Anchorage Daily News

BETHEL -- Outraged fishermen lashed out at state fishery managers recently, telling them at a House Resources Committee meeting that they mismanaged struggling salmon stocks on the Yukon River at the expense of rural Alaskans.

John White, former chair of the state Board of Fisheries, said their decisions showed "antagonistic disregard for the people of Western Alaska."

Mike Smith, a resource manager with the Tanana Chiefs Conference in the Interior, called it "arrogance."

Myron Naneng, head of the Association of Village Council Presidents in the Bethel region, said villages should no longer honor state fishery plans unless they help create them.

"Right now, Lower Yukon villages are experiencing economic genocide," he said.

A small group of state fisheries managers sat in the audience at the Monday meeting, taking the heat.

Speakers said the state used inaccurate data to justify banning commercial king fishing this summer and sharply reducing subsistence fishing.

They attacked the state's reliance on lower-river sonar equipment that undercounted the run, allowing extra fish to pass into Canada 1,000 miles from the river's mouth. An estimated 67,000 kings crossed the border this year, about 10,000 to 13,000 more than required by an international treaty with Canada.

Fishery managers created this summer's "unprecedented" fishing limits because the state had to meet the obligations of that treaty, something it hadn't done the previous two years, said John Hilsinger, head of the state's Commercial Fisheries Division.

About half the king run originates in Canada, so getting fish to those spawning grounds is critical to future returns, he said.

He acknowledged that high, muddy waters caused the sonar and test fishing on the lower Yukon to undercount the kings. But state officials described the problems during weekly teleconference meetings held with villagers this summer, he said.

Next year, the state hopes to get a more accurate in-season count. That might mean putting sonar counters in new locations, including on a floating barge and along the banks.

"It's important that we do a better job and try to improve the precision in our management," Hilsinger said.

'YUKON'S A MESS'

Jack Schultheis, plant manager for one of the two remaining seafood processing companies on the lower Yukon, said fishing in the area was once a profitable activity that provided jobs, paid bills and generated tax revenues for cities.

But those days are over, he said.

During most of the 1980s and 1990s, state figures show, more than 800 commercial fishermen held permits to catch kings and summer chums.

They collectively earned more than $10 million during the best summers, or about $12,000 a permit. Not much, but fishing was the economic bright spot in the villages.

Then the runs crashed in 1998. The fishing has never been the same.

This past summer, fishermen took home the smallest paychecks in at least 38 years, according to a recently released state assessment. Only 387 fishermen held permits. They made $555,000, or about $1,400 per permit.

At another recent fishery meeting in the Yukon River village of Marshall, several people cried as they talked about struggling to pay bills and find work, Schultheis said.

"The Yukon's a mess, period," he said.

RESEARCH MONEY

In Bethel, the speakers raised familiar arguments, including that the state hasn't done enough to stop the powerful Bering Sea pollock fleet that has caught and tossed away hundreds of thousands of king salmon this decade.

They also argued that the state has steered research money away from the Yukon and Kuskokwim region in recent years.

Six state representatives attended the meeting, most by phone. In person were committee co-chair Mark Neuman, R-Big Lake, and Bob Herron, D-Bethel.

Hilsinger, the top fishery manager in the room, sat with three colleagues, including subsistence director Craig Fleener.

Neuman and Herron pressed Hilsinger about millions of federal research dollars that some speakers said should have gone to Western Alaska projects but never did.

Hilsinger said the money went to those projects, and he'd provide committee members with a list showing how much went to each project.

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