In a resolution to the Alaska Board of Fisheries, Native Village of Eyak Traditional Tribal Council urged that hatchery production issues be reviewed during the board’s normal meeting cycle.
The tribal council’s resolution said “any suggestion that immediate remedies to observations of hatchery fish interacting with wild fish should be dismissed” and the Alaska Hatchery Research Project should be allowed to provide peer reviewed scientific data to allow hatcheries to “continue to provide high quality, sustainable protein to the world.”
The resolution was approved by a 3-0 vote, with one person absent, on July 9, the deadline for comments to be received by the fisheries board.
The resolution was one of a number of comments submitted to the fisheries board, which meets on July 17 in Anchorage to consider an emergency petition from the Kenai River Sportfish Association asking for a halt in a previously approved production increase at the Valdez Fisheries Development Association.
The tribal resolution criticized KRSA’s petition as “irresponsible” and for occurring “outside of the open ad participatory process by which this increase was approved and reviewed by the ADFG Regional Planning Team.”
The potential meeting date to address this emergency petition is during the only six weeks of the year when the industry to be disrupted cannot fully participate due to its highly seasonal nature representing an improper barrier to participation, the resolution said.
The meeting at the Egan Center in Anchorage at 1 p.m. July 17 was called to address five emergency petitions, including one regarding additional hatchery production in Prince William Sound.
The meeting is open to the public, and the board said it would continue to accept written comment with a 10-page limit until July 16 through email, dfg.bof.comments@alaska.gov, or on the board’s main webpage at www.boardoffisheries.adfg.alaska.gov. No written and oral testimony will be accepted at the meeting.
A live audio stream of the meeting is to be available on the board’s website, at www.boardoffisheries.adfg.alaska.gov.
The meeting agenda and other meeting documents, including the emergency petitions ad additional documents submitted by petitioners, are posted online on the board’s meeting webpage, http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=fisheriesborad.meetinginfo
