It's way past time for Nome fisheries enhancement to begin

 "The spirit of cooperation, leadership, open communications, respect, supportiveness and can do attitude"

Tim used this headline on his letter because it is a quote by Charles Faegerstrom of the local Native Corporation whose outfit helped squander millions of federal dollars and then stifled publication of results, or non-results. And refusing to cooperate with other local fishing leaders, dissing them under Color of Lignt, (see Wikipedia) wouldn't support any other efforts in fish enhancement, and of course got nothing accomplished. Wow! And where was the Alaska Dept. of Fish and Game in their oversight of mucho dinero fisheries enhancement funds?

The reason Tim writes this today is that Fish and Game Deputy Commissioner Dave Bedford flew to Nome today to have a closed door session with all these buckaroo fish ranchers, prior to tomorrow's closed door session of more local buckaroos. And guess who is uninvited. You may have guessed by now: the author of the letters below and the one in my previous post, the one who should be running the show, the State sanctioned President of the Norton Sound area fisheries enhancement program. (See title of letter below again) 

This is the framework for the failed runs, discounting the trawl salmon bycatch by these same buckaroos through the local Community Development Quota Program - owned Bering Sea trawlers. The other little sleight of hand out of the bucharoo play-book is described in this article. Enjoy the enlightenment. 

 Isn't this a test of manhood, or womanhood, and leadership, that is, "study that you may be approved." Ask yourself, who do you think should be in fisheries enhancement leadership in this very needy situation in Western Alaska? There isn't another twenty years to waste doing the same old thing. Hear that Cora?

"The spirit of cooperation, leadership, open communications, respect, supportiveness and can do attitude"

 By

 Tim Smith, President

Norton Sound/Bering Strait

Regional Aquaculture Association

"Does anybody remember the Norton Sound Salmon Research and Restoration Program? NSSRRP spent $5 million dollars of federal money administered by the State of Alaska during 2000-06 researching and restoring Norton Sound salmon. If you don’t remember NSSRRP, it is not too surprising since the results were never published.

On October 15, 1999, ADF&G met behind closed doors to talk about NSSRRP in the Sitnasuak Native Corporation building. In attendance, representing Kawerak, were Loretta Bullard, Roy Ashenfelter, Eileen Norbert, Don Stiles and Jacob Ahwinona; Representing Sitnasuak Native Corporation were SNC President Robbie Fagerstrom and Irene Anderson. ADF&G officials were Commissioner Frank Rue, Subsistence Division Director Mary Pete, Commercial Fisheries Division Director Doug Mecum, Research Supervisor Larry Buklis and biologists Charlie Lean and Peter Rob.

Except for the seven individuals listed above, all Norton Sound salmon users were locked out of this meeting that was not advertised and held in a privately owned building.

Prior to the meeting, I called SNC President Robbie Fagerstrom and asked if I could attend. He said no.

The outcome of this meeting was a plan to divide up the NSSRRP funds through a Steering Committee controlled by local special interest groups and ADF&G but closed to most Norton Sound stakeholders. About half the money was spent on counting fish and the other half was spent on research projects that apparently were not good enough for publication.

Very little of the Research and Restoration money was used for restoring salmon runs or increasing salmon harvesting opportunity and the runs continue to be unrestored. We have failed by a long shot to achieve the modest salmon harvest goals set in the Norton Sound/Bering Strait Regional Comprehensive Salmon Plan signed by Commissioner Rue in June 1996. We failed because we never seriously tried to increase Norton Sound salmon runs using methods that had any chance of success. There are no data showing that counting fish more accurately has significantly increased returns to Norton Sound rivers.

One thing we should learn from past failures of Norton Sound salmon restoration efforts is that: 1) closed door meetings between ADF&G officials and local special interest group representatives have not resulted in actions leading to significantly increased salmon harvests and; 2) excluding stakeholders from meetings between ADF&G officials and local special interest group representatives does not foster a spirit of cooperation, leadership, open communications, respect, supportiveness and can do attitude. What it does is create hard feelings for no reason.

George Santayana is often credited with saying, “Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” If he didn’t say that, he should have."

Tim Smith

PO Box 478

Nome, AK 99762

(907) 443-5352 phone

(815) 364-2565 eFax

Here's a recent letter TIm wrote in complete bafflement as to why a Department of the State of Alaska would flout State statutes so blatantly. Yes, Mr. Bedford, we are waiting.


"Dear Mr.  Bedford,
As you are aware, Norton Sound/Bering Strait
Regional Aquaculture Association is the registered
name of an Alaska nonprofit corporation in good
standing.

The department has never explained why Oscar Takak
should be able to call his organization by that
name without violating AS 10.35.040 or
alternatively why he is entitled to violate a
statute that prohibits Oscar from doing what you
say he is doing.

We would appreciate an explanation."

Tim Smith, President
Norton Sound/Bering Strait
Regional Aquaculture Association

 

Color of Money trumps Color of Light

Commentary on the judgment in Smith vs.

Norton Sound Economic Development Corp.

By Tim Smith

The only reason NSEDC ever held elections for its board of directors is because they were court ordered to do so following the complaint I filed in 1994.

On January 9, this year, another court issued a ruling that means NSEDC is no longer obligated to elect board members in fair and open elections. The judge held that as a privately owned nonprofit corporation having no individual members, the NSEDC board and not the residents of the 15 NSEDC communities will get to decide who will sit on the board in the future.

NSEDC was founded in 1989 beforethe CDQ program existed. Its articlesof incorporation and bylawcontained the following provisions, “membership in this corporation shall be available and open to all persons interested in the goals and purposes of the organization as stated in the bylaws. The corporation recognizes and admits to the principle that

all persons are equal and that this corporation does not discriminate against anyone on the basis of race, color, ethnic origin or religion.”

After the CDQ program came along in 1992 and brought millions of dollars of fisheries revenue to the region, things changed radically as they often do when money is involved. The individuals who seized control of NSEDC in 1992 locked out the people who were formerly members to maintain exclusive control of their newly created hoard of cash. They didn’t hold elections for their board of directors and all of their financial and other records were kept secret.

Today, NSEDC’s governing documents contain the following passage, “communities satisfying the requirements

set forth in the bylaws are eligible for membership in the corporation. The individual residents of those communities or any other community are not eligible for membership.” That’s a major departure from the way things were with respect to the rights of regional residents in NSEDC.

Prior to 1992, as with most nonprofit corporations in America, NSEDC’s members owned NSEDC. The members were the people living in Norton Sound communities. We are no longer the owners. Now, NSEDC management says they represent us, but how they represent us is up to them.

Even though NSEDC agreed to the 1994 judgment in order to end litigation, the people in control never really went along with the concept of fair and open elections. Things got out of hand in 2006 when Nome’s NSEDC election had to be overturned because of election fraud and a new one held. NSEDC was making up election rules as they went along.

Following the 2009 election, I asked the court to again review the rules governing NSEDC director elections and tell us what rights Norton Sound residents have when it comes to choosing our CDQ program representatives. Judge Jeffery ruled that the NSEDC bylaws control how our representatives are chosen and the NSEDC board of directors

unilaterally determines the content of the bylaws. Norton Sound residents don’t have any say in it.

Judge Jeffery’s decision confirms that the rules for CDQ group governance are inadequate for protecting the rights of the people living in the 65 CDQ eligible communities that the program was supposed to benefit. I am hoping that this judgment will serve as a wakeup call to Congress and the Alaska Legislature about the need for additional lawmaking

to codify the rights of the residents of our communities to participate meaningfully in decisions about how CDQ program resources will be used. If we don’t enact laws detailing how NSEDC and the other CDQ groups are supposed to be governed, we shouldn’t be surprised when we find that we have no voice in what happens to our CDQ program money.

Contrary to what NSEDC is saying, this case was never about who can or can’t vote for NSEDC board members. What it was about is determining who, under the existing laws, gets to make the rules for how the residents of our 15 Norton Sound communities participate in NSEDC governance. Now that we know, it is time to talk to the lawmakers about making the necessary changes to ensure that community residents are fairly and meaningfully represented

in this important program.

Case study of a lost salmon resource

"I never did give anybody hell. I just told the truth and they thought it was hell.”

                                                            ------ Harry S. Truman

This quote by Harry Truman reminded me of a situation that is unfolding, as we speak, in Western Alaska. I can't say it as well as the folks out there tell it, so I'll just preface it and then paste on what they've said in the last few days. Some of what is being said is in the 'Nome Nugget' newspaper on-line. I started to be really concerned after hearing that the Mayor of Teller, Alaska, the legendary sled dog racer, was attempted to be barred from attending a North Pacific Fisheries Management Council Meeting by management of the Community Development Quota group he is a Board Member of. 

Joe had a right to attend as a member of the public, but the Norton Sound Community Development Corporation is acting more like a feudal lord and doesn't want it's constituency learning the truth about it's involvement in the fishing business: where all the money is going, why their salmon runs are drying up, and why they can't get any salmon enhancement going.

The following correspondences explain it better. I think it is shameful on the part of Governor Parnell that this is going on on his watch. If any other force of law wants to step in, feel free. When you have the leaders of these CDQ groups making in the hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual salary and villagers are getting on the radio and saying they are cold and hungry, something is rotten. 

Some folks in Western Alaska have been speaking up lately and are also being threatened by their own economic development group with legal action. The economic development folks have just been buying toxic assets of the fishing industry. For what? It seems, just their own salaries. Under CDQ federal rules, they aren't obligated to respond to their constituency, the villagers of the region. Is there no humanity left amongst the regulators? 

What is economic development? The Knight Foundation just released the findings of a study on what promotes the general welfare of the public, which is the definition of economic development. And that is, attachment to community was found to be the most important thing. And that the drivers of attachment are the underlying key variables. Those would certainly include, in this case, the continuation of the historically important food supply of Western Alaskans, the salmon runs. And freedom from fear of retribution for speaking up about injustices in the region. Without further ado, here's some letters that have come across my desk lately. Not the whole of it by any means.

"The three public RPT (Regional Planning Team) members identified in the message from Sam Rabung to David Bedford below: Charlie Lean, Wes Jones and Simon Kineen are all NSEDC (Norton Sound Economic Development Corp.) employees. All three are former ADF&G (Alaska Department of Fish and Game) Commercial Fisheries Division employees who worked in the Nome office.

Charlie Lean retired as an ADF&G Commercial Fisheries Area Management Biologist in Nome and now is the Director for the NSEDC Norton Sound Fisheries Research and Development Program.

Wes Jones was an ADF&G Commercial Fisheries Assistant Area Management Biologist in Nome and was hired as a Fisheries Biologist by NSEDC.

Simon Kineen was an ADF&G Commercial Fisheries Technician in Nome and is now the NSEDC Chief Operations Officer.

Kawerak is an ex officio member of the RPT and the Kawerak RPT representative is Roy Ashenfelter who also works for NSEDC.

Putting the owners of pollock trawler companies in control of Norton Sound salmon enhancement is ridiculous. The last thing the trawlers want is more salmon in the Bering Sea. More salmon means more bycatch and they are already under salmon bycatch limits which reduce their profits. Marked salmon from enhancement projects can be used to determine the impact of trawl bycatch on specific salmon stocks of concern for the first time and the most threatened stocks in Alaska are in Norton Sound.

This incestuous relationship between ADFG and NSEDC creates a conflict of interest for both entities with lots of money changing hands. ADF&G headquarters may not care about the amounts obtained from NSEDC but the area management staff and the region sure do. In addition, CDQ groups provide a cushy second career for ADF&G employees who play ball.

Gene Sandone was a former ADF&G Commercial Fisheries Regional Supervisor for the Arctic-Yukon-Kuskokwim area which encompasses most of the CDQ eligible communities. He now works for the CDQ group Coastal Villages Region Fund.

6 AAC 93.015. CDQ Team; Responsibilities; Lead state agency.

(a) To carry out the state's role in the CDQ program under 50 C.F.R. 679, a CDQ team shall perform functions as directed in and under this chapter. The CDQ team consists of

(2) the commissioner of the Department of Fish and Game, or one or more of the commissioner's representatives from that department; and

(c) To fulfill the purpose of this chapter, including providing accountability to the CDQ program, the CDQ team shall

(3) make recommendations regarding CDQ allocations and changes to allocations;

5) monitor the performance of each CDQ group in achieving the group's milestones and objectives in its CDP;

A reasonable person would conclude that the money NSEDC gives ADF&G and the high paying jobs it provides for cooperative ADF&G employees will buy favorable recommendations on its CDQ allocations and superficial monitoring by ADF&G as a member of the State of Alaska CDQ team of its nonperformance in delivering CDQ program benefits to its member communities."

And  this just came in today:

"It needs to get out there. There was a criminal conspiracy, leading to an illegal break in and theft at our communities hatchery, by highly placed ADFG officials. The State Corporations office stated formally that Tim is president of our aquaculture association. ADFG is doubling down in criminal behavior, really retaliating, and violating Tim's civil rights, by putting a bunch of ex ADFG mercenaries, employed and orchestrated by the trawl industry, to once more rob him; this time of a rightful place at the table.

And any slim chance of future involvement in salmon restoration. And ensuring the slum dog millionaire salmon famine of Western Alaska is prolonged indefinitely."

And this:

"The stuff with Joe got interesting. A few weeks ago, NSEDC Chairman Dan Harrelson wrote the city of Teller to demand Joe's resignation from the NSEDC Board. A familiar pattern of doubling down in retaliation, when remotely challenged. No board authorization to do so. A retaliatory, racist action. Little white VPSO Dan has been trashing natives & getting paid for it so long he feels it a human right. He's been corroding the legal system here long enough they basically condone or ignore every misdeed.

I'm hearing through the grapevine too that Eric Olson confronted him, in a blatant conflict of interest at the current Council meeting in Anchorage, warning him not to try to break away and form a new CDQ group that actually represented his people. That he, Olson, wouldn't allow it. The bought and paid for Council Chair, knows that such an idea would spread like wildfire to all the groups.

The best performing group per capita, Central Bering Sea, is the result of such a breakaway. Not a bad precedent?"

The State of Alaska is abrogating it's constitutional responsibilities to protect these salmon resources that are being lost. Who do you pin it on though? Well, certainly the Governor. In the least, don't let him and his appointees have four more years to trash more of Alaska's resources.

Turning the Tide on Cronyism; a Landmark

Viewpoints: Letters / Opinions

State Commission’s Rejection of S. 730 Merits Praise
By Myla Poelstra

 

November 10, 2011
Thursday

On October 28, 2011, the State of Alaska Citizen’s Advisory Commission on Federal Areas held a public meeting where testimony was taken on S. 730 and HR. 1408, the Sealaska Land Bills, now before Congress.  

The Commissioners, appointed by the Governor and State Legislature, voted unanimously to nix this legislation.

CACFA rejected these bills after two years of fact finding that included discussions with Congressional staff, meetings with Sealaska, and review of public testimony and letters.

After a thorough evaluation, CACFA reached the same conclusion that USDA Undersecretary Harris Sherman made during the Senate hearing on S.730: “The selections identified by Sealaska within the original withdrawal areas are more than sufficient to meet Sealaska’s remaining ANCSA entitlement.”

The Commission’s comments further echoed Sherman’s view that, “neither S.730 nor HR.1408 will accomplish [completion of the entitlement] in a manner that is fair and equitable to all of the residents and communities who depend on the resources of the Tongass National Forest.”

The heart of the issue is that Sealaska needs to finalize the selections it requested from the BLM in 2008, which are in the area they asked Congress for in 1976 through the testimony of John Borbridge, Sealaska’s President.

Thirty five years is too long for Sealaska to come back and upset the apple cart by going hundreds of miles from the 1976 areas.  The USFS Tongass Land Management Plan and Transition planning would be thrown out the window by this bill.

In order for Sealaska to receive their current legislative selections, families and businesses that have lived and worked in the region for decades would, in fact, be thrown to the wolves.  

Rather than “jobs protection”, the consequences of this legislation are the destruction of jobs and the ruin of communities.

I am grateful to CACFA for voicing the same valid concerns the Nine Towns most affected by the bills have raised: NO NEW LEGISLATION IS NECESSARY to settle Sealaska’s land claims.  

Passed in 1971, ANCSA was and is a fair, just, and equitable settlement of all claims.  CACFA has taken a position based on true facts and their conclusions are valid.

Hopefully, Governor Parnell and our Congressional Delegation will respect CACFA’s letter by encouraging Sealaska Corp. to move forward and get their just entitlement by dropping this unfair legislation.

Myla Poelstra
Kosciusko Island
Edna Bay, AK

Received November 07, 2011 - Published November 10, 2011

Related:

Passage of Lands Bill Not Supported by Governor's Citizen’s Advisory Commission on Federal Areas - In a letter to U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski, Rep. Wes Keller, Chairman of Alaska's Citizens' Advisory Commission of Federal Areas said the Commission has concluded that Sealaska Corporation's land entitlement under Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) can be met with the currently selected lands in the existing withdrawals and that neither S. 730 nor H.R. 1408 will accomplish this in a manner that is fair and equitable to all the residents and communities who depend on the resources in the Tongass National Forest. In the letter, Keller included detailed reasons why the Citizens' Advisory Commission of Federal Areas cannot support passage of S. 730 or H.R. 1408. - More...
SitNews - Nov. 10, 2011

 

Hang onto your bottom

This article about sinking a U.S. destroyer off the Delaware coast reminded me of bottom habitat off the coast of Alaska. How is that you ask? First, ask yourself, why sink a lot of ships and old subway cars out on the continental shelf anyway? The story is that these artificial reefs are better served as habitat for fish than cutting them up and using them to make a new ship. Must be real valuable in that regard, because in my mind steel and all the other metals in a ship has real value compared to the rock it came from. So propagating fish must be real valuable. And the reason for this is that the bottom on the East Coast must not be good for that purpose.

How did the East Coast bottom get so unproductive anyway, and how does that relate to the bottom off Alaska? As for the first question, consider what researchers said at Oregon State University, a major marine biology research center, about fishing practices for bottom-fish. They said, and I quote, "bottom trawling extinguishes 30% of the species complex of bottom affected by dragging trawls across it." 

Next, recall those accounts of people putting string around one square foot of open meadow and counting all the different species of flora and fauna in it. It is a staggering amount; dozens and dozens of different things. Ok, maybe you can't imagine little Bobby from fifth grade doing that to the bottom of the ocean in a hundred fathoms, but try to wrap your mind around the fact that there are LOTS of different things that live down there. And lots of them are food and habitat for the few higher life forms that we like to whack up and put in the frying pan.

Some of the things down there that are crucial to the survival of our food fishes are VERY long-lived. And they are VERY delicate in relation to bottom trawls designed with heavy chain and heavy rollers made out of truck tires. These bottom trawls don't hang up on the bottom like you'd think and cause all sorts of consternation to the fishermen, and the fish get away. No, these 'Canyon Busters', as some of them are called, just flatten the bottom structures the juvenile fish need for habitat, or bring the whole mess to the surface.

I've related this story before; how a Japanese fish egg technician told of dragging up a deck load of rocks off the coast of Africa and then waiting for all the octopus to crawl out to be pitchforked into the hold. Fishermen have been trawling the East Coast of the U.S. for hundreds of years, don't you think the bottom has gotten pretty flat and unproductive by now?

There are statistics galore on the accidental catch of human-food fish, that other fishermen are allowed to catch, but those fishermen aren't, so they throw them back dead. And the federal management system wasn't designed properly by Congress to prevent any of this. I don't want to cloud the simple truth though that bottom trawling will eventually lead to the need for artificial reefs to produce any amount of fish to catch. Is this what we want for the coasts off Alaska.

Some people in the Southeast Alaska region saw this coming in the early days of the commercialization of the new 200 mile Exclusive Economic Zone in the late '70s. I don't know for a fact what happened, because my father never told me straight out what they did. BUT. 1) My father had a degree in fisheries from the University of Washington, 2) he was the manager of one of the first two bottomfish plants installed in Alaska, 3) he was used by the State of Alaska to lecture and represent the fledgling whitefish industry from the Pribilof Islands to Denmark, 4) he did say that such a industrial machine as trawlers and bottomfish plants were hell on the fish stocks, 5) they wiped out the pollock in Frederick Sound in Southeast in a year or so, 6) and when the dust settled, the coast of Southeast Alaska was closed to trawling, bottom or midwater, from the Canadian border to almost Prince William Sound, out to 200 miles.

I don't know how much clearer I can say this, the bottom trawlers are wiping out the halibut. Somehow, this isn't getting into the discussion of longliner vs charter operator. Well, that's their problem. The real problem is outside of that tussle, like the mob boss who owns both boxers. And you can go to the Tholepin blog to see pictures of the carnage.

The real problem is the relentless decline of wild Alaska fish stocks, irregardless of the hype you will see from the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, (with a board consisting of representatives of the biggest fish companies) the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council, (with a membership comprised of lobbyists for the biggest fish companies) the United Fishermen of Alaska (whose board doesn't query their membership and whose leaders have gotten into processing plants with sweetheart deals from politicians they supported), and the media (who consolidate and refuse to believe 'the Jews are being held in concentration camps', or don't want anyone to know.)

This situation will probably just roll along as it is. No other area of the world could stop the inexorable demise of their fisheries. The Eastern Canadians couldn't prevent the demise of their vast and iconic cod stocks, which was what first drew Europeans to North America. Or the Pacific Coast Canadians in their attempt to rein in industrial fish farming as it destroys the wild stocks of salmon. Human nature is the same all over.

What can be done, though, is to not throw good tax money after bad in support of this fisheries industrial complex until these human factors are brought under control. The fish on the bottom aren't the problem, the regulations aren't the problem, it's the way men interact with each other to direct the fishery that is the problem. Not individuals themselves, but the structures certain fish companies use as wealth building tools and exclusionary devices. Especially, don't subsidize new vessels for this industrial trawl fleet, like they are lobbying for. Hint, keep an eye on the pollock stocks, they can't seem to find them this year. Oops.

Wherever the fleet, don't let the bottom be abused any more, it's very delicate. The sea whip and coral forests down there protect juvenile fish from the larger fish (a vital function that seems to get overlooked by our best 'science') (the NPFMC did protect one area of coral, an area way out in left field) We can go directly to the folks in charge that hand out subsidies to these fish companies, to educate them and encourage them to hang onto the bottoms under their purview. I'm pretty sure there aren't enough old destroyers in the world to replace the habitat that is being lost in Alaska to bottom trawling.

Alaska's fisheries management and crony capitalism

By Victor Smith

Ever since 1998, when former Sen. Ted Stevens introduced his rotten American Fisheries Act (AFA), the United Fisherman of Alaska (UFA) and their allies on the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council (NPFMC) have been carving off for themselves the choice pieces of the fisheries resources of the Gulf of Alaska and Bering Sea. Stevens started it by giving the extremely lucrative pollock fishery to a handful of fishing companies and, in so doing, set off a vicious "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" national stampede for privatization. Why? In large part because no restrictions were placed to keep profits from pollock from being used to dominate all the other fisheries AFA companies participated in.

Proponents of catch shares have cleverly obfuscated their greed, jealousy, and crude survival instincts with high-minded baloney like the yarn that private ownership fosters good resource stewardship. Arne Fuglvog, the UFA's and Sen. Lisa Murkowski's pick to head NMFS, recently disproved that smarmy nonsense when he got busted for criminally underreporting his own catch while simultaneously parroting that bull at the Council.

There's nothing high-minded about divvying up the loot in the Gulf; it is dirty business, and all of a sudden it looks like Murkowski and UFA were pushing a "Manchurian Candidate" to head the National Marine Fisheries Service.

In his May 2009 email to the UFA, ex-Petersburg son John Enge gave a respectful and specific heads-up that Fuglvog was a crook and his appointment to head NMFS would backfire. Now that Enge's warning has proven true, the UFA is in the unenviable position of trying to convince everyone that they didn't know what everyone knows they knew all along -- that while Fuglvog may have been a good choice for the UFA, he was a thief and a poor choice for everyone else. To cover their asses the UFA is trying to make the story all about how Enge was "not credible," and claiming "(Enge) was in the practice of writing things that were untrue and denigrating our association and our industry."

Well boo-hoo for the poor UFA. Enge never denigrated the industry, just the UFA; and they deserve it. Does anyone believe that the UFA executive board (and Murkowski) were "all surprised as anybody" and didn't know about Arne's fishery violations? Sounds like time to subpoena some hard drives because as sure as dead fish stink, the UFA knew about Fuglvog and was white-knuckling it, hoping that everyone would keep their traps shut and their puppet-on-a-string candidate would squeak through.

Here's the story the UFA doesn't want anyone to hear:

After the AFA put everything on the table, a cabal of fishing industry insiders hatched a plan to rig the game by hijacking the much-revered UFA. They realized that fishermen were perceived as Alaska's soul, and if they could steal their voice by controlling the UFA they would wield a lot of power in Alaska. It would be a twofer: fishermen in opposition could be muzzled and their apparent support could be thrown behind almost anything.

As soon as they took it over, the UFA was used to boost Frank Murkowski into the governor's office. Not even apologizing to critics who pointed out that the UFA's membership had never been polled, UFA's new executives crowed about how they had worked for more than a year behind the scenes to link arms and make deals with nearly every other business sector in Alaska to get Murkowski elected.

But the deals came with a steep price for fishermen. The UFA's first deal was to quickly defend -- again without prior membership approval -- Murkowski's scuttling of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game's (ADF&G) Habitat Division, the division actually responsible for the good stewardship of the habitat of the very fish that UFA members' livelihoods depended on.

The second deal the UFA made was to back, one after the other, two rotten Murkowski picks for ADF&G Commissioner. UFA's first supported commissioner, Kevin Duffy, signed off on icing the Habitat Division with admonishments to "not look back." Duffy also gave the state's approval to Congress for the BSAI Crab plan, which gifted even more exclusive rights, this time for crab, to another handful of fishing companies.

Inexplicably, the UFA's second pick for ADF&G commissioner was McKie Campbell, a guy who had spent the bulk of his career working for the mining industry to reduce standards for mine runoff into salmon streams. And the UFA didn't just grudgingly back Campbell; members of the UFA Executive Board actually traveled the state to make a slick promotional video to tout his appointment. (Campbell now works on Sen. Lisa Murkowski's staff, as Republican staff director for the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.)

The third deal the UFA made was to exploit what seems to have been a crisis manufactured to bankrupt and drive half their competition out of the State. Even after dropping the price of pink salmon to 5 cents a pound (the price now is 42 cents!), fish companies claimed they were losing money on every pound of fish they bought, and half the salmon fleet was informed they would have no place to sell their fish in the 2002 season. That vicious threat of losing markets was used to bludgeon fishermen's opposition to all of the UFA's deals.

A couple of years later Rob Zuanich, the UFA executive who made the promotional video for Campbell -- the same guy who had spent so much time in Gov. Murkowski's office “managing the crisis" in the spring of 2002 -- was given a very favorable $1.2-million loan from the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority to start a fish company, thereby profiting mightily from the market conditions he helped create. Like Zuanich, Fuglvog, and Campbell, everyone who's ever packed water for the UFA has been given ever more lucrative and influential positions.

That's the opposite of the fortunes for everyone else -- and by design -- because when the loot's split up, it's best split the least number of ways. That's why the fisheries council process has been one of rigged exclusion; that's the way the ersatz democratic council process works.

Unless there is a thorough fumigation, the UFA and the councils will continue stealing national fisheries treasures and fencing them off to their own little networks, just as they've been doing for the last twelve or so years. If you run a small, honest business, that won't be good for you.

Victor Smith was born in Juneau and grew up in Petersburg. He has fished commercially all over Alaska on several of his own boats, mostly for salmon and herring, and he was a founding and long-time stockholder in NorQuest Seafoods.

Where have all the halibut gone? Long time passing.

The marvel of fisheries management in Alaska is that the 'official' position is that there is not a official position of any kind. I've been saying this for years; that it's a buffalo hunt out there. Some new reporters are 'getting it,' and that's refreshing. Many people are applauding that longtime Anchorage Daily News reporter Craig Medred, for delving into the morass that is halibut fishery management. Read this article first: Alaska Dispatch article here.

Read the second article here.

These articles should be read by anyone with the slightest interest in fairness in fisheries. I would hope, and yes, pray, that the Commissioner of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game will cut the average low-budget Joe angler some slack to get some cook fish, relative to multi-millionaire halibut longliners.

Craig has a habit, from not reporting on ocean fishing management much, to use the term 'commercial fishing interests' when defining the competition for fish. On some battle fields like halibut, there is really a consortium arrayed against the cook-fish types. That includes the UFA political action group, not the people they CLAIM to represent. And it includes the bottom trawlers who have a massive by-catch problem of small halibut they are trying to cover up(see the Tholepin blog). And the factory trawl contingent has their own by-catch of salmon, squid, herring, crab, sea mammals and birds they try to hide. So they all ban together on everything in NPFMC meetings. If the halibut longliners want to snuff out the charter guys, then that's all right with the rest of them.

The charter guys, and the public, (maybe one or two go to the major rule making meetings) should not fight this on the council's own turf. They will lose and don't say I didn't warn. They need to go to the real problem of a lack of halibut that the longliners want to ignore, "the missing 100 million pounds of halibut" that the International Pacific Halibut Commission itself iterated. And with each new five year period, it happens again.

What we are witnessing is a repeat of the crash of the Eastern Canadian cod. Much hand wringing by the politicians, silence by the local government officials like Commish Cora Campbell, and a massive rush to get-it-while-they-can by socially callous big boat owners. And this is only the tip of the reef the 'people's fish' are running up on. I know the family Cora came from and I know they wouldn't approve of her ignoring the pleas of 'the least of these.'