On Jan. 30 Governor Mike Dunleavy submitted five new requests for federal fisheries disaster assistance for last summer's salmon season. That includes commercial salmon fisheries on the Alaska Peninsula, Kodiak, Chignik, Lower Cook Inlet and Prince William Sound.
The state accounts for roughly half, 26 out of 53, of the fishery disasters declared around the country since 2020, which include a variety of species like salmon, crab and Pacific cod.
In Kodiak, fishermen harvested 7.6 million pinks last summer, which was less than 40% percent of the ten-year average of 20.4 million fish. That meant last summer was one of the lowest valued commercial pink salmon seasons on record for Kodiak Island.
Although the exact cause for the decline is unknown, the Alaska Department of Fish & Game cited changes in ocean temperatures and other environmental factors in the Gulf of Alaska in a report the department released in November, which the state said was similar to what caused a pink salmon fishery disaster in the Gulf of Alaska in 2016.
If the latest fishery disaster requests are approved, it’s unclear right now how much money would go to the affected fishermen and communities. The typical federal assistance ranges from thousands to millions of dollars per fishery disaster.
Dunleavy’s latest disaster requests are currently listed as pending, according to NOAA Fisheries website, along with the 2023 North Alaska Peninsula Drift Gillnet Salmon Fishery and the 2024 Kotzebue District Salmon Fishery.
The U.S. Secretary of Commerce has 120 days to acknowledge they’ve received them and then make a determination on each disaster request, after receiving “all necessary data to conduct the analysis.”
A recently passed federal law, called the FISHES Act, requires that after a disaster is approved and a spend plan from the state is received, then the Secretary must disperse the funds within 90 days. Jeremy Pelter was the Acting Secretary of Commerce when Dunleavy sent in the requests but Howard Lutnick officially took over the job on Feb. 24.
Meanwhile, the nearly $18 million from the 2020 Gulf of Alaska Pacific Cod fishery disaster, which the Secretary determined a disaster in January of 2022, has yet to be distributed to affected fishermen. The Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission (PSMFC) said applications will be available in early March.
