HB 141 SCALLOP FISHERY/ VESSEL MORATORIUM  CHAIRMAN HALFORD announced HB 141 to be up for consideration. MS. AMY DOUGHERTY, Aide to Representative Austerman, sponsor of HB 141, read the sponsor statement. She said it implements a moratorium within the State waters off Alaska. Without it, it is probable that there would be an increase in effort on the scallop stocks, as well as the associated marine habitat, and create an unmanageable fishery. She had reviewed the committee's amendments which she found acceptable. SENATOR SHARP asked if this was establishing sort of a limited entry situation. CHAIRMAN HALFORD replied yes and no; the moratorium is a kind of starting point. He said two amendments deal with how the system works and who gets in under the moratorium. The third one deals with at least instructing the Commission to look at a way to avoid transfer of permits and permit values. SENATOR LINCOLN said she would like to hear how the amendments are incorporated into the bill because they make substantial changes. MR. DALE ANDERSON, Limited Entry Commission, said that the Commission found that the findings listed in this bill provide grounds to implement a moratorium and they are ready to administer it, if the legislature signs it into law. MR. EARL KRYGIER, Extended Jurisdiction Program Manager, said he basically deals with the federal issues that interact with the State fisheries. He explained that the scallop fishery started in 1967 when a number (17) of boats came in from the east coast and they fished them up and down. He said that scallop fisheries are very susceptible to overfishing. We don't have a very large harvest in Alaska and the average harvest has been around a million pounds of shucked meat. On the east coast it's about 30 million pounds annually. We have also had problems with some of the beds being depressed. Back in 1990 when we started to get a new influx of fishermen interested in the fishery, they became concerned when they saw the same thing starting to occur. They put together a management plan that was done by the Board of Fisheries that was very restrictive. Instead of having a statewide registration, they broke it up into nine separate areas. The beds don't move around and you can separate the main beds into separate management units for a sustainable harvest, MR. KRYGIER said. That was fine until a Mr. Big, a vessel from the east coast, decided to go out and fish in federal waters only and didn't sign up for his State registration that year. They had always been able to manage the fisheries because any vessel that had signed a State registration has to abide by their regulations when they fish in federal waters. In federal waters there aren't any regulations. Mr. Big was fishing in federal waters without any limits and the State went to the Council and had them shut down. To do that they had to make a federal fishery management plan which closed all federal waters for 18 months. So the rest of the vessels who weren't participating in the unregulated fishery were basically out of business for that time. The federal government tried to figure out how to return this back to the State for management and put in place an interim plan which adopted all the State regulations. The State calls all the shots, but it is very cumbersome and they are trying to get a final solution which would turn the fishery back to the State. CHAIRMAN HALFORD said he was actually concerned about the bottom and asked how the dredges worked. MR. KRYGIER explained that they have a metal ring bag with four inch diameter rings which basically allows it to sort out the undersized scallops and allows them to remain on the beds and grow. They pull them back and forth across the beds. Various beds have sandy bottoms and there is very low interaction with anything; almost no bycatch. They have observers on all of the vessels in federal waters. CHAIRMAN HALFORD asked what kept the bottom fish from going into the same dredge. MR. KRYGIER said they trawl at a very slow rate. There are some problems with crab and they manage these areas by the crab bycatch rate, setting very conservative rates annually that they can take, less than half a percent. CHAIRMAN HALFORD asked if the bycatch came up or did it just get killed and stay on the bottom. MR. KRYGIER said most of it comes up and there's a very high survival rate on the halibut. The rates on the other flat fish is quite small, also. CHAIRMAN HALFORD asked if ADF&G was certain that this type of fishery is not doing any damage to other species. MR. KRYGIER replied that he did research at Oregon State University as an oceanographer and he felt that they had to be very concerned about the impacts on the habitat. Most all areas are excluded from dredging. SENATOR TAYLOR asked if he was familiar with a type of trawl developed by a Mr. Kirkness. MR. KRYGIER replied that he was. SENATOR TAYLOR said that it didn't have the bycatch problem, but he can't use it because it doesn't comply with existing regulations. MR. KRYGIER responded that they had offered the gentleman a number of experimental permits to prove up his gear. SENATOR TAYLOR said the problem he had was that the cost of proving up involved the observer and some of the rest of it and he didn't have the funds. CHAIRMAN HALFORD asked if would be able to do it at all if they passed the moratorium. SENATOR TAYLOR replied no. MR. KRYGIER said they have tried to work with him for a number of years and offered lots of opportunities and have been unsuccessful. Number 522 SENATOR LINCOLN asked who pays for the observers on all the vessels. MR. KRYGIER replied that the vessels on the outside coast pay for all the observer coverage which is about $6,000 per month for a full time observer. In area H, Cook Inlet, the department does not require full-time coverage. Staff volunteers its own time to go out and act as observers. SENATOR LINCOLN asked if that meant that state workers take time off from their jobs to observe. MR. KRYGIER said that he understands in the Cook Inlet area some of it has been on State time and some of it has been on weekends. The outside waters are managed by the Board of Fisheries so that the observer coverage is paid by the catcher processors. They do their work at sea so observers are needed to get biological data. Number 559 SENATOR TAYLOR asked why the Korean Hair Crab was being deleted. MR. ANDERSON explained that this bill mirrors the moratorium on Korean Hair Crab that was passed and they are deleting "Korean Hair Crab" and inserting "a fishery" which would include both. He said that these are the only two fisheries that have vessel permitting. TAPE 97-32, SIDE B MR. KRYGIER said the department has a fairly good understanding of the commercially healthy beds from data gathered from a number of fisheries over the years. SENATOR LEMAN asked how large the scallop vessels are. MR. KRYGIER replied that there are two vessels at 63 feet and two vessels at 79 feet and probably none of those vessels would go into the Bering Sea where the beds are way off shore. It was both a summer and winter fishery, but now they are making the opening on July 1 through October or November. CHAIRMAN HALFORD asked what the feds do if they don't pass this bill. MR. KRYGIER replied that the Council is scheduled to take up scallops again at their September meeting and they will try to set up delegating the authority for the whole fishery back to the State. The second thing they had on the agenda was whether or not to move along with the license program. CHAIRMAN HALFORD asked what he thought of the amendments. MR. KRYGIER said they would have no problem managing the fishery with those amendments. SENATOR TORGERSON moved amendment #1. SENATOR LINCOLN objected fo discussion. MR. BRETT HUBER, Staff to the Senate Resources Committee, said that amendment #1 allows the vessels that qualify in the Area H waters of Cook Inlet to also be permitted for the statewide waters. There are seven boats that qualify, two of which are Alaska vessels, five of which are not. Four vessels qualify in the Cook Inlet area, all of which are Alaskan vessels. This would allow those 11 boats to fish in the statewide waters. SENATOR LINCOLN said they have to have at least 1,000 pounds for '95 and '96 and at least four 1,000 pounds between '84 and '96 and asked if they would all meet that standard. MR. ANDERSON said yes, SENATOR LINCOLN withdrew her objection to amendment #1 and it was adopted. SENATOR TORGERSON moved to adopt amendment #2. MR. HUBER explaine that the bill currently drafted deals with a vessel permit and the only way you can change a vessel you are using in the permit is if the vessel is damaged or sunk. This amendment offers the opportunity for someone to change a vessel to use in the fishery, but it would still preclude the vessel being any longer than the vessel they qualified with or having more horse power. CHAIRMAN HALFORD noted there were no objections to amendment # 2 and it was adopted. SENATOR TORGERSON moved to adopt amendment # 3. SENATOR LINCOLN asked for an explanation. MR. HUBER said it asks the commission in cooperation with the department to determine whether there's an alternative form of limited entry that would concentrate on non- transferable permits. CHAIRMAN HALFORD noted there were no objections and amendment # 3 was adopted. CHAIRMAN HALFORD noted that amendment # 2 limited the ability of the small boats, where most Alaskans are, to upgrade in size. They wanted to limit the horse power to impact the size dredge they could handle and asked if that was consistent with the goal of maximizing Alaskan participation. MR. ANDERSON responded that one of the goals of the limited entry commission is to restrict an existing problem so that it doesn't get any worse. MR. HUBER pointed out that adoption of the amendment didn't do that, but the text of the bill already had that limitation of horse power and size. MR. KRYGIER said the moratorium on the east coast had a larger effect on the upgrading of the bigger boats and kept them from having more ability to power their gear. CHAIRMAN HALFORD said he didn't want the small boats to be limited from being safe or economic. He was concerned with the four small Alaskan boats. MR. ANDERSON said he thought they would have to define what a small boat is. He said this legislation is a moratorium and authorizes the commission to do the study. This won't be the format it will be forever. They need to establish a constant to work with. MR. KRYGIER said that Mr. Kirkson could petition the Board of Fisheries to look into his development and they would be in a position to not shut off his future opportunities. SENATOR TORGERSON moved to pass SCSCSHB 141(RES) from committee with individual recommendations and the accompanying fiscal note. There were no objections and it was so ordered.