KODIAK -- Southeast salmon fishermen again voted "no" to bankrolling their own Regional Seafood Development Association, already widely known as Rainforest Wild.

RSDAs -- a unique concept OK'd by the state in 2004 -- lets fishermen in 12 Alaska regions unite and tax themselves based on the value of their catches. The money can be used for marketing, infrastructure, new products -- whatever the fishermen want. RSDAs also give fishermen more access to federal and state grants and programs.

Ballots were sent in May to 475 Southeast drift gillnet permit holders asking if they approved a 1 percent self-tax. The state released the results last week: 80 yes and 132 no votes. Two years ago, a similar RSDA effort lost by two votes.

"I'm surprised it lost by such a wide margin," said a disappointed John Jensen of Petersburg, an interim RSDA board member working to get the RSDA off the ground.

"It is too bad that these guys don't realize they need to think beyond Southeast Alaska, and that they are competing with a much wider market," said Richard Mullins of Orca Bay Seafoods. "Their competition is more than Alaska, and even more than Atlantic salmon -- it is center-of-the-plate proteins!"

Part of the difficulty stems from the vastness of the fishing region, Jensen said. .

"There's a lot of apprehension that one community would get more of the money than others," he said.

Fishermen have funded RSDAs in two regions: Copper River/Prince William Sound and Bristol Bay, where a 1 percent tax yields more than $1 million each year.

Down on the farm

Alaska is poised to benefit from worsening misfortunes in Chile, the largest supplier of farmed salmon to the United States.

Chilean fish farmers have been battling outbreaks of a virus in their salmon pens, and production is expected to drop 60 percent this year.

"That has helped to keep the salmon market somewhat stronger than it might have been," said fisheries economist Gunnar Knapp at the University of Alaska Anchorage.

Norway increased its supply of fresh salmon fillets to the United States.

Price watch

Salmon fishermen got higher prices last year for every species except sockeye. Average prices were:

• Chinook -- $4.28 a pound vs. $3.07 in 2007.

• Coho -- $1.21 a pound vs. 96 cents.

• Chums -- 53 cents vs. 34 cents.

• Pinks -- 29 cents vs. 19 cents.

• Sockeye -- 78 cents a pound vs. 80 cents in 2007.

Laine Welch is a Kodiak-based fisheries journalist. Her copyrighted column appears every other Sunday. She can be reached at msfish@alaska.com.

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