HJR 43 - FISHING AND SUBSISTENCE IN GLACIER BAY Number 010 CHAIRMAN AUSTERMAN read the sponsor statement aloud, "This Resolution has been introduced by the House Special Committee on Fisheries in response to concerns expressed by Southeast commercial fishermen and subsistence users. Glacier Bay has been a National Monument since 1925. Congress created the Glacier Bay National Park as part of ANILCA (Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act) in 1980. In 1990, environmental groups sued the National Park Service for, among other things, allowing commercial and subsistence fishing within Glacier Bay National Park. In 1991, the National Park Service promulgated draft regulations that would phase out commercial fishing in and around Glacier Bay within seven years, and completely prohibit subsistence fishing. Last year, a federal judge ruled that ANILCA did not prohibit commercial fishing in Glacier Bay National Park, but that ruling has since been appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Elimination of the commercial and subsistence fisheries in the vast area contained in the Glacier Bay National Park would significantly harm the coastal communities of northern Southeast. Both fisheries have utilized this area long before park designation. Also, if the area were closed to commercial fishing, other fisheries in Southeast would be harmed from increased pressure by those fishermen displaced by a closure of Glacier Bay waters." REPRESENTATIVE CARL MOSES joined the committee at 5:05 p.m. Number 050 RON SOMERVILLE testified, "As a member of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game previously, I dealt with this specific issue for about four years." He said, "When ANILCA passed in 1980, the extensions to Glacier Bay National Park were limited to mean high tide, although the only portions that really extended were in the northern portions. The whole issue here really revolves around whether or not the state of Alaska still retains authority to regulate and authorize subsistence fishing and commercial fishing within what the Park Service claims is the boundary of the park. We, of course, have claimed for a long time that in fact their authority really doesn't extend into territorial waters. We came close to a resolution of this issue two years ago, and right at the dying moments of Congress, we were unable to finalize a bill and thus we went back to kind of a status quo. Since then, the Park Service has been proceeding with the concept, that's why you see it in Resolution here, of adopting regulations to authorize some subsistence taking and commercial taking within the Park." MR. SOMERVILLE continued, "We've always contended that these are not park resources. The bulk of them that are taken in the waters adjacent to Glacier Bay National Park because most of them are in essence passing through those waters and we claim that they really don't have any jurisdiction over them as being park resources. We tried to work with the Park Service to develop a process whereby the Parks and the state could work together to maintain some kind of cooperative effort, if you will, but we still maintained that we had the authority to regulate taking for subsistence or commercial purposes. If the Park Service goes forward with their regulations, which they now have found out that they can allow the taking of commercial purposes within the park, just to give you kind of a glimpse of what we've seen in those regulations: One is they would like to phase out fishing within the Glacier Bay proper, within the Park which would then affect some of the subsistence fisheries within the Park." REPRESENTATIVE KIM ELTON joined the committee at 5:10 p.m. Number 168 REPRESENTATIVE GARY DAVIS voiced concern about page 2, line 11 of HJR 43 where it says, "WHEREAS the State of Alaska has a claim to ownership of the submerged lands and navigable waters of the Park." MR. SOMERVILLE replied, "Glacier Bay was included in the general encompassing litigation called the Babbitt case, which the Governor dropped. That included jurisdictional aspects related to all of the waters of the state," and clarified, "The position of the state has been, I think it still is, that lands underlying the waters, adjacent to Glacier Bay out to three miles are submerged lands belonging to the state of Alaska. We just have never filed in court to claim those titles." Number 205 BRUCE WEYHRAUCH, Attorney, Allied Fishermen of Southeast Alaska, described the geographic area encompassed in the Glacier Bay National Park and testified, "What happened is, when Congress passed ANILCA they created this park and that's when they created the marine water area of the park. Fishing has continued in that area for centuries and these communities have sprung up because of that. In 1990, the Alaska Wildlife Alliance and American Wildlands sued the National Park Service, the Secretary of the Interior, and said, in part that `You're violating the Marine Mammal Protection Act because there's whales affected. The vessel management plan for the park that allows vessels going in there is implicated. The concessionaires are implicated because of the vessels you're allowing in there. But they also said that ANILCA prohibits commercial fishing and that issue was addressed by federal district Court Judge Holland who said that ANILCA does not prohibit commercial fishing in the non-wilderness waters of Glacier Bay National Park. The environmental groups have now appealed that to the Ninth Circuit and it has not been briefed yet, but it's probably going to be briefed this year." MR. WEYHRAUCH then suggested some amendments: Inserting ", environmental," after "economic" on page 1, line 12. On page 1, line 13, delete "northern". On page 2, line 23, insert "if it promulgate regulations" and delete "proceed expeditiously to amend its regulations in order to". On page 2, line 25, insert "authorize continued" and delete "allow". On page 2, line 26, delete "non-wilderness areas of the park" and insert "marine waters of Glacier Bay National Park". He also suggested that language be added to the Resolution to amend ANILCA to authorize subsistence and commercial fishing. MR. WEYHRAUCH added, "The National Park Service is maybe searching for some hook if it's going to prohibit commercial fishing to do that. It's not easy (for them) because (1) commercial fishing does not harm park values, it has been going on there for more than a century; (2) there's been no environmental harm. This is not an environmental issue; and (3) the fisheries that are caught are not resident fish species of the park, they're migratory. The salmon and halibut move in and out. There are some resident crab populations perhaps." He also said, "So it's not clear that they will promulgate regulations. I think that it's important that they get the idea if they're going to do it, that this is a longstanding, environmentally safe, economically sound and well- managed fishery by the state of Alaska that should go on. This is not a problem. And if it is prohibited, it's going to wreck serious economic and environmental harm in this state and on the fishermen that work in that area." Number 412 REPRESENTATIVE ELTON asked if the first resolve was necessary. MR. WEYHRAUCH indicated that there are ongoing research projects which the state would like to stay apprised of. Number 434 REPRESENTATIVE OGAN moved that the suggested amendments be adopted. There were no objections. REPRESENTATIVE OGAN moved to pass CSHJR 43(FSH) out of committee. There were no objections.