By SHANNON HAUGLAND
Sentinel Staff Writer
The Assembly tonight will consider an ordinance dedicating $25,000 in city funds to the Alaska Trollers Association for legal expenses in a lawsuit that threatens to close Southeast Alaska Chinook salmon fisheries.
If it passes on first reading tonight the ordinance will advance to a final reading Feb. 14.
Tonight’s regular Assembly meeting will start at 6 p.m. at Centennial Hall.
The money for the lawsuit is preceded by a resolution that if adopted will state the city’s support for the trollers’ position in the lawsuit, and protect sustainable fisheries.
Other business on the agenda includes a supplemental appropriation for the new Parks and Recreation program; approval of Sitka’s wish list for this session of the Legislature; and two legal matters, one related to a deliberately set fire on a Crescent Harbor dock last year, and the other related to a sales tax debt settlement.
Special reports will lead off tonight’s meeting, one by Sitka Tribe of Alaska and the other by the Sitka Bear Task Force.
The proposed resolution in support of Southeast trollers is related to a lawsuit in federal court filed by the nonprofit Wild Fish Conservancy against the National Marine Fisheries Service. The Alaska Trollers Association and the state of Alaska have intervened on the side of the federal fisheries managers.
The WFC lawsuit is aimed at protecting southern resident killer whales, which historically have spent part of the year in Puget Sound. It specifically seeks to invalidate the 2019 biological opinion under which the federal government authorized the state of Alaska to manage king salmon that seasonally migrate between Southeast Alaska and the Washington coastal waters where they were spawned. The result is that Alaska’s management is depriving the Puget Sound killer whales of the king salmon they need to survive as a species, WFC contends.
Trollers say the claim is “absurd in every aspect” and that the remedy sought by the WFC would cause the shutdown of winter and summer Chinook troll fisheries in Southeast Alaska.
“It may threaten the coho fishery too, because we have incidental mortality in the coho fishery,” said ATA board president Matt Donohoe.
Jeff Farvour, ATA and Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association board member, said 85 percent of the troll fleet are Alaska residents, and the troll fleet produces $85 million in economic benefit for Southeast.
He added that each troller is a small business, and each Southeast community has trollers, even the smallest communities.
“All processors will be impacted,” Farvour added. “Mid size and smaller ones would not be able to support their local workforce. ... Clearly WFC’s lawsuit will not save southern resident killer whales, but it will destroy a whole region.”
Both Donohoe and Farvour plan to testify tonight in support of the resolution and the city’s contribution to the legal expenses.
ATA and ALFA prepared a report in response to the arguments by plaintiffs that link the decline in southern resident orcas to the Alaska troll fishery. They say there is no merit to this argument.
“Pollution, industrial toxins, urbanization, habitat loss and human-caused disturbance are the primary factors limiting the recovery of the Southern Resident orcas,” the 23-page report concludes. “Any one factor – acoustic disturbances from vessel traffic, the orca observing industry, chemical contaminants or habitat harms specific to naturally spawning Chinook, chum and coho salmon – may in itself be a significant cause of nutritional stress, higher death rates or failed pregnancies. More than likely a combination of factors are driving Southern Resident orca population trends.”
A federal magistrate judge has made a recommendation to the U.S. District Court in Washington for a finding in favor of the WFC position.
ATA said it has already spent $96,000 as intervenor in the case. The City and Borough of Sitka has donated $5,000 already.
“I know this is a significant ask, but the simple truth is that without the financial support of SEAK communities our region will lose it’s historic troll fishery and other supporting industries,” Donohoe wrote in the request to the Assembly.
On another item, the supplemental funding for Parks and Rec on tonight’s agenda would provide $92,615 for supplies, equipment, and contract services (referees, instructors) for the city’s new Parks and Recreation program.
Barb Morse, the program’s temporary coordinator, said in a memo to the Assembly that the city funding in the current budget covered only personnel, “knowing that details on expenses would be difficult to determine until the program was further developed.”
The new program grew out of a Sitka Health Summit initiative to re-establish a community recreation program. It would replace the Sitka School District’s Community Schools program that was closed several years ago in a budget cutback. The Assembly has expressed full support for the new program, funded by the city and supplemented by user fees.
“To date, from mid-October, when the program first started collecting user fees, revenue of $21,000 has been collected and we conservatively estimate that at least $40,000 will be collected by the end of the fiscal year,” Morse said.
Primary sources of revenue are generated through city league sports fees, class registration, facility rental, and open gym and summer programs, the memo to the Assembly says.
