SPILL FORCES EXXON ECONOMY ON KODIAK
SOME GAIN, SOME LOSE IN THE CLEANUP AND THE CLAIMS

By CHARLES WOHLFORTH
Daily News Reporter

KODIAK- Hundreds of fishing boats sit idle in the harbor. Instead of catching salmon, they are chips in the game of getting money from Exxon.

The island has an economy no longer based on harvesting food. The oil spill of the Exxon Valdez is instead creating new classes of rich and poor based on how well they fit into Exxon's claims process and cleanup plans.

The qualities that made people good fishermen a good crew, skill and a good boat are meaningless now. They can be liabilities for people whose occupation these days is dealmaking with an oil company.

Kodiak has never had to rely on oil before. Unlike the rest of the state, it experienced no recession when oil prices dropped in 1985. Good fishing made Kodiak rich, and the downtown plazas are full of expensive gift stores and galleries. Dependence on oil was forced on Kodiak only this summer, when it washed up on shore.

Bottomfishing was not hit hard by oil, but many of the boats that catch those fish are working on the cleanup, leaving those who supply them without business. When Exxon leaves, they will return to work, but those fisheries, which make up 29 percent of the fishing economy, have problems of their own. Normality is not on the horizon for Kodiak.

Those who adapted fast to the oil spill economy are making a lot of money, but others seem bewildered by the change. Many of the fishing boat crewmen idling in bars and campgrounds don't even know they are entitled to compensation from the oil company that wrecked the fishing season.

Exxon has based compensation on the records of limited entry fishing permits and fish processors, leaving out large groups of people who were hurt directly by the oil spill but aren't licensed to fish commercially and don't own a cannery. Crewmen, boat owners without permits, cannery workers and smallbusiness owners say Exxon owes them, even if they don't fit the company's system.

Exxon passed out $15,000 checks to permit holders when most salmon fishing was canceled, "with the understanding," Exxon says, that the skippers would share the money with their crews.

Many did not, and say they were not told to.

Then Exxon developed a new process. Skippers would have to declare who their crewmen were, and Exxon would pay the crewmen directly. Many skippers numbers are impossible to come by declared their relatives as crewmembers, even when their relatives couldn't fish, leaving real crews with nothing, Exxon officials and fishermen say.

"What skipper in his right mind would hire someone who would just reduce their settlement?" said setnet fisherman Toby Sullivan.

Permit holders who hadn't hired crews yet were free to choose who would get Exxon's money. Hiring a crew is often casual. Fishermen are pulled off the docks shortly before the boats head out. That didn't happen this year, and many crewmen say they have been left out.

Exxon is aware of the people who have been left out and put in trouble financially, but says it is not the company's problem.

"People who have not been fair have been able to hurt a lot of innocent people, and I find that very frustrating," said John Peavey, Exxon's community liaison officer in Kodiak. "Do you handle all the injustices in the world because people aren't being fair? It's a very difficult question to answer."

LEARNING TO LOBBY EXXON

Some boat owners found themselves in the same spot as the crewmen, but managed to pressure Exxon to help.

Forrest and Tammy Gould were among between six and a dozen families in Kodiak who owned boats, but not permits. Normally, they would join with a family that had a permit and fish together, sharing the profits. But when it became obvious there would be no fishing this year, the families with the permits didn't need the families with the boats.

Oliver Holm, president of the board of the Kodiak Regional Aquaculture Association, said one fisherman lost out because the permit holder he had agreed to work with backed out and bought his own boat a boat too small to fish competitively, but big enough to qualify him to file a claim.

Exxon planned to do nothing in such cases, but the company was faced down by Tammy Gould. She turned fierce when the oil spill made it likely that her family would lose its fishing boat. She claims not to be a good public speaker, but when she spoke at the meeting last week, in sobs, she got everyone's attention.

"We are living on nothing," she said. "I have no money to buy food, I have no money to make house payments, I can't pay my (electric) bill, I can't pay my phone bill."

The Goulds began fishing with their boat, the Emmanuel, only last year. They have no permit, but had several permit holders who were willing to fish with them and split the catch. This year they had a couple of nibbles, but all the possibilities fell through when permit holders found they could get more money from Exxon without the Goulds.

If the Goulds could not make their insurance payment this month, the lender would take the boat back. They must make a $10,000 boat payment next month.

"We didn't do anything wrong. We didn't do anything wrong," Tammy Gould cried at the meeting. "But who is going to help us? We don't want charity. And we don't want handouts. But I would like an answer from someone right now. Who is going to help us today?"

Gould has learned to play the game of squeezing Exxon. The wellcombed, tidily dressed family stood by their boat for an interview and pictures. Forrest Gould stood by, big and mostly mute, letting his wife talk.

"We found out through law, through government, through mental health institutions, that we're not going to get help," Tammy Gould said. "At this point, I'm a much more menacing figure than a big macho fisherman."

Finally, on Tuesday morning, the Goulds made a deal with Exxon. The company chartered their boat to work on the oil spill, skipping over others on a list of fishermen who want the work. The Goulds are happy they will be able to make their payment, but they fear their friends will think Exxon bought them off at other fishermen's expense.

CREWMEN'S SHARE

Others left out of the claims process are not so lucky. Most of unemployed crewmen seem to be young men with beards they don't pull at the heartstrings in the same way as a sobbing mother of four in imminent danger of losing the family business. Some have just slipped away.

Roy Chevarria said his girlfriend's nephew had a job on a boat, but when the claims money came through, he got nothing. He did not have the income he needed to make payments on his trailer and HarleyDavidson motorcycle. He left Kodiak to find work.

"I went over there yesterday and he has a "For Sale' sign on his trailer and he's gone," Chevarria said.

Exxon does not plan to give claims money to any fisherman who does not own a limited entry permit or isn't designated by a permit holder as a crewmen, Peavey said, even though that rule leaves out the crewmen wandering around town who would be fishing for salmon now if not for the spill.

Some have formed a group, the Kodiak Crewmen's Association, to try to get money from Exxon. Their leaders met in Solly's Bar last week to plan strategy. In a show of unity, they are presenting the claims of true hardship cases along with those whose claims on Exxon's money are relatively weak.

Jim Bollerud, who has already been paid, was leading the group. He wants to have his living expenses paid in addition to his claim, because if he were fishing, his groceries would be provided by the boat.

The group also wants Exxon to compensate all the crewmen who might have gotten work, not just the ones who had jobs. They want money for people who came to Kodiak never having worked on a fishing boat before, because workers without experience have gotten jobs before. Bollerud thinks workers who came to Kodiak after fishing was closed should be paid, even if they have never fished before, because they may have been misled by Exxon statements that the spill cleanup was going well.

The president of the group, Rick Nugent, has never seined or gillnetted salmon. But he says he planned to start, and thinks he should be compensated for not getting the chance.

The group also wants money for the fishermen who skip the first part of the season so they don't have to prepare the gear, then get hired at midseason to replace those who did quit or are fired by their skippers.

"They get to the middle of the season and they say, "I can't take these new guys, I've got to get me some veterans,' " Bollerud said. "So they go into the bars and they get a guy who everyone thinks is a drunk, but he's a good crewman."

"That's right," said Nugent. "The guys who they think are drunks, when you get them out they're the best men on deck."

The group is trying not to cross skippers who kept Exxon money intended for their crews, or fired their crews to get the boat's entire claim for themselves.

"We want to get this all worked out without pointing a finger at the skippers, because we've already got the public pointing its finger at Exxon," Bollerud said.

There is also a tricky question of taxes. Some fishermen evade them by doing business in cash, under the table. But without records, it may be difficult for them to establish losses. A lawyer trying to drum up business for a class action suit against Exxon gave the crewmen free advice: be careful what you say to Exxon, because you could get yourself or the skipper in trouble with the tax collector.

Some fishing boat crewmen are solid Kodiak residents, but many blow into town and have already blown out again. Some are stuck here. They may not fit well in society in the first place, and lack the skills to adapt to the strange, new economy.

"WE'RE VERY FRAGILE'

Lee Cagle is small and talks fast, without breaks, until someone stops him. He is living in a tent on the edge of town. He has sold most of his prized belongings guns, canoe, tent, traps for food.

Cagle says that since the Vietnam War, he has never lived indoors. He lives in his tent and makes his own clothes out of skins. He went down in diving gear in the waters off the public campground and collected dead undersea animals, bringing them to state officials studying the spill until they begged him to stop.

He isn't sleeping much, only a few hours a night, and he is living on potatoes and Top Ramen noodles because he's afraid of what subsistence seafood might do to him. He came to Kodiak to fish, but there was no fishing because of the spill, and he had to sell his proud possessions. Without the guns, he can't hunt for food, either.

"I live comfortable on $5,000 a year," he said. "We claim to be tough up here, but you know what I've just learned? We're very fragile."

Cagle's flood of words never slows, but the intensity of what he says changes. Sometimes it rises to a pitch that betrays his sleepless nights.

"I have lost my capability to support myself, and I am slowly dwindling," he said, his eyes focused pinsharp. "And I am like a wounded bear. And a wounded bear, he will go back and he will find the man who hurt him."

HAVES AND HAVENOTS

Every hard luck story seems to be balanced by one of unexpected riches.

The Kitoi Hatchery will end the year with more than $5 million in the bank after returning fish are caught in a small area in front of the hatchery, where there is not room for a competitive fishery, said Holm, president of the board of the nonprofit organization that runs the hatchery. The group has expenses of only $250,000 a year, and still has a state subsidy of the same amount.

Meanwhile, the fishermen with permits will be paid by Exxon for not being able to catch the same fish, while some also cash in on Exxon charters.

Some businesses in town also are having great summers more people are spending more money on hotel rooms, rental cars and restaurants but businesses that weren't able to cash in on the oil spill have lost money. One net merchant has been able to switch over to selling gear and safety equipment to Exxon, while another, who is more specialized, has seen a 50 percent drop in sales and is looking forward to fall, when trawlers contracted to Exxon will go back to fishing.

FILIPINO UNITY

A large, cohesive Filipino community worked together to save its members from destitution when the oil spill slowed work in the canneries where they work.

The Filipinos began coming to Kodiak in the late '60s. A few were in the military here, and they got cannery jobs, made a lot of money, and sent for their families, said Ben Doctolero, one of the pioneers. They came from California, and later Hawaii, and now, with about 1,000 living permanently in the city of Kodiak, they outnumber Alaska Natives there, according to local government officials.

Usually the Filipino community is thinking about nothing but canning salmon now. Then, when the season ends in September, the Filipino American Association plans a whole series of christening parties for the babies born while everyone was too busy to celebrate.

This year, the association has become a bargaining agent with Exxon.

"We make them know that we are here, and make sure that we are not going to be ignored," Doctolero said. "Especially with this problem that Exxon created, we have to be unified. We have to do the best we can because not only the Filipinos, but the whole town are hurting."

Before the negotiations began, cannery workers were in danger of losing everything. Rents were rising, house payments were due, and everyone was unemployed. Many applied for public assistance. The Filipinos asked for a meeting with Exxon.

"Exxon didn't expect when the first meeting was held that there would be so much unity of the Filipino community," Doctolero said. "They expected maybe 15 or 20 people. When they saw five or six hundred, it really opened their eyes."

The cannery workers were able to arrange $3,000 payments for the work they had already missed. Then the canneries, worried about losing their market share if they turned out no product this year, began importing raw salmon from southeast Alaska and Bristol Bay to keep their plants working. The line is running again at the Alaska Pacific Seafoods cannery, with a staff of 250, 85 percent of it Filipino.

But the workers are still unhappy. They say $3,000 is not enough. Life in Kodiak is expensive and the price of housing has gone up since Exxon came to town. Many of those who applied for welfare say they are still entitled, even if their Exxon payments put their income over the eligibility limit, because the money wasn't earned, but was a gift, said Faith White, who runs the public assistance office.

The lucky ones got jobs cleaning up the oil spill, and are making more money than they would have if it were a normal summer. They are like everyone in the Exxon economy a strange lottery that takes everything away from some while making others rich.

"I don't think most people would go through this for the financial rewards," Holm said. "Some people will come out winners who got charters with Exxon and also will get their settlements, and it'll just be a bonus. But some people don't fit in the process, and they fall through the cracks and they don't get anything."

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