By ARIADNE WILL
Sentinel Staff Writer
The Sitka Assembly apportioned a fisheries enhancement fund to three organizations, in a 6-1 vote Tuesday night.
The Sitka Sound Science Center will receive $23,000, Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association will receive $10,000, and Alaska Trollers Association will receive $5,000.
The distribution was proposed in a motion by Assembly member Richard Wein.
A motion to give $3,000 more to the troller group failed. Assembly member Kevin Mosher said it was needed because of Sitka’s stake in an ongoing legal battle between NOAA and Seattle-based Wild Fish Conservancy. The suit could jeopardize trolling practices in Southeast Alaska.
“(The lawsuit) is an existential threat to our town,” Mosher said. “(ATA) needs money and they need it now.”
Discussion before the Assembly came hours after ATA received word that an injunction filed by WFC has failed before a Seattle magistrate.
The fisheries enhancement fund is the result of a city tax on the catch of guided sport fishermen; the revenue in the past has been awarded primarily to the science center. The tax was passed into Sitka General Code in January 2007.
“The voters approved this fish box tax on guided sport fishermen because they wanted these people to help enhance the fisheries of Sitka Sound,” Lisa Busch, executive director of SSSC told the Assembly. “Though commercial fishermen most certainly benefit from our operation... they do not actually pay us to do it,” Busch said, speaking of the SSSC fish hatchery.
Busch said the fish box tax is a way for SSSC to “recoup the costs associated with putting fish in the water.”
The center applied for the full $38,000 available from the fund.
“We believe our hatchery program is exactly what the voters intended,” Busch said, adding that the hatchery “enhances the fisheries for the widest breadth of the community.”
ALFA Executive Director Linda Behnken spoke about the longliner association’s request for $10,000. She said the organization used the $10,000 to promote policy engagement, research and programs that benefit a healthy fishing community.
The organization’s membership includes longliners, trollers, seiners and gill netters and has received funds from the fish box tax since 2016.
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