HOUSE SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON FISHERIES January 30, 1995 5:00 p.m. MEMBERS PRESENT Representative Alan Austerman, Chairman Representative Carl Moses, Vice Chair Representative Gary Davis Representative Scott Ogan Representative Kim Elton MEMBERS ABSENT None OTHER LEGISLATORS PRESENT None COMMITTEE CALENDAR Department of Fish and Game Overview (including national and international issues) WITNESS REGISTER FRANK RUE, ACTING COMMISSIONER Alaska Department of Fish & Game P.O. Box 25526 Juneau, AK 99802 Phone: 465-4100 POSITION STATEMENT: Participated in the Alaska Department of  Fish & Game (ADF&G) Overview JEFF KOENIGS, DIRECTOR Commercial Fisheries Management and Development Division Alaska Department of Fish & Game P.O. Box 25526 Juneau, AK 99802 Phone: 465-4210 POSITION STATEMENT: Participated in the ADF&G Overview ELLEN FRITTS, ACTING DIRECTOR Division of Habitat and Restoration Alaska Department of Fish & Game P.O. Box 25526 Juneau, AK 99802 Phone: 465-4105 POSITION STATEMENT: Participated in the ADF&G Overview ROB BOSWORTH, DIRECTOR Division of Subsistence Alaska Department of Fish & Game P.O. Box 25526 Juneau, AK 99802 Phone: 465-4147 POSITION STATEMENT: Participated in the ADF&G Overview GORDON KRUSE, MARINE FISHERIES SCIENTIST Commercial Fisheries Management and Development Division Alaska Department of Fish & Game P.O. Box 25526 Juneau, AK 99802 Phone: 465-6106 POSITION STATEMENT: Participated in the ADF&G Overview DAVE BENTON, ACTING DEPUTY COMMISSIONER Alaska Department of Fish & Game P.O. Box 25526 Juneau, AK 99802 Phone: 465-4100 POSITION STATEMENT: Participated in the ADF&G Overview DOUGLAS EGGERS, CHIEF FISHERIES SCIENTIST Commercial Fisheries Management and Development Division Alaska Department of Fish & Game P.O. Box 25526 Juneau, AK 99802 Phone: 465-4210 POSITION STATEMENT: Participated in the ADF&G Overview ACTION NARRATIVE TAPE 95-3, SIDE A Number 000 CHAIRMAN ALAN AUSTERMAN called the meeting to order at 5:03 p.m. He noted for the record that Representatives Ogan, Davis, Elton and Moses were present and that a quorum was present. Number 045 FRANK RUE, ACTING COMMISSIONER, ALASKA DEPARTMENT OF FISH AND GAME (ADF&G) began by asking if the committee would like the sport fish division's presentation on February 22, 1995, as already scheduled or included this evening. CHAIRMAN AUSTERMAN suggested that the sport fish division wait. MR. RUE began saying, "Whenever I come before a legislative committee, I like to remind people and I like to remind myself, that Fish and Game is about people and people using resources and people depending on the resources. Our job is basically to ensure that we manage, protect, maintain and improve basic resources, fish and wildlife resources that people depend on in this state. That is our job. We can't forget the user. What we do is fairly simple: We count them." MR. RUE continued, "The subsistence division spends a lot of time figuring out who is using what, where, when. Once the boards have set the seasons, bag limits, we then manage the resource, making sure that we achieve our goals of escapement, for instance. We follow the management plans that were established and we don't overharvest the resource." He then added maintaining habitat is another big part of what the department does. Number 105 MR. RUE pointed out, "We've gone from nine to six divisions in our budget discipline attempts here in the last few years. We've been trying to be more efficient, more streamlined. We are a decentralized department, we have a lot of area offices. We think that gives us good access to people, good access to resource information and leads to better management." MR. RUE emphasized, "We all take it for granted that we have got fisheries management going on out there and we've done a good job when we have a record salmon harvest. Well, it takes people to do that. It takes an effort to do that and we sometimes forget about things that are working well. So that's going to be a challenge. To keep doing things well with a declining budget. Then we've got some issues that are going make out lives more complex: ESA (Endangered Species Act) and the problems they're having in the Northwest with their salmon are going to hit us; the Pacific Salmon Treaty problems are all going to make our life more difficult. The other thing is: We've got more and more people coming into the state and wanting to use the resource in the face, of declining budgets. The issues aren't getting simpler. Finally, there are some opportunities. I think Fish and Game provides some great opportunities for new economic development. Sea urchins is one example I've used. Some of the rural fisheries opportunities, I think, we ought to be looking to expand our economic base. Better information on something like the Bering Sea crab will allow us to realize a return in that fishery where we've had to shut it down because of lack of information. So, I think Fish and Game can provide a lot of benefits to people in this state. Those are the types of opportunities that I'll be looking for us to capitalize on in the future." Number 157 CHAIRMAN AUSTERMAN asked if there is a shortage of research biologists as he had heard. MR. FRANK RUE said, "Generally, we have not tried to reduce research biologists in saving general fund dollars. The main emphasis has been in switching hatcheries from state operation to the private sector and letting cost recovery manage that." JEFF KOENIGS, DIRECTOR, COMMERCIAL FISHERIES MANAGEMENT & DEVELOPMENT DIVISION, ADF&G, indicated that in the recent merging of the FRED division with the commercial fisheries division, research was prioritized and gave examples. Number 216 CHAIRMAN AUSTERMAN said, "My understanding is that we have one research biologist in Kodiak to handle the scallop industry down there and yet he doesn't have a travel budget to work with. So it's kind of hard for him to try to figure out what actually is going on out there." MR. KOENIGS replied, "The scallop program is a new program and we've made programmatic changes for this next budget year that boost the abilities of the research biologists to process information that comes in from the observer program, and by that information, help to redesign and help our management program. But there will be help in the scallop program this next fiscal year to make sure that data does get compilated, analyzed, synthesized, and then reported." Number 244 ELLEN FRITTS, ACTING DIRECTOR, DIVISION OF HABITAT AND RESTORATION, ADF&G, described the goals of the division as "to protect, maintain and enhance the fish, game and aquatic plant resources of Alaska; ensure that Alaska's renewable fish and wildlife resources and their habitats are conserved and managed on the sustained yield principle; ensure that the use and development of these resources are in the best interest of the economy and well-being of the state; and, to assess injuries and to restore, replace, enhance or acquire the equivalent of the natural resources that were damaged in the Exxon Valdez spill." MS. FRITTS continued saying, "On a day to day basis, the division's primary goal is to work up front with project proponents to find practical, cost effective and fair solutions: Project and land use planning solutions," and then described the tasks and duties of the different sections. MS. FRITTS added, "The habitat and restoration division serves as the department's point of contact and coordinating body for land management and related permitting issues. The division assembles issues, specific information, and management recommendations from the other divisions of ADF&G and synthesizes these points into the department's overall position. Industry, agencies, and the public are in broad agreement that providing this single point of contact and a unified voice from ADF&G is a critical role that we perform." MS. FRITTS pointed out that the Title 16 permit review workload has increased by 40 percent, with 20 percent cuts in general fund dollars, since FY 90. She also voiced concern over meeting legal obligations under the Forest Practices Act as this has increased the workload from 119 to nearly 4,000 variance requests from 1990 to 1993. MS. FRITTS then talked about the Kenai River habitat saying, "Forty-one percent of the land along the river is currently privately owned and 50 percent has been developed to date. This is the fastest growing area of the state. Unfortunately, it looks like the Kenai River is being threatened by land use changes in that drainage. Studies indicate that as of 1993, twelve percent of the essential stream bank rearing habitat has been degraded or lost by shoreline development and bank fishing, primarily for sockeyes. Water quality studies have shown that aquatic insects, fish food, have disappeared below storm drain outflows in the Soldotna area. Extensive logging is proposed on steep slopes in the upper Kenai River watershed and without land use changes, it looks like proportionately greater habitat losses and losses in fish production could occur in the future," and added the Kenai Borough Assembly is presently working on zoning ordinances for the river, and the division, also, is taking "steps to reverse this loss". REPRESENTATIVE SCOTT OGAN asked Ms. Fritts to elaborate on "state of the art mitigation technics." MS. FRITTS said, "One of the successes that the department and the division is very proud of is the fact that with regard to North Slope oil development and the gravel mining that occurs there, we've been able to use funding from industry to study some of the pits that are created and learn how to best restore them. Now we have excellent examples, even manuals, that talk about how to do that." MR. RUE interjected, "Fort Knox might be another good example where basically they're going to recreate a whole wetlands complex from an old placer mine stream which will serve not only as an overflow safety valve for them, if they have an upset in their process, it also creates a terrific habitat and will probably end up as a park when they're done. It benefits the company, it benefits the habitat and fish and wildlife and people." Number 455 REPRESENTATIVE OGAN asked about having a quick permitting process for Title 16 permits. MS. FRITTS continued, "If it takes a certain amount of days to crank out a permit right now and we invest a certain amount of time working with the applicant, looking at what they plan to do, trying to make it fish and wildlife friendly -- If we keeping losing staff and the number of permits keeps going up, the amount of time that we're able to invest per permit will go down and that means that we aren't going to be able to spend the time with the applicant." REPRESENTATIVE OGAN asked what a Title 16 permit is. MS. FRITTS replied that Title 16 permits are issued under AS 16.870 for any kind of activity within the "bed or banks of streams used by anadromous fish." Number 463 REPRESENTATIVE KIM ELTON said, "As budgets go down, the pinch gets felt," and suggested that budget cuts may result in delays to economic development. He voiced surprise in the increase in the numbers of Forest Practices Act variances. REPRESENTATIVE GARY DAVIS asked about the purpose of federal funds recently received by the division for the Kenai River habitat. MS. FRITTS described an outline of a Kenai River workplan. REPRESENTATIVE DAVIS asked if NMFS (National Marine Fisheries Service) would be administering this project. Number 496 MR. RUE interjected, "Once the Borough and the department have gotten together a list of projects, that's what will trigger NMFS handing the money over." ROB BOSWORTH, DIRECTOR, SUBSISTENCE DIVISION, ADF&G, said, "For the most part our focus is on research. We try to look at the who, what, when, where of subsistence - information that is needed in a variety of forms," and added, "Rural residents of Alaska harvest about 375 pounds of wild food per person per year on the average. This amount of course is higher for communities off the road system." He indicated that 60 percent of this subsistence harvest is in fish and mostly salmon which statewide totals 26 million pounds in fish for rural areas and 6 million pounds of fish for urban residents. MR. BOSWORTH explained how subsistence research is obtained by the subsistence division although in some instances data is obtained by the division of commercial fisheries management and development division. He said, "Most subsistence fisheries are in-river fisheries and accurate assessment of subsistence harvest can be vital for stock assessment. In some cases subsistence information provides the only reliable stock assessment index." Number 580 CHAIRMAN AUSTERMAN asked if subsistence has a higher priority in allocation of game or fish. MR. RUE indicated that the Board of Fish and the Board of Game do the actually allocation, but follow standards set in the statutes. MR. KOENINGS began his overview saying, "The division is responsible for the sustained yield management of the state's commercial, subsistence and personal use fisheries; the development of new fisheries; and the programmatic support for the state's private-sector mariculture and salmon ranching industries. The division also plays a major role in the management of fisheries in the federal 200-mile EEZ (Exclusive Economic Zone), in several international treaty negotiations; and, more recently, in addressing concerns over federal legislation affecting Alaska's fisheries, the ESA." He then gave locations of the four regional offices and shrinking budget figures. MR. KOENIGS continued, "The direct and indirect economic benefit of the commercial fishing industry is of major importance to the entire state. For example, the seafood industry is the state's largest private employer both in terms of income and employment with roughly 33,000 to 36,000 jobs. The seafood harvesters are small businessmen that account for 8,000 to 12,000 full-time job equivalents. Seventy-seven percent of these commercial fishing permit holders are Alaskan residents." Number 649 MR. KOENIGS spoke on subsistence saying, "The cultural and economic value of the subsistence fishery is even harder to quantify, in direct economic terms, than the commercial fishery. To many it is beyond value, and that is understandable. Recently, subsistence fishers have repeatedly told me that their subsistence lifestyle, a combination of fishing, hunting, berry picking, etc., is fueled to varying degrees, by their incomes from commercial fishing. My point being that there is absolute value and real benefits in having strong, well managed runs of fish so that both the subsistence uses and commercial users are provided for." MR. KOENIGS continued, "Overall the state's fisheries resources appear to be vibrant and healthy, although problem areas do exist especially in Western and Interior Alaska. Last year, the commercial harvest of 196 million salmon was an all time record. Yet, because of competition from high quality foreign farmed salmon, prices are down and the economic value is declining. The department is responding by managing within biological constraints, so fishermen and processors can achieve the best product quality and thus higher economic value. Examples for 1994 include the harvest management of enhanced and wild pink salmon in Prince William Sound, chum salmon in the Kuskokwim River, the herring fishery in the Togiak district, and pink salmon in Norton Sound. In developing new fisheries, the division has pioneered new cooperative efforts with private industry to assess the health of the sea urchin population in the Ketchikan area prior to a commercial fishery. The project provides for close cooperation between local divers and processors and is funded entirely by private dollars and by the sea urchin resource itself, and not by the general fund. If successful, the fishery could be worth $30 million annually to Southeast fishermen and may become the third largest fishery in state waters. Reasonable and responsible development of our renewable fishery resources will lead to increased number of jobs for Alaskans." MR. KOENIGS concluded, "Despite the general abundance of salmon, which are now on the high end of their productive cycle, we do have localized resource problems. For example, the Chinook salmon in the Mat-Su valley, the chum salmon in the Mat-Su valley, the chum salmon in parts of Western and Interior Alaska, Nushagak River coho salmon in Bristol Bay and perhaps the sockeye salmon of Chilkoot Lake. Also, the herring populations in Prince William Sound are in horrible shape and are not fishable. However, the biggest challenge throughout the state is the management of our shellfish resources. From Norton Sound in the North to Adak to the south then east to Bristol Bay, Kodiak, Cook Inlet and Prince William Sound, the crab populations are failing. Some of the most important crab fisheries are in the Bering Sea where state involvement in resource assessment, necessary for proper state management, is minimal at best. This minimal effort needs to change." REPRESENTATIVE OGAN said, "It seems to me that the industry doesn't have a good track record of using the resource wisely: It's almost a rape and run mentality that we've seen in the Lower 48 and maybe in some of the fisheries up here." He indicated concern about the long term condition of the resource. TAPE 95-3, SIDE B Number 000 MR. KOENIGS commented, "I would say in general that our resource assessment programs for our shellfish populations are certainly not up to the par that they are for the salmon populations. We need to correct that. So I think that your assessment is correct. We have at times permitted fishing to go on with limited information. Perhaps too aggressively, but we're learning from that." REPRESENTATIVE OGAN asked if the Bering Sea crab harvest is set at a sustainable level. MR. KOENIGS added, "One of the problems we do have in the Bering Sea is our main resource assessment program is a groundfish trawl survey...off crab caught as a bycatch." MR. RUE interjected, "On that very point, we've made a proposal to the Governor's Office on a budget neutral switch in funding to allow us, in cooperation with the industry, to do a better assessment in the Bering Sea. Because it doesn't increase our general fund budget, I'm hoping it gets a good hearing." REPRESENTATIVE ELTON asked why the Central Region Office of ADF&G included Prince William Sound, Cook Inlet and Bristol Bay. MR. KOENIGS described the diversity of the Central Region. GORDON KRUSE, MARINE FISHERIES SCIENTIST, COMMERCIAL FISHERIES MANAGEMENT AND DEVELOPMENT DIVISION, ADF&G, talked about his duties and the scope of state research and management. He then presented the state's management strategies and examples of the techniques employed. He admitted, "We certainly have some stocks that are in poor condition. We feel that at least part of those problems are attributable to another issue, which is limited stock assessments. Our job is very difficult to provide for sustainable fisheries when we simply don't know the size of the stocks that we're harvesting from. So one of the things we want to do is try to expand our coverage for surveys in the Bering Sea for stocks that are either not assessed or not assessed well. An example is the Norton Sound king crab fishery. It's not a particularly large fishery; however, it's one that is very important to the local community there. Unfortunately, we have not had stock assessments there now for a number of years and there are indications that the stock is declining. It seems to be a very important area for us to consider some stock assessments. Other places in the Bering Sea for king crabs include around the Pribilof Islands and St. Mathew Island, substantial king crab fisheries. Now the National Marine Fisheries Service does conduct surveys in the Bering Sea, but because of the nature of their survey, they're not estimating those populations well at all. So there's a large element of uncertainty as we set our annual catch quotas for those areas." MR. KRUSE continued, "Another area which has been a big area in marine fisheries is bycatch. You can probably expand that to discards in general. Some of the large groundfish fisheries are prosecuted by trawl fishing. They catch not only the fish that they're targeting but a wide range of other species including smaller fish of the same species that they're trying to catch. This results in a lot of discard. Some of those discards are species that the state is extremely concerned about. Species such as king and chum salmon, herring, and king and tanner crabs for example. We've been very active as a state with the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council, to put limits, or bycatch caps, for those species of interest, in the groundfish fisheries, as well as providing for closures in areas that are particularly vulnerable because of concentrations of herring or crabs." MR. KRUSE concluded, "Within the federal management arena. There are a number of significant changes occurring in fisheries management. These include things such as moratoria on new participants in fisheries such as for halibut and sablefish, as well as things called IFQs (Individual Fishing Quotas). Also changes in their observer programs. Some of these issues have implications in that basically the federal actions that are occurring pertain from fisheries from 3 to 200 miles. They do not apply to state waters. This poses some difficulty in terms of managing resources within 0 to 3 miles that our agency is going to need to be facing, a lot of policy type decisions. Many of the species that we're managing don't adhere to a three mile boundary, so they're migrating in between the two and as a result, there's a number of issues that need to be resolved. Some of these pose problems in terms of creating management difficulties where we haven't had a management program and on the other hand some of these pose opportunities." Number 375 DAVE BENTON, ACTING DEPUTY COMMISSIONER, ADF&G, testified, "I've worked at the North Pacific Fishery Management Council (NPFMC) now for any number of years and we've, the department, have focused there on two major suites of issues. One is resource conservation issues the other is economic development issues for the state of Alaska." He then addressed Representative Ogan's concerns about the track record of fisheries in other areas of this country, saying, "Probably the area where the greatest level of bycatch and waste and discards occur is in the groundfish fisheries off of our coast. The fisheries off of Alaska in the 200 mile zone represent roughly half of the nation's total fishery resources and harvests and a little less than half of the value. Out of that, the offshore fisheries throw away about 750 million pounds a year. At least in 1993 that's what they threw away of the target species that they were supposedly harvesting. This isn't species that are bycatch like halibut, crab, herring and salmon that they're supposed to throw back as prohibitive species. These are target species that are harvested and discarded for some reason; economic reasons, sometimes it's a regulatory reason. But these are fish that really ought to go into making food products or some product as a harvested resource. Instead they're discarded. They're not utilized. This has been a real concern to the state. We're pushing at the council and back in Washington, D.C. for actions to require these people, when they harvest those resources to retain and utilize them. With regard to other bycatches, as Gordon summarized, the state has been pushing to deal with crab bycatch, herring bycatch, salmon bycatch, by seeking either closures, caps, or other kinds of regulatory measures that we can use to protect those resources." MR. BENTON described the difficulty in the NPFMC board process and added, "The council can only recommend measures to conserve resources or regulate the fisheries and those recommendations then have to be approved by the secretary and the secretary's representative has the vote on the council. It makes for a very interesting dynamic as to whether or not you can effectively first, transmit a message to the secretary and hopefully that message is received and acted upon. With the secretary's representative sitting there, it's sometimes a very interesting proposition because he controls most of the analysis, most of the data flow, most of the assessment information, and all of the economic cost and benefit analysis that all have to go into making a decision. And when they have that kind of control, it's very difficult for the state of Alaska or Alaska's representatives on the council to get those conservation measures passed an unwilling federal bureaucracy and passed an industry that very often does not want to address those problems." He then described the development of the trawler fleet as beginning when the foreign fleet was moved past the 200 mile zone and the joint ventures were formed often without Alaskan residents. He pointed out, "As a consequence of that, the industry offshore is dominated by Seattle interests and interests from other parts of the country. Now Alaskans want to get into the ball game. We've tried to make opportunities available in a number of ways. One is the onshore-offshore allocation scheme." He then said ADF&G is working towards reauthorizing that allocation which expires at the end of this year. Number 470 MR. BENTON stated, "What that allocation is 100 percent of the pollock and 90 percent of the cod caught in the Gulf of Alaska, has to be delivered to shore. And in the Bering Sea, I believe it's, 65 percent goes offshore, 35 percent goes onshore. That's still a very large chunk of fish. Along with the Bering Sea pollock allocation, is a pollock CDQ (Community Development Quota) allocation which is providing about $20 million a year currently to western Alaska communities, little villages all up and down the coast from Nome and Norton Sound on down and around and out the Chain. That resource is used by these communities to get into joint venture operations, very similar to what happened when the Americanization process with the foreign fleets was going on. It's resulting in literally thousands of jobs, the start up of many new fisheries business enterprises in those communities and elsewhere and really holds the greatest promise of any regional economic development activity that we've had in a long time. The state is looking to extend that program beyond 1995 along with the onshore- offshore allocation that will go through to 1999." MR. BENTON continued, "We are trying to craft a program that will do a couple of things. One, add CDQs to the list for the other species that might be covered by the licenses. Two, make sure there's opportunity for small boat fleets to operate out of our local communities all up and down the coast. Three, insure that whatever kind of program comes about, it protects our onshore- offshore allocation scheme. So communities like Kodiak, Dutch Harbor, Sitka, wherever, have access to the resources and those resources are not transferred away to Seattle-based interests and migrate away from Alaska." Number 512 MR. BENTON also said, "The other suite of federal issues that I participate in is reauthorization of key pieces of federal legislation. Right now that focuses in on the Magnuson Act, which is the Act that set up the 200 mile zone, established the council, that kind of thing. In the Magnuson Act, starting last year working closely with Senator Steven's Office, we got some very stringent provisions in the draft to deal with bycatch and discards. That bill didn't go anywhere. It's back on the table now and we expect action on it this year. The other one's the Endangered Species Act (ESA). It is going to affect any number of aspects to our lives up here. In fisheries, it's endangered salmon and the impacts it has on the Pacific Salmon Commission process. And also how the state manages its resources. The third suite of things I work on are the international fisheries issues. I just got back from Vancouver for what to me was probably the worst international negotiation I've ever been involved in in my life. I've never been dealt a worse deck of cards. That's the Pacific Salmon Commission Treaty process and that's a negotiation between the United States and Canada on salmon management up and down the coast but really is a three way negotiation between ourselves, the southern U.S. and Canada. All I'll say about that here today is that Alaska stands to lose quite a lot in that Pacific Salmon Commission process right now in terms of having our fisheries reduced primarily for Chinook Salmon off Southeast, but also for a number of other fisheries here in Southeast such as sockeye and pink salmon fisheries down near Ketchikan, primarily. That process is not going well. A special negotiator's been appointed by the President. This fellow's name is Jim Pipkin. His job is to solve the problem. They don't really care very much who gets stomped in the way of that. Alaska is being painted as the bad guy by our friends in Washington State and elsewhere. We're not looking at a very favorable climate right now. That one's colored by the ESA: determinations on endangered Chinook salmon out of the Snake River. And National Marine Fisheries Service in the South and the federal negotiator have all come at us very hard last week telling us we're going to have to take significant reductions in our Chinook salmon fishery off Southeast Alaska. Probably 30 to 50 percent." Number 560 CHAIRMAN AUSTERMAN asked if there were any problems associated with the reauthorization of the onshore-offshore allocation and the CDQ program. MR. BENTON replied, "If we can maintain the level of presence that the state has had at the council, and that means we have to put in a lot of staff time here in the next several months, I think that onshore-offshore is going to go. I think we'll get an extension. Along with that will be the pollock CDQ provisions. The opposition there, of course, is our friends the factory trawlers from Washington State," and added, "We've got to build the record, which has been the toughest part of this thing, to justify an extension because inshore-offshore was supposed to be an interim measure." MR. BENTON specified, "We're going to need a lot of help from the communities. We need all the communities up and down the Chain to be in there at the public hearings providing economic and social information that supports the need to continue that allocation, talking about what would happen if that allocation was not there for those communities. That kind of information is going to be critical when it gets down to the secretary making a decision and justifying that decision. For example, we'd like to see resolutions out of councils and boroughs of Kodiak, Dutch Harbor, etc. We need some detailed economic analysis or at least data - what's the importance to the community, what would happen if it weren't there, what kind of social consequences might occur, that kind of thing." MR. RUE interjected that ADF&G will be working directly the community representatives. MR. BENTON proceeded, "On the pollock CDQs, I think it's going to go right along with it. No changes, no increases of allocation or anything. It's just steady as you go, status quo kind of thing." He further commented, "If we do the license program and that is up for a decision in April, but more likely to occur in June, we will be adding some species under the license program to the suite of CDQ species. We're going to have to do a little work on justifying that as well." Number 628 REPRESENTATIVE OGAN asked for translation of several of the acronyms used by Mr. Benton. MR. BENTON gave a brief explanation of CDQs and IFQs. REPRESENTATIVE OGAN asked if community input is truly effective in promoting the reestablishment of the onshore-offshore allocations, in light of the fact that there were so many unheeded resolutions against IFQs. MR. BENTON said, "You're trying to build a record that says, `The social cost and benefits, the economic cost and benefits are very important and could be crucial to some communities in Alaska. You build that kind of record, it's very helpful in terms of the state trying to get the action through and then defending it once it goes to the secretary. On the IFQs, the situation there was a little different. The federal government really wanted IFQs on halibut, on sablefish. They wanted IFQs on everything. Just to give you some numbers, excluding halibut and sablefish, looking at all the other groundfish species - I don't think that included crab, it might have included crab - anyway, about 83 percent of the IFQs would have gone to non-Alaskans. The value of those IFQs was worth about $4 billion. That's not happening right now, we're not on that track. Going back to halibut and sablefish, which is the IFQ program that was approved, the previous administration was very supportive of that. At least initially. I think the devil was in the details and a lot of people figured out the details of that program. There's some real problems with it. But nevertheless, it's there, it has been approved. The secretary wanted that program and in a lot of ways, as long as the secretary had the votes and got it out of council, the record didn't matter in this regard. Now there are some jurisdictional issues that you've probably heard about. Frankly, I think that those have been relatively well dealt with by the state. Although the recent court opinion, I want to hear what our lawyers have to say about it, on the IFQ lawsuit but the issue of whether or not IFQs affect state management and how is very critical. With regard to halibut - halibut are regulated under an international treaty so there is not much we can do about that. The federal government can preempt us and that's that. With regard to black cod, sablefish, the state does regulate sablefish and when the IFQ program was going through the council process, we looked at how much sablefish comes out of state waters and made a determination of which geographical areas were a concern to us and then decided that because very little sablefish came out of state waters except for these areas, that it really wasn't a preemption issue for our management program. If there were problems in terms of stock conservation, we could always shut the fishery down in state waters to address that. We manage sablefish in a few areas. Those areas are exempt from the IFQ program under the NPFMC. So, in that instance, the jurisdictional issues are contained, I think, unless the court decision has set an unacceptable precedent that we can't live with. If we move into a different kind of limited access system for the rest of groundfish and crab. IFQs or licenses. Licenses are the ones that are right now on the table. Then that jurisdiction question becomes much more important to us because there are a lot of groundfish fisheries resources inside state waters that are very important to Alaska residents and it could definitely affect our management program and we, under no circumstances, want to let that kind of preemption occur. We want to craft something that preserves our ability to manage those resources inside our waters to the extent that we possibly can." Number 701 CHAIRMAN AUSTERMAN pointed out that the economic data from the communities could be used in court if the secretary rejected the extension of the onshore-offshore allocation and stressed the importance of this to the state. TAPE 95-4, SIDE A Number 000 REPRESENTATIVE CARL MOSES pointed out that it appears that ADF&G uses opposite reasoning in arguments regarding the Pacific Salmon Treaty negotiations and the Yukon River crisis. MR. RUE said, "You've got to remember, down south one of the big concerns we've had is that 95 percent of the problem is caused by dams and hydro, and they're asking the fishermen to bear a hugely disproportionate and unfair burden. That is a very different situation than what we see in western Alaska." MR. BENTON talked about the Pacific Salmon Commission negotiations and that ADF&G is attempting to change how the commission valuates "equity." He said, "It's a balancing of interceptions, and we've tried to bring that around to an abundance base approach of management where stocks are managed based on their abundance... You set some rules and guidelines and that's how you deal with it. In part, we're looking at the same kind of concept around Alaska, too. At least in terms of some of the fisheries that have been pretty contentious with regards to distant interceptions." Number 112 REPRESENTATIVE ELTON pointed out that there are many small communities in Southeast Alaska concerned about "the Chinook problem" and asked if other state personnel can be applied to that problem. MR. BENTON said, "We have some excellent people in there (Pacific Salmon Commission negotiations) working to the max and I'm concerned about that because this is going to be a grueling process. We have some resources available. This committee worked with the department over the past couple of years to get some resources there but that's not just Pacific Salmon Commission, it's Pacific Salmon Commission, federal legislative reauthorization, ESA litigation, ESA administrative process. It's a whole lot of work and not a lot of real resources there. We can always use a little extra help. If you guys have any ideas on where we can find some." CHAIRMAN AUSTERMAN asked if Alaska's congressional delegation is helping with these issues. Number 159 MR. BENTON said, "The delegation on PSC (Pacific Salmon Commission) has been working very well to put pressure on the National Marine Fisheries Service and the State Department to do the right thing. On the issues before the NPFMC, they have been excellent. They are really helping us on the inshore-offshore and on the bycatch issues and the CDQs issues." DOUGLAS EGGERS, CHIEF FISHERIES SCIENTIST, DIVISION OF COMMERCIAL FISHERIES MANAGEMENT AND DEVELOPMENT DIVISION, ADF&G, gave a detailed overview of ADF&G's salmon fisheries management program, including presentation of a handout describing "an example of the stock assessment system that has evolved for western Alaska sockeye and chum salmon which include all stocks north of Unimak Island." REPRESENTATIVE OGAN asked if allocation decisions are made for biological or political reasons. MR. EGGERS said, "Our role in these decisions is to provide the best available scientific information on what the magnitude and origin of the catches are to the Board of Fisheries so they can make decisions with respect to allocation." Number 329 CHAIRMAN AUSTERMAN asked about genetic stock identification for assessments. MR. EGGERS indicated the prevalence and methods of genetic stock identification assessments and cautioned, "These methods don't work very well for coho and pink salmon." CHAIRMAN AUSTERMAN asked if these assessments had already been done on Kodiak Island differentiating the stocks between the individual stream systems. MR. EGGERS indicated that study was done on one of the Olga Moser Bay area with a procedure called "Scale Pattern Analysis", not genetic stock identification. ADJOURNMENT CHAIRMAN AUSTERMAN thanked his guests and adjourned the meeting at 6:58 p.m.