedman
Senator Bill Stoltze
Senator Bill Wielechowski
MEMBERS ABSENT
All members present
OTHER LEGISLATIVE MEMBERS PRESENT
Senator Charlie Huggins
COMMITTEE CALENDAR
OVERVIEW: SALMON GENETICS
- HEARD
OVERVIEW: FISCAL EFFECTS OF COMMERCIAL FISHING, MINING AND
TOURISM
- HEARD
PREVIOUS COMMITTEE ACTION
No previous action to record.
WITNESS REGISTER
JEFF GUYON, PhD., Fisheries Geneticist
Genetics Program
National Marine Fisheries Science Center (NMFS)
Auke Bay Laboratories
Juneau, Alaska
POSITION STATEMENT: Provided fish genetics presentation.
BILL TEMPLIN
Principal Fisheries Geneticist
Gene Conservation Laboratory
Division of Commercial Fisheries
Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G)
Anchorage, Alaska
POSITION STATEMENT: Provided fish genetics presentation.
BOB LOEFFLER
Institute Of Social and Economic Research (ISER)
University of Alaska
Anchorage
POSITION STATEMENT: Provided report on fiscal impacts to the
state of mining, commercial fishing and tourism.
ACTION NARRATIVE
3:31:19 PM
CHAIR CATHY GIESSEL called the Senate Resources Standing
Committee meeting to order at 3:31 p.m. Present at the call to
order were Senators Stedman, Coghill, Costello, Wielechowski,
and Chair Giessel.
^Overview: Salmon Genetics
Overview: Salmon Genetics
3:31:53 PM
CHAIR GIESSEL announced the overview of salmon genetics. She had
actually heard part of this presentation at a Pacific States
Fisheries Commission meeting last fall and she thought it would
be a great topic for the Resources Committee to hear.
3:32:41 PM
SENATOR MICCICHE joined the committee.
3:33:31 PM
JEFF GUYON, PhD., Fisheries Geneticist, Genetics Program,
National Marine Fisheries Science Center (NMFS), Auke Bay
Laboratories, Juneau, Alaska, said his talk is centered on
salmon, but they also work on other fish species including
herring in Lynn Canal and in Prince William Sound. Genetics are
used to distinguish closely related rock fish species and they
had even worked collaboratively with scientists in Seattle to
discover a new species of sand lance from Japan.
He explained that in their lab they take biological samples from
the fish and digitize it by using a technique called genotyping.
The purpose is to understand where fish are caught and what
their potential impacts are.
He went through some National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA) technical memorandum; one was data of Chum
Salmon bycatch from the 2013 Bering Sea Walleye Pollock Trawl
Fishery. This work is led by Chris Kondzela with Jackie Whittle
and Scott Vulstek.
3:34:21 PM
SENATOR STOLTZE joined the committee.
SENATOR WIELECHOWSKI asked statistically if this is the actual
number or an extrapolation based on certain ships.
MR. GUYON responded that he would be careful about what data are
extrapolations and what are direct numbers. He said the Gulf of
Alaska Chinook salmon by catch is an extrapolation. The other
samples are direct numbers.
CHAIR GIESSEL recognized former Representative Bill Thomas in
the audience.
3:35:44 PM
MR. GUYON said the chum salmon bycatch in the Bering Sea happens
in a very large pollock trawl fishery that catches of 1 million
tons of pollock. It's quite clean, but since it's so large, it
also incidentally catches a number of other fish species
including chum salmon. So, he determines where those chum salmon
are from. He showed a graph of the magnitude of the chum salmon
bycatch by year from 1994 to 2013. It peaked in 2007 and the
sample set he would talk about is in 2013 when there was an
estimated 125,000 chum salmon bycatch. Before that there was an
actual count.
He said people want to know what stocks of salmon are caught in
the Bering Sea and they have looked at it in different ways,
both using scales and allozymes (a type of genetic marker). The
scale work was done at the University of Washington and the
allozyme work was at the Auke Bay lab in collaboration with
Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G).
MR. GUYON said most recently they have used another genetic
marker called microsatellites to determine where the fish are
from.
SENATOR STOLTZE said he never heard the Pollock fishery
characterized as "pretty clean with a little incidental catch."
This isn't how it was characterized by the governor when he was
campaigning for office.
MR. GUYON responded that the Pollock fishery is such a large
fishery that bycatch numbers of both chum and Chinook salmon can
be quite large also. In 2005, the chum salmon catch was 700,000
fish; in some years Chinook bycatch has exceeded 100,000 fish.
3:38:04 PM
The next chart aggregated the chum salmon samples taken from the
Bering Sea back to where they came from using a genetic
baseline. The dots indicated that they could be intercepted from
anywhere throughout their species range. Each dot represents a
collection of populations and those were aggregated into six
different regional aggregations.
He said the Pollock fishery occurs throughout the year and has
two different seasons: an A season and a B season. The Pollock
fisheries occurring in the A season do not encounter many chum
salmon incidentally. In the B season, chum salmon are
incidentally harvested. The left side of the chart had a scale
indicating numbers of fish (from a census done in the Bering
Sea). The genetic samples were on the right side. He said a huge
amount of effort - including observers, industry, ADF&G, and
other - goes into collecting this particular sample set.
The next slide graphed 2013 B season Chum salmon Bering Sea
bycatch. Each dot represented a vessel; one intercepted 3,200
chum salmon and that is the number of genetic samples collected.
He emphasized the massive amount of human and logistic effort
often working under very harsh conditions to get these samples
to one lab for analysis.
The stock composition analysis in 2013 showed that 15 percent of
the fish were caught from Southeast Asia stocks; 45 percent of
the sample came from Northeast Asia (Russia). This shows that
about 60 percent of the chum salmon that were encountered in
2013 were derived from Asian stocks. Forty percent were derived
from North American stocks.
As geneticists, Mr. Guyon said, they take the proportions and
extrapolate them based on the size of the bycatch. So, in 2013,
the size of the bycatch was 126,000 fish and those proportions
can be multiplied to get more estimates. For example, about
24,000 fish were estimated to be intercepted from Western Alaska
in 2013.
SENATOR STOLTZE asked what the department does with that
information, because the state has policies that promote the
coastal communities' involvement in the Community Development
quota Program (CDQs) in these larger operations. Those same
coastal communities, maybe not the same participants, spend
research money and attention on those chum and King salmon
deficiencies. He asked how this scientific information is used
to make political decisions on what is good for the Western
Alaska communities.
MR. GUYON said they work the data through the North Pacific
Fisheries Management Council (NPFMC) process, which has led to
Amendments 91, 93, and 97 that have gone into the different
fishery management plans.
3:42:57 PM
SENATOR STOLTZE asked how his data gets to decisions made in-
state for Alaskan interests. For instance, there is a bill that
will enhance the ease of loans for large vessels for ground
fisheries. At the same time the state is investing large amounts
of money in trying to re-propagate and research chum and King
salmon.
3:43:50 PM
MR. GUYON answered that data he produces goes through the
Council process that works very closely with ADF&G. He would
highlight some of the connections and synergies they have with
the state along the way.
SENATOR MICCICHE asked if the mean is 165,000 fish and asked him
they can encourage more of the 24,000 number in 2012.
MR. GUYON said the median may have been a better statistic,
because it was driven in large part by the 700,000 number in
2005. Bycatch was pretty stable over a number of years, but that
165,000 number did cause a lot of concerns. As a geneticist he
tries to develop the genetics program so that it levels out
bycatch throughout the entire process.
SENATOR MICCICHE asked if Chinook/coho salmon bycatch
distribution is similar to the chum. Were they heavy years for
bycatch or heavy years for a specific species?
3:46:40 PM
MR. GUYON answered that the heavy year for chum salmon was in
2005 and the heavy year for Chinook was in 2007. He said they do
stock compositions based on time and area strata within the
Bering Sea to better understand where particular stocks of fish
are so that might help potential management actions. This is
difficult to do, because they are doing stock composition on
fish they are trying not to catch.
He highlighted a project with the ADF&G, the University of
Alaska, and the Western Alaska Salmon Coalition that tried to
further differentiate chum salmon in Western Alaska which are
quite homogenous and difficult to separate, to understand
impacts to the Yukon-Kuskokwim and other rivers in Western
Alaska.
SENATOR WIELECHOWSKI asked him to put the number of salmon in
peak years (500,000 or 600,000 fish) into some sort of
perspective. He asked if they can actually trace the genetics to
particular streams. In terms of global bycatch for chum salmon,
does he have any sense of how much chum salmon are being caught
globally on a yearly basis?
MR. GUYON answered the first question: they don't take an
individual fish and allocate it to an individual stream. The
aggregations becomes more accurate the larger the aggregations
are, because they are genetically more similar. So, they have
been partitioned to the six large groupings rather than an
individual stream.
With regard to the total number of chum salmon around the world,
one of their statistics, working with the North Pacific
Anadromous Fish Commission, is hatchery releases that are
associated with chum salmon. Those releases are in the billions.
He didn't know what the returns are. For both the Chinook and
chum, which are the two salmon species that are intercepted, the
council has done both economic and biologic analyses to
understand the impacts to Western Alaska. He could get the
council links to those particular sites as he provided data to
them.
3:49:17 PM
MR. GUYON pointed out a link to the Chinook salmon bycatch data
from 2014 Bering Sea Walleye Pollock Trawl fishery to download
the report. This report was led by Chuck Guthrie and Hanhvan
Nguyen. The next slide represented the Pollock fishery in the
Bering Sea that intercepts chum and Chinook salmon. It graphed
the Chinook salmon bycatch from 1992 to 2014. The A season is
the spring season and the B season is the fall season for
catching Pollock. These statistics were provided through the
National Marine Fishery Service Regional Office in Juneau. Work
was done using scale pattern analysis and genetic analysis by
the University of Washington, the ADF&G and the NMFS He wanted
to understand the impacted stocks. Between all the different
techniques and organizations the stock compositions are
generally in very good agreement, he said.
The baseline used for Chinook salmon is a SNIP baseline, a type
of genetic marker, and each dot represents an individual
population that have been genotyped and then aggregated based on
their genetic similarities. They have been aggregated into 11
different stock groupings.
Like with chum salmon, the next slide graphed the different
weeks of the Chinook salmon Bering Sea bycatch throughout the
2014 fishery with dots representing genetic samples that were
collected. Again he said this represents a massive amount of
work from a large number of people. He also cautioned that data
for seven years was collected differently from one year to the
next. The graph shows about 50 percent of the samples were
derived from coastal Western Alaska in 2014. These particular
groupings represent river systems that flow into the Bering Sea.
So, the largest proportion of fish that are being caught in the
Bering Sea are from river systems that flow into the Bering Sea.
Stocks from throughout the species range are intercepted in this
particular fishery.
This is different than the genetic analysis led by the same two
people of the Chinook salmon bycatch in the 2014 Gulf of Alaska
Trawl fishery that just came out a few weeks ago. It has a small
but considerable Pollock fishery, rock fish and Arrowtooth
flounder trawl fisheries that also intercept Chinook salmon as
bycatch. Again he determined where they are from.
SENATOR STOLTZE asked if an acceptable amount of bycatch is
sustainable, although Alaska doesn't have any decision making
ability on it. How could Alaskan interests be manifested?
3:54:36 PM
MR. GUYON answered that as geneticists they provide information
which goes through a council process, which goes through and
identifies using economic and biological modeling to assess the
potential impacts that helps with ruling making activity.
SENATOR COGHILL asked if there is an overlay of Yukon River chum
and Chinook bycatch.
MR. GUYON said he would show one of the differences between them
in a previous graph.
3:57:35 PM
He went back to chart of the Chinook salmon that were
intercepted in the Bering Sea during the A and B seasons of the
Pollock fishery. Chinook salmon was intercepted in both seasons.
Chum salmon were not intercepted in the A season, but they were
intercepted in the B season.
SENATOR COGHILL said his point is that on the Lower Yukon when
it was time to catch fish, the Kings were forbidden except for
catch and release, and it was exceedingly difficult. For them to
run so differently in the bycatch time means to him that
something is happening at the near coast.
Mr. Guyon explained that for the Pollock fishery in the Gulf of
Alaska the bycatch was estimated with help from the ADF&G and
University of Washington and other was work done by the NMFS.
The data they get from both different types of analysis are very
similar, which is good. He explained that in the Gulf of Alaska,
collecting samples and estimating bycatch is done differently.
This is because observers are deployed differently than in the
Bering Sea, where the vessels are larger and there is more room
to put the samples. In the Gulf, the vessels are smaller and so
it's more difficult to put people on them. Therefore, genetic
samples are taken from a systematic random sampling from
particular cruises. From these samples a weighted estimate (by
time and space) is produced for the entire catch.
3:59:25 PM
SENATOR MICCICHE asked if one could assume that the reason the
other three species of Pacific salmon are not a bycatch problem
is because they aren't there while the Pollock fisheries are
happening, or is there some other reason.
MR. GUYON answered that is not his area of expertise, but it may
have something to do with how the fish are intercepted. Are the
salmon interacting with the Pollock? Are the salmon above the
Pollock and being intercepted by the net as the net is going
down or coming up? There may be differences in life strategies
between the different fish of where they are being intercepted,
especially at the distance they are from the shore.
4:00:42 PM
He continued that in the Gulf of Alaska it's generally a Chinook
salmon bycatch issue. Not many chum salmon are intercepted
there, although his last report contains a sample set of chum
salmon from the Gulf. Using weighted techniques, which are
developed in coordination with Bill Templin's group at ADF&G, he
graphed the stock compositions in the Gulf of Alaska for the
various years. Again he cautioned that samples were collected
differently. Anyhow, he said the salmon that are encountered in
the Gulf are different than the ones encountered in the Bering
Sea.
The last two slides were of other trawl fisheries in the Gulf
including a rockfish trawl fishery. An area off of Kodiak is
part of that fishery, and industry voluntarily collected samples
and sent them to the Auke Bay lab for analysis. Based on these
census they produced a stock composition, which is suggestive of
fish from the West Coast of the United State, British Columbia
and the Gulf of Alaska flowing stock.
4:02:22 PM
Likewise, there is also an Arrowtooth flounder trawl fishery for
which industry volunteered to collect samples. In 2014 it was
the majority of fish that were sampled and sent to the lab. It
had the same type of result and the map showed where the
fisheries are occurring.
The last slide was an acknowledgement of all the people he works
with, the North Pacific Groundfish and Halibut Observer Program
that provides amazing sample sets, the people in ADF&G, and two
groups that provided rock fish and Arrowtooth flounder samples.
The genetic part is funded by the NMPFS, the Alaska Sustainable
Salmon Fund, and a non-federal match by the North Pacific
Fisheries Research Foundation, an industry group.
CHAIR GIESSEL thanked him and invited Mr. Templin to give his
presentation.
4:04:05 PM
BILL TEMPLIN, Principal Fisheries Geneticist, Gene Conservation
Laboratory, Division of Commercial Fisheries, Alaska Department
of Fish and Game (ADF&G), Anchorage, Alaska, said he often
receives the question, why does ADF&G have a genetics lab. It's
mainly because their job is to help the department achieve its
mission, which is to protect, maintain, improve and manage the
fish and game and aquatic plant resources of the state. This is
done so that they can develop in the best interest of the
economy and the wellbeing of the people of the state. They have
to figure out how to balance things like protecting and
maintaining with improving and managing. Genetics technology can
be used to address information needs as well as to make
decisions on things like hatchery permitting and human uses.
The lab's services generally fall into four categories:
understanding the resource, developing the capabilities for
management using rapidly increasing technology available through
genetics. They also use the information they gain to help assess
genetic risk (one of their main responsibilities in a permitting
setting), and they use this information to inform and assess
management actions. So, after the fact or in-season they can use
information provided through genetics to actually manage the
resource.
Some questions they receive are:
Did exposure to oil cause genetic injury? - this is in reference
to the effects of the oil spill in Prince William Sound. What
species of salmon is this? - this is in reference to receiving
samples from putative Atlantic salmon captured in Alaska waters.
Is this crab a hybrid? Which brood stock are these hatchery
salmon from? What is the genetic structure of these populations?
- this is in reference to developing new information on coho
salmon in Cook Inlet. Where are the fish going? - Chinook salmon
in the Yukon River is a good example, as fish pass the Pilot
Station test fishery. They get samples and run them in-season,
which allows them to estimate the Canadian component to get a
sense of what how to meet treaty needs. Finally, more locally,
whose fish are being harvested? An example would be the Chinook
salmon harvested in Southeast Alaska under the Pacific Salmon
Treaty.
4:08:45 PM
He gave four examples:
Red king crab are an important resource for the State of Alaska.
They occur throughout the North Pacific and the Bering Sea; a
good portion extends over Southeast Alaska. In order to provide
information for management of this resource, they took samples
from populations across the state from Southeast and into
Bristol Bay near the Pribiloffs, in Norton Sound and the
Aleutians, as well as from the Okhotsk Sea.
CHAIR GIESSEL recognized Senator Huggins in the audience.
4:09:53 PM
He said a way of looking at genetic relationships is by using a
map of genetic space rather than geography. The closer any two
(population) points are the more similar they are and the
further apart they are the more distinct they are genetically.
The map inset from Southeast Alaska had red dots very close
together, but genetically there was some distance among them.
One of the blue dots came from the Aleutians, one from Norton
Sound and one from Russia.
He pointed out that a red dot in the upper left hand corner was
from Seymour Canal. So, the largest distinctions among red King
crab populations in this data set come from the smallest area of
collection within Southeast Alaska. Looking across the range of
the species, each dot indicates a population and its measure of
genetic diversity. So, basically one sees a trend moving from
west to east that is decreasing in genetic diversity within
populations.
MR. TEMPLIN said the implications of the study are:
1. The understanding of the historical contingencies that led to
this population structure, which also helps them understand what
might happen in the future, especially in changing climates and
landscapes, and human activities.
2. It lets them know that the red King crab might in some areas
be managed on a much smaller geographic area and in other areas
in a much larger geographic area.
3. It provides information on human activities. An on-going
program looks at hatchery supplementation of red King crab
stocks. So, this information can be used to guide permitting
decisions.
4. It allows development of capabilities. Without the baseline
for Chinook salmon in the North Pacific that Dr. Guyon spoke
about none of that work that he showed would be possible;
likewise none of the smaller amounts of work in Cook Inlet or
Copper River or on the Yukon, or elsewhere, would be possible.
So, the effort to put together this large coast-wide baseline
developed capabilities for the state and for many other agencies
- including international groups.
In order to do this, Mr. Templin said they had to work with
international colleagues through the North Pacific Anadromous
Fish Commission to get samples from throughout the range. They
also worked with colleagues in the Pacific Salmon Commission
arena up and down the West Coast and in British Columbia, which
provides information and samples from the eastern side of the
species range.
MR. TEMPLIN showed a map of all 172 populations put together
colored by regional grouping. If this is all thrown together
into a "tree" each dot corresponds to a place on the map. This
difference between populations is measured using different
branches. The map indicates that populations from some areas
group together and in other areas populations are far apart. He
pointed out that Western Alaska, Norton Sound down to Bristol
Bay are genetically very similar to each other but
geographically very disparate. It's the same on the Yukon River,
and this is the kind of information they use for meeting treaty
needs on the Yukon River.
4:14:50 PM
It also helps them integrate with federal marine studies where
juvenile salmon are captured. This information is used to get a
sense of where juvenile salmon leaving these rivers are going
and combining that with ecological studies to get a sense of
what the survivals will be in the next four or five years.
SENATOR MICCICHE said the river system distribution in Northwest
Western Alaska where the yellow boxes congregate and Southeast
Alaska have a similar coast distance, but they seem to be all
over the place. He asked what he attributes that to.
MR. TEMPLIN answered that there are a couple of theories out
there. One has to do the fact that most of the area was covered
with glaciers and there could be no salmon. The recolonization
of rivers over time, whether they came from the south or the
west coupled with the amount of time the area had been open,
contributed to a lot of geographic variability, and glaciers
affected some areas more than others. In Southeast Alaska, he
surmised, they are seeing the effect of colonization, recently
receding glaciers and the expansion from populations down south,
which have a much larger reserve of genetic diversity during the
glacial maximum than the group out to the west in the Bering Sea
and Russia areas.
4:17:08 PM
Using that information in combination with federal studies and
international colleagues - Russians and Japanese high seas
programs through the North Pacific Anadromous Fish Commission -
the stock compositions are boiled down (on the right) and that
gives them a sense of Chinook salmon movements during time and
across seasons in the Gulf of Alaska and Bering Sea.
4:17:48 PM
MR. TEMPLIN addressed managing hatcheries and said there are
five populations, but over time they come to equilibrium (slides
17-32 show cartoons of genetic risk assessment variables).
Samples are taken from one of these populations and are
reproduced in a hatchery and these are released for harvest. But
over time, if the fish are constantly going back into the
hatchery, there is a different selection pressure and the
expectation is that the fish become domesticated over time.
However, if the hatchery fish stray into other populations,
those populations become more and more like the hatchery fish.
He said it would be so much better if they had some information,
so they went to Prince William Sound (PWS) and got chum DNA
samples for the population prior to the hatchery and samples
from today. They looked for a change in that population across
time to see whether that hatchery had an effect.
SENATOR STOLTZE asked if "wild" is a scientific term, since it
is used widely as a marketing term, and what the differentiation
is between a hatchery fish that is out there on its own versus a
"wild" fish.
MR. TEMPLIN said a lot of people ask that. Generally, in a
situation where the fish have come from a natural system but may
have had hatchery influence they use the term "natural." In a
place where there has been no hatchery influence they might call
them "wild." There are no hard and fast rules.
MR. TEMPLIN went on to explain that the effects they have
measured from this program in Prince William Sound study show
that the natural populations in streams have not changed
appreciably by being in the presence of the hatchery. Whether
you call them "wild" or "natural" is a decision that hasn't been
made yet. They are called "wild" under the state's Hatchery Wild
Program, a large scale study of the pink and chum salmon
hatcheries in Prince William Sound and the chum salmon
hatcheries in Southeast Alaska.
4:23:09 PM
SENATOR MICCICHE asked why then do fish stray if strict controls
are used.
MR. TEMPLIN answered that there are several answers for that.
One is that straying is a fundamental life history strategy for
salmon. They return generally to the place where they were
spawned; it provides an advantage to those fish that return
because it was at least good enough when they were born to
provide for their children. But straying is also a fundamental
opportunistic life history where a fish takes the bet that maybe
he will find a place that has less competition or is better in
some way. There is no controlling fish returning to these
streams - no weirs of fish gates - so they rely upon the biology
of the species, in general, to return to where it was born.
Then through genetics policy, some hatcheries are sited away
from other salmon streams of similar species, like in Southeast
Alaska where Chinook salmon hatcheries are sited away from the
sensitive areas where natural production occurs. In places like
PWS or Cook Inlet an integrated system is used whereby
hatcheries are sited right next to the stream where stock
originally came from to reduce the effect of straying.
SENATOR MICCICHE asked if the straying incidents of an imprinted
outgoing smolt from a river system is higher with hatchery fish
than with the natural population, because the diagram seems to
suggest that.
MR. TEMPLIN answered yes, but they don't have natural stray rate
information right now, because it would be hard to control and
expensive to do. However, the stray rate from a hatchery can be
measured, because all hatchery fish in PWS are marked with an
otolith (ear bone) mark. It is however, too expensive to conduct
this analysis stream by stream.
SENATOR STOLTZE asked if any area of the state is lacking in
genetic information - if he could pick a weak spot of state
management.
MR. TEMPLIN answered that is difficult, because there are places
where they don't have information, but those places don't
necessarily have a management need. As management needs arise or
as the importance of an issue arises they begin to put a study
in place, much like in Cook Inlet over the last three years. Up
until 2012 there wasn't a real driving need to spend money and
resources on developing coho salmon capabilities there, but
since then they have devoted a lot of time and effort and made a
lot of progress towards developing the baselines and doing the
application to fisheries.
SENATOR STOLTZE remarked that the driving need came from the
Mat-Su Valley delegation and Southcentral folks; it didn't come
from other areas of the state or the department.
4:28:45 PM
MR. TEMPLIN continued that study implied that the population
structure PWS chum salmon populations has not visibly eroded.
However, an introgression (insertion of hatchery genes into the
wild population gene pools) was measured indicating that both
distance from the hatchery and life history can affect that
introgression rate.
He pointed out that the West Salmon Stock Identification Program
(WSSIP) is a large program funded by the state that rose out
Area M interception fisheries, which affect a large group of
people in Western Alaska. The idea was that genetics might be
able to help out with resolving this issue. Senator Ted Stevens
said he would provide his political support to fund a large
scale collaborative genetic stock identification study if all
the stakeholders could get together on the necessary
information, the study design, and the results, so that they
were all working together whether or not they agreed on the
answers. And a large group of people and organizations did join
including Native associations, fishing associations, and local
municipalities. While there is still a lot of interpretation on
what the results mean there has been no argument on the science
because everyone was involved and agreed to the numbers.
For a sense of scale, this study encompassed 3300 kilometers of
coastline, the equivalent of either the west or the east coast
of the United States. It involved large numbers of fish: 74,000
individual chum salmon and 82,000 sockeye in a year and a half,
where previously the samples were around 5,000. It answered
questions like what stocks are caught in the fishery, how many
fish were caught, or what fishery catches my stock.
The flag ship is the Port Moller test fishery, which occurs in-
season and provides real-time information that is useful to
managers, fishermen and to processors. The information is turned
around very quickly prior to fish actually arriving in the
districts. It answers questions like what stocks are coming
through or are there still a lot of Kvichak fish coming in. This
information gets picked up in the trades that publish up-to-date
information on fish movements. Thanks to the Port Moller Test
Fishery, the processors and boats were able to get to the waters
in time. Otherwise, they would have missed the massive late run
that arrive significantly later than the 10 year run average.
SENATOR WIELECHOWSKI asked if all that information in the charts
is on-line somewhere.
MR. TEMPLIN answered yes. It's in the form of a news release
that goes out to the public every four days or so and it is on
the ADF&G's Commercial Fish Division website.
SENATOR STEDMAN commented that he heard Mr. Templin say that red
crab in Seymour Canal is genetically different from those in
Stevens Passage and other areas and asked where else in
Southeast they sampled.
MR. TEMPLIN said he didn't have the full list, but he knew they
went to Barlow Cove and Seymour Canal - mostly northern
Southeast Alaska.
SENATOR STEDMAN asked him to get the information on where they
went in southern Southeast.
MR. TEMPLIN answered that he would get that for him.
^Overview: Fiscal Effects of Commercial Fishing, Mining and
Tourism
Overview: Fiscal Effects of Commercial Fishing, Mining and
Tourism
4:37:31 PM
CHAIR GIESSEL said she invited Bob Loeffler from the Institute
of Social and Economic Research to present a report that he and
Steve Colt recently completed on the Fiscal Impacts of
Commercial Fishing, Mining and Tourism in Alaska, to put some of
the fiscal challenges they face into context.
4:37:38 PM
BOB LOEFFLER, Institute Of Social and Economic Research (ISER),
University of Alaska, Anchorage, said this is an updated report
that was done by the Department of Commerce, Community and
Economic Development (DCCED) about 10 years ago that was called
"The Net Benefits Study." He emphasized that they are not
talking about the net benefits to the state; they are talking
about something smaller: what the state spends versus what it
gets in revenues.
4:38:44 PM
He acknowledged his co-author Steve Colt, a University of Alaska
Anchorage (UAA) Professor of Economics. He said his position at
ISER is funded by a grant from the Council of Alaska Producers.
The conclusions are his and Mr. Colt's.
The fiscal benefits in this report relate solely to revenues to
the state versus expenditures to manage or promote an industry.
It does not include those broader things that everyone cares
about like jobs, income, and local businesses.
He started with commercial fishing, which gives about $50
million to local communities. The state receives roughly $70
million. Overall the commercial fishing industry gives more
money than the state expends and about the same amount goes to
the local communities as revenue sharing. It's an important
foundation of local community fiscal stability. But if the
state's operating costs for commercial fishing in FY 2014 are
added in, the state spends about $8 million more than it
receives in revenue. If the capital budget is factored in, the
gap is about $27 million less. For some caveats, the researchers
took the FY 2014 operating budget. Revenues were averaged over
five years, while capital budget for commercial fishing were
averaged over three years.
SENATOR STOLTZE asked how much is available in unrestricted
general fund (GF) revenue that is available for roads, schools
that is not already obligated in the budget.
MR. LOEFFLER answered that the 53 percent of that $70 million
the state gets from the commercial fishing industry is "true
taxes," which are what the legislature can use for any purpose
whatsoever. The fees used for agency management is what the
legislature dedicates back to that agency. The last third is
what he called "pass-through taxes" where the commercial fishing
industry decides on its own to levy a fee for a specific
purpose, like in PWS, they might support a hatchery or a
marketing effort. Then the legislature collects that money and
allocates it back to that purpose, often through the capital
budget, but sometimes through the operating budget.
SENATOR STOLTZE said the Revenue Source Book from the Department
of Revenue shows that the fisheries business and the fisheries
resource landings amounted to $26.4 million two fiscal years ago
and last year it was $24.8 million.
MR. LOEFFLER responded that in 2014, using the average of five
years the state received about $28 million from those two taxes
and passed an equivalent amount to local governments. He said
the industry pays 15 separate taxes in his three-part chart.
SENATOR STOLTZE said when people think about revenues they think
about funding that is all available for roads and schools, but
this doesn't apply to that.
MR. LOEFFLER added that other than the pass through revenue,
about two-thirds of the $70 million go for those things.
He said the next question is where the $78 million from the
fishing industry gets spent in the operating budget. About two-
thirds of it goes to ADF&G and some for marketing in the DCCED
and about 10 percent goes to enforcement for DPS.
The capital budget, for which they took a three-year average and
found 51 projects related to commercial fishing which added up
to about $20 million a year.
SENATOR MICCICHE noted how studies in general have limited
value, but he appreciates the effort. He asked how he accounted
for sport fishing opportunities in the study.
4:46:17 PM
MR. LOEFFLER answered that the Division of Commercial Fisheries
also manages subsistence, but he asked them how much of the GF
goes to subsistence. He then subtracted that from the GF amount.
In general they looked at GF revenues and expenditures only, (no
federal funds or special funds), and if there was something
special that was unrelated to the commercial fishery, they tried
to divide it off. They took about two-thirds of the total budget
and allocated it towards commercial fishing. They tried not to
count things that didn't go towards the commercial fishing
industry. They probably overestimated genetic data analysis
which is used for a variety of things.
SENATOR MICCICHE said he believes that every industry should pay
its own way and be a net benefit to the state, and he wanted to
make sure he understood the full benefits of these industries,
and calculate how they should be taxed in a way that helps them
pay their own way.
MR. LOEFFLER said he was trying not to make any recommendations
on how to tax industries and he knows he didn't account for many
of the benefits of the commercial fishing industry that go to
local communities. He made it very clear those elements were not
in his scope.
SENATOR WIELECHOWSKI asked if he had the revenue figures for
what each industry - commercial fishing, mining and tourism -
generates.
MR. LOEFFLER answered that elsewhere in the study he has the
total ex-vessel value but not the profit, because that
information is proprietary. The graph shows how ex-vessel value
changes. He said conclusions from one portion of the industry,
like the Upper Yukon, are not necessarily true for other areas,
like Bristol Bay, and revenues change dramatically with run
strength and prices. This is why they used a five-year average.
Finally, he said commercial fishing is not managed the same way
oil is. The purpose for managing fisheries is not to maximize
revenue for the state; it's for a lot of other things, as well.
The fiscal impact of commercial fishing is probably slightly
less than the state operating cost, a little less if you include
the capital budget, which he assumed would be smaller in the
future, but it provides a lot of revenue to local governments.
CHAIR GIESSEL said the full report is on the ISER website.
SENATOR STEDMAN pointed out between the oil and the fish that
one is finite and one is not.
MR. LOEFFLER went on to the mining industry for which he did the
same analysis. Mining brings in revenues to the state of a
little less than $100 million, but the cost to manage it is a
lot less than for commercial fishing, (in FY14 about $10
million). Mining brings in 6 to 8 times what is spent and it
adds another $22 million to local government. Unlike fishing and
to some extent tourism, which is broadly spread throughout the
state, large mines fund most of their local governments. There
are only six large scale active mines in Alaska. The Red Dog is
the only taxpayer in the Northwest Arctic Borough; Greens Creek
and Kensington are the two largest taxpayers in Juneau; and Fort
Knox is the largest taxpayer except the pipeline in Fairbanks
and Usibelli provides money to the Denali Borough.
With respect to revenue, about 40 percent comes from mining
license taxes, about one-third from the corporate income tax and
about 20 percent (rents and royalties) from the three mines that
are on state land. With respect to cost, most of that comes
through the Department of Natural Resources (DNR), some from
Department of Revenue (DOR) and a significant amount from the
Department of Law (DOL), because "as it turns out that everybody
sues mines."
Mining has an interesting arrangement where for the large mines
the state bills back to the large mines, the cost of permitting
and some costs for compliance and enforcement. Those are billed
through DNR, but the costs are actually to DCCED and ADF&G. This
is a voluntary program.
4:53:10 PM
SENATOR MICCICHE asked how he values the cost between a
renewable fish, timber, and tourism resource versus a severed
resource.
MR. LOEFFLER said he was talking about social costs and
benefits, but he didn't do that. He just stuck to the fiscal
impacts to the state.
SENATOR MICCICHE clarified Mr. Loeffler was presenting the GF
impacts.
MR. LOEFFLER answered yes and the Permanent Fund. He recapped
that four local governments get a significant amount of money
from mining, because it's the four places where large mines
exist within a local government. He also pointed out the capital
budget averaged around $4 million a year. There were only two
real capital budget programs (Ambler Mining District and the
Strategic and Critical Minerals Assessment).
4:54:37 PM
He used mining revenues, like fish revenues, depend on prices.
So, 10 years ago when prices were $250 an ounce for gold, the
state got a lot less revenue. Now, the state gets a lot more as
the number of mines has increased as well as the price of zinc
and gold.
He didn't include some revenues in the study for a couple of
reasons. The Alaska Railroad that gets $20 million from Usibelli
Coal Mine is not included for two reasons. First, the revenue is
greater than the cost, but more importantly, it doesn't go to
the legislature. It is separate and doesn't get GF
appropriations for operating and it doesn't return operating
monies to the state. The Alaska Industrial Development and
Export Authority (AIDEA) is a similar situation. Red Dog paid
$12 million in 2013 for use of the Red Dog road owned by AIDEA;
AIDEA had bonds to build that road and they cost less than the
$12 million, but AIDEA keeps that money. Some is returned to the
legislature, but they didn't track that back.
4:56:48 PM
The overall conclusions for mining are that the revenue is
significantly greater than the cost and there are enough
concentrated municipalities to fiscally depend upon the revenue
for the mining industry.
MR. LOEFFLER said tourism is harder to quantify. For example,
the sport fishery is managed for tourists but also for
residents. A capital appropriation given to the Anchorage Museum
helps the 50 percent of their visitation which comes from
tourists, but it also help residents. So, there is an overlap
that is difficult to assess and the tourism conclusions are
somewhat less precise than for the other industries.
He said tourism brings in about $80 million to local
communities. For just the state, tourism brings in roughly $18-
20 million more than the operating budget and adding the average
capital budget from 2012/13 tourism breaks even. But tourism
provides a lot of money for local communities. Less than half
the revenue is from cruise ship taxes instituted in 2006, about
one-third is from non-resident fishing and hunting licenses, 10
percent is from rental vehicles from tourists and 9 percent is
from corporate income tax. A majority of the money comes from
the portion that he allocated from the Sport Fish Division in
ADF&G and Tourism Marketing in the DCCED.
4:59:07 PM
For a sense of their economic assumptions, the operating budget
was built on a commensurate proportion of services used by
outsiders: about 20 percent of the state parks budget is from
outsiders, 43 percent of sport fishing anglers days are done by
tourists, and their operating budgets for tourism were
calculated accordingly. For the capital budget in a three-year
period they looked at 110 projects which were in part tourism
related and allocated a portion of the projects to tourism and
that amounts to roughly $20 million a year.
Municipal revenues: $13 million is from the cruise ship tax,
local sales tax and bed tax; dockage and moorage revenue are
mostly Juneau and Ketchikan fees on cruise ships. They used the
same caveats because the economic assumptions for tourism have
some overlap with expenditures that benefit residents. The
averages for a bear hunt aren't the same as for a cruise ship or
a fishing lodge. The costs the state spends for each are
different, but there are also some revenues they didn't include
like from the Railroad ($1 million from out-of-state visitors)
for the same reason they didn't include it in mining. It doesn't
come to the legislature and they don't know what the cost is.
5:01:30 PM
The Marine Highway was a little confusing, because it gets about
$20 million in revenue from outsiders, but the Marine Highway
loses enough money in general in providing its services that if
it had less tourists, and therefore ran less ships, the state
might actually save money. So, previous studies that included
the Marine Highway as a net cost seemed too weird.
SENATOR STEDMAN said he didn't want people of Alaska to think
that the way to get out of this hole is to shut down the Marine
Highway and the more vessels they tie up the shallower the hole
is.
MR. LOEFFLER apologized for any implications that he sent in
that direction.
5:02:10 PM
He said their overall conclusions are that tourism brings in
more than the state expends in operating moneyFiscal Effects of
Commercial Fishing, Mining and Tourism, but it gives roughly $80
million to the local communities throughout the state. One
observation is that the mining industry costs very little for
the state to manage and a lot less money relative to others.
Second, and this response goes to Senator Wielechowski's
question on percent of first market value. The ex-vessel value
of fishing, the value of the minerals and the value of tourism
expenditures that the state gets in revenue are relatively equal
across the board, and they all go up and down.
CHAIR GIESSEL asked him to explained "first market value."
MR. LOEFFLER answered that it is the value of each item "before
processing." For fishing it's the ex-vessel value; for mining
it's the value of the minerals before they have been smelted out
of state; for tourism the value of tourism expenditures is used.
It's really the value of the resource that the state owns.
SENATOR WIELECHOWSKI asked for data on how Alaska compares to
other states.
MR. LOEFFLER said he didn't know other states' fisheries or
tourism. A DOR study compared Alaska to other states and
countries with respect to taxes and found that Alaska was in the
middle.
SENATOR COSTELLO thanked him for all the data and the work he
did on this.
MR. LOEFFLER said he had two more caveats: one is that any of
these revenues pale with respect to oil, although they are all
very valuable industries for maintaining the health of our
communities, our employment, and for social and cultural
objectives.
SENATOR STOLTZE remarked that his fishermen friends tell him
that a King salmon is worth more than a barrel of oil. He asked
him to compare the benefit of the two to the Alaska treasury.
MR. LOEFFLER said he couldn't do that.
5:06:05 PM
His last caveat is that these industries are valuable not just
for their fiscal impact but for their economic impact to
people's wellbeing in communities.
CHAIR GIESSEL commented that it costs industry about $53 barrel
to extract a barrel of oil and they are being paid about $32 for
it today. Finding no other questions, she thanked Mr. Loeffler
for his presentation.
5:07:49 PM
ADJOURNMENT
The Senate Resources Standing Committee was adjourned at 5:07
p.m.
| Document Name | Date/Time | Subjects |
|---|---|---|
| Genetics in fisheries Pt 1 - NMFS Guyon.pdf |
SRES 2/1/2016 3:30:00 PM |
Fisheries |
| Genetics in fisheries Pt 2 - ADFG Templin.pdf |
SRES 2/1/2016 3:30:00 PM |
Fisheries |
| ISER Report-Fiscal Impacts-Mining-Comm Fishing-Tourism-02-01-2016.pdf |
SRES 2/1/2016 3:30:00 PM |
Resource Development, Economy |
| Loeffler-Colt Sen Resc Fiscal Effects Presentat'n.pdf |
SRES 2/1/2016 3:30:00 PM |
Resource Development-Economy |