Funding cuts to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has put lifesaving safety classes for commercial fishermen in jeopardy, says Leann Cyr, executive director of the Alaska Marine Safety Education Association.
AMSEA receives funding from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, which lost most of its staff in cuts to the Department of Health and Human Services under HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr.
“When you’re talking about funding cuts in particular, what we're looking at is a couple grant programs under NIOSH for commercial fishing safety. Because the employees were fired and they're just not there, the program can't be administered. It wasn't cut, it's just that it can't function,” Cyr told the Sentinel on Monday.
The cuts to NIOSH took effect in April and May, but the Trump administration has moved to rehire workers vital to the safety of coal miners and firefighters.
AMSEA, a grant-funded nonprofit, is based in Sitka but conducts maritime safety courses across Alaska and in other states. Before Trump, the budget was about $750,000, and there were plans to go for a $1 million grant, Cyr said.
Starting July 1, “if nothing changes, we're not going to have funding for any commercial fishing safety program that we offer in Alaska,” she said.
“They essentially got rid of NIOSH altogether. That doesn't just affect commercial fishing safety, but it affects a lot of other industries, like coal miners and firefighters, loggers, and these are really dangerous industries. NIOSH is the only agency who protects those workers,” Cyr said.
AMSEA receives congressionally authorized federal funds, as well as a smaller amount – about $185,000 this year – from the state, which is used for general boating safety and recreational boating classes.
Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski stated her concerns at a May 14 meeting of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.
While a number of NIOSH workers were rehired after their firing, “employees that received (reduction in force) notices for the program were not rescinded in the NIOSH Center for Marine Safety and Health Studies,” Murkowski informed Sec. Kennedy a week ago. “So this is a big deal for our commercial fishing safety. It could effectively leave our fishing fleet out of compliance with Coast Guard safety regs. So we're watching that very, very carefully.”
Kennedy replied: “You’re talking about the NIOSH program, you should talk to me about that. And as you know that’s something I’m deeply concerned with, commercial fisheries.”
“Most fishermen are required to take the emergency drill conductor training, and if they can't take that training, they could be stuck at the dock," Cyr said.
"This time of year, we get calls all the time to AMSEA saying, ‘Hey, I need the training right now, because I went to get my exam and they said I needed this training.’ And that happens all over the country,” she said.
While funding for drill conductor classes runs out July 1 in Alaska, AMSEA will run out of money for national classes on September 1.
The classes, which have run for decades, are proven lifesavers. Commercial fishing is the second most dangerous profession in the country, the Bureau of Labor Statistics says, behind only timber, and Cyr noted that fishing fatalities plummeted after NIOSH instituted maritime safety programs.
“Fishermen need the training to be able to survive. And there's been an 80 percent decrease in fatalities from (the establishment of these NIOSH programs) until now. There's still almost just as many vessel disasters and falls overboard; those are the two leading causes of death for fishermen nationally,” she noted. The difference is that crew members now survive those incidents.
The drill conductor class teaches fishermen how to deploy safety gear such as life rafts and survival suits, as well as how to place and use EPIRBs to ensure the successful rescue of a crew during a crisis.
In the opening days of the Trump administration in January and February, Cyr said, AMSEA’s grant funding was frozen, and there was also a halt in communications from HHS leading up to the mass firing of employees.
AMSEA exists to provide commercial fishermen with the resources needed to stay safe on the water, and have the proper training required to fish at all.
“It's pretty much why we were started. It's great to do the recreational boating – we're trying to expand that – but this is why we came into existence, was to fill that particular (commercial fishing) need. So it would be not acceptable for us to lose the commercial fishing safety program,” Cyr said, “because who else is going to do it, and who else is going to fund it? We can apply for other grants, but not for commercial fishing… There really isn't funding to apply for for the commercial sector, because it's supposed to be filled by that… congressionally appropriated funding.”
AMSEA is working with Alaska's Congressional delegation and HHS Sec. Kennedy to have the funding restored.
Cyr joined individual fishermen, businesses and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game in a letter to Kennedy. “From a financial perspective, the return on investment on this funding annually is millions of dollars to one dollar spent," they said. "The proven reduction in fatalities, injuries, and vessel disasters from marine safety training and research saves the USCG millions annually in expensive rescue operations and saves the U.S. millions in other expenses for work related injury and death.
"The remarkable success of NIOSH commercial fishing safety programs was made possible through decades of hard work, partnerships, and development of programs between the USCG, NIOSH, commercial fishing organizations, and commercial fishing safety and health training and research centers," Cyr wrote in the letter.
For now, Cyr said, the lack of Coast Guard-mandated safety training will likely leave some fishermen high and dry.
“A lot of fishermen, especially in Sitka, have taken our training and they legally can fish but yes, people take our training all the time because they need to, because they're required to,” Cyr said. “Yes, it will affect many fishermen and make them either out of compliance, they could get into really big trouble, or they're waiting at the dock, basically, unable to fish until they take the class.”
In the absence of NIOSH funds, she said AMSEA will continue working to provide training, but the lack of money will limit the scale.
“We would probably have a couple classes, where we had local instructors and communities, and we can make it really, really affordable, but it would really affect our commercial fishing safety program, which really needs it the most, because it's such a high risk industry.”
