SENATE RESOURCES COMMITTEE April 23, 1994 8:00 A.M. MEMBERS PRESENT Senator Mike Miller, Chairman Senator Loren Leman, Vice Chairman Senator Al Adams Senator Fred Zharoff MEMBERS ABSENT Senator Steve Frank Senator Drue Pearce Senator Dave Donley OTHER MEMBERS PRESENT Representative Robin Taylor Representative Carl Moses COMMITTEE CALENDAR Confirmations to the Board of Fish: Kay Andrew, Dick Bower, and Larry Engel. PREVIOUS ACTION N/A WITNESS REGISTER Kate Troll Southeast Alaska Seiners Association Juneau, Ak. 99801 POSITION STATEMENT: Supported Kay Andrew and opposed Dick Bower. Wayne Jackson P.O. Box 8395 Ketchikan, Ak 99901 POSITION STATEMENT: Supported Kay Andrew. Ken Duckett P.O. Box 3178 Ketchikan, Ak. 99901 POSITION STATEMENT: Supported Kay Andrew. Greg Rice 200 Mattle Rd. Ketchikan, Ak. 99901 POSITION STATEMENT: Supported Kay Andrew. Geoff Bullock P.O. Box 6616 Ketchikan, Ak. 99901 POSITION STATEMENT: Supported Kay Andrew. Noel Putman Ketchikan Sport and Wildlife Club 846 Brown Deer Ketchikan, Ak. 99901 POSITION STATEMENT: Supported Kay Andrew. David Bray 2729 Tongass Ave. Ketchikan, Ak. 99901 POSITION STATEMENT: Supported Kay Andrew. Byron Haley 1002 Pioneer Rd. Fairbanks, Ak. 99701 POSITION STATEMENT: Opposed Kay Andrew and Dick Bower. Bill Henry 1081 Duck Pond Rd. North Pole, Ak. 99705 POSITION STATEMENT: Opposed Kay Andrew and Dick Bower. Supported d Larry Engel. Stanley Ned Tanana Chief Conference 122 1st Ave. Fairbanks, Ak. 99701 POSITION STATEMENT: Supported Larry Engel. Opposed Kay Andrew. Janet McCormick 2700 Davis Rd. Fairbanks, Ak. 99701 POSITION STATEMENT: Opposed Kay Andrew and Dick Bower. Harold Gillam 104 2nd Ave. Fairbanks, Ak. 99701 POSITION STATEMENT: Commented on the whole Board of Fish. Debra Lyons P.O. Box 296 Petersburg, Ak. 99833 POSITION STATEMENT: Supported Kay Andrew and Dick Bower. Opposed d Larry Engel. Gordon Jensen P.O. Box 264 Petersburg, Ak. 99833 POSITION STATEMENT: Supported Kay Andrew. Tim Keener 10819 Spur Hwy #520 Kenai, Ak. 99611 POSITION STATEMENT: Opposed Dick Bower and Larry Engel. Noel Woods Mat-Su POSITION STATEMENT: Supported Larry Engel. Jim Herman Mat-Su POSITION STATEMENT: Supported Larry Engel. Jean Woods Mat-Su POSITION STATEMENT: Supported Larry Engel. Lee Putman 6005 Roosevelt Dr. Ketchikan, Ak. 99901 POSITION STATEMENT: Supported Kay Andrew. Opposed Dick Bower and d Larry Engel. Charles Polk 8752 Trinity Dr. Juneau, Ak. 99801 POSITION STATEMENT: Supported Kay Andrew. Beth Stewart, Director Natural Resources Department Aleutian East Borough P.O. Box 33796 Juneau, Ak. 99803 POSITION STATEMENT: Supported Kay Andrew, Dick Bower, and Larry Engel. Jerry McCune, Presdient United Fishermen of Alaska Juneau, Ak. 99801 POSITION STATEMENT: Commented on the Board process. Frank Charles, Executive Director Coastal Rivers Fisheries Alliance Mat-Su POSITION STATEMENT: Opposed Kay Andrew. Supported Larry Engel. No position on Dick Bower. Larry Engel, Board Nominee Mat-Su POSITION STATEMENT: Supported Kay Andrew. Dick Bower, Board Nominee P.O. Box 3662 Soldotna, Ak. 99669 POSITION STATEMENT: Supported Kay Andrew and commented on the process. Kay Andrew, Board Nominee Ketchikan, Ak. 99901 POSITION STATEMENT: Commented on the Board process. ACTION NARRATIVE TAPE 94-38, SIDE A Number 001 CHAIRMAN MILLER called the Resources Committee meeting to order at 8:00 a.m. and announced the committee would take testimony on the Fish Board confirmees. KATE TROLL, Southeast Alaska Seiners Association, supported Kay Andrew and opposed Dick Bower. She said the seiners and gillnetters have had their share of controversial allocation battles, but they weren't automatically on Ms. Andrew's bandwagon. At their Ketchikan meeting, she was fair, open, and approachable. She was a good listener and has an extended knowledge of southeast fisheries. These qualities made their decision. She opposed Dick Bower, because, in his House Resources testimony, he stated his philosophy is that commercial fishing should have a priority below tourism. She thought our resident commercial fleet deserves a higher accreditation in mind of a board member. She thought his interpretation of the Alaska Constitution is fundamentally flawed, also. She said she is very nervous about people who are appointed strictly because they have a strong advocacy role to fulfill. Realizing you can't avoid conflict of interest, appointment of people with a particular advocacy is wrong for the process. When they became aware of Mr. Engel's contract with the Mat-Su Borough, they became concerned that he might have a particular advocacy role that might not be in the best interests of the Board. Number 118 SENATOR LEMAN asked if Mr. Engel took an active role in the defeat of Debra Lyon last year. MS. TROLL answered yes; what's troublesome is that he was on full attack based on his hard core advocacy mission. JIM BECKER, United Southeast Alaska Gillnetters, strongly supported the confirmation of Kay Andrew to the Board of Fish. During her ten months on the Board, her votes have not been based on political correctness, but on the best factual information made available. She is fair and capable, he said. Number 182 SENATOR TAYLOR said many people have indicated to him that Ms. Andrew is a fine individual who deserves the committee's thorough consideration. It is unfortunate that we place people in the position of sitting on very controversial boards before they come up for confirmation. She has been conscientious and caring and he highly recommended her to them. WAYNE JACKSON, Ketchikan, supported Kay Andrew. He knows she is open minded and makes decisions based on facts. KEN DUCKETT, Ketchikan, said he has known Kay Andrew for a long time and supported her confirmation to the Board of Fish. She makes her judgements based on facts. GREG RICE, Ketchikan, said he spoke for himself and many other commercial fishermen of Meyers Chuck and they support Kay Andrew wholeheartedly. She is clear thinking and conscientious. GEOFF BULLOCK, Ketchikan, supported Kay Andrew. He thought she was overqualified for the Board. She is fair and has done an extremely good job. NOEL PUTMAN, Ketchikan Sport and Wildlife Club, supported Kay Andrew. He has known her for a lot of years and said she is honest and concerned. Number 302 DAVID BRAY, Ketchikan, supported Kay Andrew, because she is competent, fair, and open to comments from the public. BYRON HALEY, Fairbanks, said he was a personal use sport fisherman and a member of many resource groups. He did not support the confirmation of Kay Andrew or Dick Bower. The interior river system need one, preferably two members, from the interior on the Fish Board - permanently, he urged. BILL HENRY, North Pole resident, opposed Kay Andrew and Dick Bower, because they don't represent all of Alaska. He said the chum salmon runs are so small and this information was given to the Board of Fish. It is an absolute conservation crisis in western Alaska in chum salmon and Ms. Andrew and Mr. Bower voted to increase their catch in Area M. MR. HENRY said he supported Larry Engel. STANLEY NED, Tanana Chiefs Conference, supported Larry Engel, but opposed Kay Andrew because of the conservation issue in Western Alaska. JANET MCCORMICK, Fairbanks, opposed the confirmation of Kay Andrew and Dick Bower, because they ignore the interests of the Area M commercial intercept fishery and the conservation of the resource and subsistence. HAROLD GILLAM, Fairbanks, encouraged the legislature to reject the whole Board of Fish, because it has ignored the concerns of the interior fisheries for too long and the salmon stocks have been on a serious decline for the past several years. One of the Board members has a conflict of interest which would preclude his ability to make a judgement on issues of conservation. Number 440 DEBRA LYONS, former member of the Board of Fisheries, commented that the Board of Fisheries process is very degrading regarding the way the appointments are fought over. Board members should be as open minded as possible to guard against making up their mind until all the information is in. The public does not have confidence if they know certain members were placed on the Board to serve a particular agenda. MS. LYONS said the ADF&G's funding is deplorable. She asked how the Board members could make good decisions when they don't have good information. She said when this amount of fighting occurs over allocations, you can be guaranteed that one thing is suffering and that is the resource itself. She opposed Larry Engel, because his former conduct makes his appointment totally ludicrous. She supported Kay Andrew and Dick Bower, commenting that the False Pass Issue was tearing the state apart. Number 491 GORDON JENSEN, Petersburg, said he spent 50 years as a commercial fisherman and 8 years as a sport fishermen. He supported Kay Andrew. LARRY KEENER, Kenai, opposed the appointments of Dick Bower and Larry Engel, because they are geographic appointments. They are also being appointed because of their political views on sport fishing. NOEL WOODS, President, Matanuska Valley Sportsmen, supported Larry Engel. He said they want salmon to be here for their children and grandchildren and Mr. Engel has worked toward this goal his entire professional life. JIM HERMAN, Cook Inlet fisherman, said he knew Larry Engel for many years. His expertise in fisheries is unlimited. JEAN WOODS, Mat-Su, said she has known Larry Engel for over 20 years. His priority has always been the well being of the resource. She urged them to confirm his appointment to the Board of Fish. LEE PUTMAN, Ketchikan sports fisherman, said the way sports fishermen have been treated by the Board has been pretty poor. Both Larry Engel and Dick Bower are representatives of the guided sport fishing industry and he felt they should not be appointed. He felt that Kay Andrew was the only one who would listen to the residents, sport fishermen, and personal use fishermen of the state. SENATOR ZHAROFF asked what was the difference between a sport fisherman and a personal use fisherman. MR. PUTMAN said he thought there should be a personal use category for resident Alaskans who want to feed their families and use sports fishing gear to do it. Right now there are no provisions for that. He was hoping Kay Andrew could help with this issue. SENATOR ZHAROFF said there seems to be a major confusion about what categories there are under "sport fisherman." TAPE 94-38, SIDE B Number 580 SENATOR ZHAROFF noted during their discussion that it seems that there are a number of categories under sport fishermen and some of them are commercial in nature. He thought we should keep those thoughts in mind. CHARLES POLK, Southeast fisherman for 35 years, supported Kay Andrew, because she is the type of person who makes a hard decision and doesn't have an agenda. She does her homework, listens, and votes her conscience. She has integrity and she is honest. BETH STEWART, Director, Natural Resources Department, Aleutians East Borough, supported all the Board of Fisheries candidates. She is here today to especially urge them to vote for Kay Andrew's confirmation. It is clear that she has come under attack because she did not support the efforts to significantly reduce the chum cap in the June fishery along the south peninsula. This issue has been before the Board 3 times since last October. The amount of pressure has been tremendous. Ms. Andrew ran a good meeting under this pressure, voted without regard to impact her vote might have on her chances for confirmation. What concerns her most about the process is that one nominee is being singled out in this way. JERRY MCCUNE, United Fisherman of Alaska, said he thought the process wasn't working right when you let nominees go to meetings and vote on issues before they are confirmed. He said they should be confirmed right away to avoid situations like this. He supported Kay Andrew. Being Chairman of the Board is very difficult and she has kept the process going by allowing the public additional time to speak over the objections of other Board members. She is a fair and knowledgeable person. UFA was neutral on Mr. Bower, he said, until the last meeting when they thought he didn't understand the constitution of the State of Alaska or the Board policies, since he ranked commercial users behind non-resident sports fishermen and other people from the lower 48. They now oppose him. UFA opposed Larry Engel's confirmation based on his appointment record with the Mat-Su Borough as a fisheries consultant. The question needs to be asked, after fighting so hard against the commercial fishing industry in the Cook Inlet area, how can he be objective and impartial on Cook Inlet and other commercial fisheries around the state. Number 492 FRANK CHARLES, Executive Director, Coastal River Fisheries Alliance, opposed Kay Andrew, because she voted against a chum cap in area m, based on her faulty reasoning. In addition, she was not at all supportive of any restrictive measures in Kodiak at Shelikoff to protect migrating Cook Inlet sockeye. He supported Larry Engel and took no position on Dick Bower. LARRY ENGEL, Board nominee, said one point he wanted to make is that Kay Andrew conducted a fair and reasonable meeting. He thought she did a very good job. He found accusations against her to be false. It was a very emotional issue that they were dealing with and she did a good job of keeping control of the meeting. Her abilities as a chairperson were very good. DICK BOWER, Board nominee, said his comment about fish allocation was that the fish would go first for common usage and he phrased that as being non-commercial. Then he said he would place the commercial after that. These comments have been viewed wrong by some of the public. He believed that an equitable and fair allocation needs to be made. Regarding Kay Andrew, he said she ran a very good meeting that often went until late at night for 15 days. She gave everyone a chance to be heard. The comments that are being made about her are of a personal nature and he hoped they would not be overly influenced by them. KAY ANDREW, Board nominee, said she didn't vote for southeast Alaska. If she were going to vote to benefit her fishery, she would have voted the other way. She said she had been involved in the Board process for many years - on the other side of the table. She was on the Advisory Committee for 9 years in Ketchikan and served part of that time as chairman. Also, she was on the regional council. She brought the proposal booklet that deals with the six proposals the Department put through. The Board did not consider the Commissioner's requests. Number 388 SENATOR ZHAROFF asked how many other issues were up at the March meeting. MS. ANDREW explained that this meeting was different than the other, because of the controversy over the issues. So they split the meeting into 3 segments. SENATOR LEMAN asked Mr. Engel why he minimized his involvement with Mat-Su by not putting it on his resume' and asked if he thought he could, as a Board member, reach fair conclusions with the biases he brings with him from his previous life. MR. ENGEL said he became involved with the Mat-Su Borough as a fisheries consultant. The reason he was retained was because of severe conservation problems they were having with native stocks in the Susitna Basin. That system had failed to get its minimum escapement goal for 5 of the last 7 years. He was hired to get the stocks back into a more sustainable yield type goal. SENATOR LEMAN asked him what his role was in the formulation of SB 366 and HB 241, allocation of 15% of the fish to the sport fishing groups in Cook Inlet. MR. ENGEL said that allocation is best left in the hands of the Board of Fish and not the legislature. He thought the bill reflected the frustration felt by many people in the Mat-Su Borough with the Board of Fish because of the fish interception problem. SENATOR LEMAN said that the record was fairly clear that he was involved in, at least, the recommendation of the defeat of Debra Lyons. He asked if he played a similar role in the defeat of the renomination of Tom Eliason and Irv Carlisle. MR. ENGEL, said as an advisor for the Mat-Su Borough, he talked to various fishing groups who asked him not to support those 2 individuals. SENATOR ZHAROFF asked what was his definition of a commercial fisherman. MR. ENGEL said there were commercial fishermen who harvest fish and sell them and there were non-commercial fishermen who use those fish for other purposes. SENATOR ZHAROFF asked if there was an aspect of the sport fisheries he considered to be a commercial enterprise. MR. ENGEL replied that harvesting and selling the fish was what he considered commercial. In his judgement a person who transports individuals from one place to another for the purpose of harvesting fish was a commercial business. SENATOR ZHAROFF asked if he had any suggestions to curtail that activity to enhance the depleting stocks of a given area. MR. ENGEL replied that if there is a depleted stock in any area, all user groups having an impact should bear the burden of conservation. SENATOR ZHAROFF asked him what he was doing to curtail that activity. MR. ENGEL said he would look at all groups, commercial and sport. SENATOR ZHAROFF asked MS. ANDREW to comment on the Ketchikan meeting where he heard that some advisors members walked way saying they didn't have an opportunity to participate. MS. ANDREW said she was very concerned when, about 5 years ago, the Advisory Committees started going down. When she became chairman, that was one of the first things she asked her fellow board members to change. For an Advisory Committee to be given only 5 minutes to present their hours and hours of work is unrealistic. She gave them back their 15 minutes and sometimes more. The new Board tried to get advisory people involved in the meetings. She is very supportive of making sure the Board members are acceptable to the Advisory committees and giving them the room and time for meetings. MR. BOWER responded that he, too, felt the Advisory Committees needed to play an even more important role in the Board process. TAPE 94-39, SIDE A Number 001 He wanted them to be a stronger part of the decision making process that might relieve the Board, itself, from long and drawn out deliberations. MR. ENGEL said he would echo the views of Kay Andrew and Dick Bower. SENATOR LEMAN said he was heartened by his response to the question of priorities. MR. ENGEL said he hoped they could have equity as much as possible among the various users. He said we have serious resource issues in our state, but that the most serious are people's political and economic issues. Number 154 SENATOR LEMAN asked him what specific things he would like to see addressed in Cook Inlet if they were reopened out of the normal three year cycle it is on. MR. ENGEL said when the Kenai River Sockeye issue was reviewed the sportsmen in the Cook Inlet area felt they had not been listened to. This is the feeling behind the legislation that has been introduced regarding allocation. MR. BOWER agreed with Mr. Engel. He said one of the reasons he is sitting on the Board is because of the frustrations with the Cook Inlet fisheries situation. He has developed a draft statement which included a comprehensive review and development of a comprehensive fisheries management plan for Cook Inlet. All of the people who have an interest in this common resource should be heard and should be involved in the overall planning. MS. ANDREW commented that part of the process is that you can't make everyone happy all the time. She would ask the legislature to confirm a person on any of their Boards or Commissions as soon as possible after their appointment to avoid the public using issues for supporting or not supporting a nominee. Number 306 SENATOR LEMAN noted the court decision where the Board can identify non-subsistence areas is in conflict with federal law. He understands this is going backwards which is unacceptable and unreasonable and not at all what is intended, even by strong proponents of subsistence. He asked if we are just subject to the whims of federal rules or is there something the Board can do about subsistence. MS. ANDREW said the Board has been called to a special meeting on April 28 to look at the court ruling. She thought the state had taken a stand on subsistence and the legislature, as a body, would have to decide whether we will try to come into compliance with the federal government or whether we will stay the way we are. Number 358 SENATOR ZHAROFF asked Dr. Bower if he had any special interest or ownership in a lodge on the Kenai River or anywhere else. DR. BOWER said he did not have any financial or personal interest in any kind of lodge or commercial fishing operation of any kind. MR. ENGEL stated he had no financial ties to any lodge or guiding activity. He participates actively as a sport fisherman. MS. ANDREW stated that her husband is a drift gillnet fisherman on the U.S./Canada border. She does not hold any limited entry or commercial permits. They raise oysters on Prince of Wales Island and she is an avid sport fisherman. SENATOR ZHAROFF said that sport fishing is now entering the commercial area and looking at the prioritization of the utilization of the fisheries resource, he emphasized they should look at including the sport commercial fisheries as a definition. MS. ANDREW agreed with that and said she hoped the legislature would look a giving the Board some way to do that. MR. BOWER agreed also that they needed to take a careful look at that issue. MR. ENGEL recognized that there are commercial sport uses of the fisheries resource. SENATOR MILLER thanked everyone for their time and effort and their participation and adjourned the meeting at 4:41 p.m.