House lawmakers in Juneau gathered this week for a special meeting on the latest fishery disasters issued by the federal government last month. Fourteen fisheries across Alaska were approved as disasters between the years 2018 and 2021 by the federal Commerce Department last month — including the Gulf of Alaska’s cod fishery in 2020. That’s a lot, Alaska Department of Fish and Game Deputy Commissioner Rachel Baker told members on the House Fisheries Committee on Tuesday.
“Since about 2008 or 09, the volume of disaster requests appears to increase pretty substantially from across the country – not just Alaska,” she said. “Up until that time from the 90s through then, quite often there was one or two requests for the whole country for the whole year.”
She said the state is still trying to understand the growing volume of fishery disasters. More fishermen could be accessing federal relief through disaster designations compared to previous years, but the department outlined other reasons in Governor Mike Dunleavy’s most recent disaster request.
“We did note the warming ocean conditions in the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska as possible contributors,” said Baker.
Alaska’s Fish and Game commissioner Doug Vincent-Lang told lawmakers his agency is trying to better understand what he described as a “general decline in ocean productivity.”
“We understand that the ocean is a driving factor and we’re starting to put together a meaningful assessment program about what’s happening out there,” he said.
He said Alaska scientists are currently working with their Russian counterparts as part of that assessment, and the state agency is using federal disaster money to invest in more comprehensive research.
There isn’t a standing fund to pay fishermen impacted by fishery disasters. The money has to be allocated by Congress. And skippers and crew who applied for financial relief after the last fishery disaster designations back in 2018 are just starting to receive checks.
Kodiak Republican House Speaker Louise Stutes questioned the slow pace of payments actually getting into the hands of fishermen through the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission.
“It seems like Alaska is always the last place that gets paid,” she said.
But that’s not something the state controls; Fish and Game doesn’t have the administrative staff to process federal relief on its own, and Baker says that’s a typical timeline throughout the country – not just in Alaska.
“As currently structured, the process to provide fishery disaster assistance is cumbersome and slow to execute,” said Baker. We understand and share the frustration of Alaska fisheries participants and committee members with this process.”
She said there is movement at the federal level to revamp the fisheries disaster program. Meantime, Alaska fishermen eligible for federal financial relief from the latest disaster designations will just have to wait out the process.