United Fishermen of Alaska is challenging the proposed distribution plan for $50 million in CARES Act funds for the fisheries industry. The plan would grant the average sport charter sector recipient nearly 10 times what commercial fishery applicants would receive.
Without addition information from the state to justify the reallocation of funds, we cannot support the sector allocations in Alaska’s draft CARES Act Funding Plan, said UFA President Matt Alward and executive director Frances Leach in their letter of Oct. 22 to Alaska Department of Fish and Game Commissioner Doug Vincent Lang.
The umbrella group for Alaska’s commercial fishing industry noted that initial allocations by NOAA at the state level were calculated based on residency of the business owner and that the current draft plan requires that commercial fishery participants be Alaska residents, but there is no such requirement on the sport charter sector. They asked that this be corrected in a subsequent draft plan, with a new comment period for review.
More importantly, they said, the draft plan does not adequately explain why the state boosted the sport charter allocation from NOAA’s recommended 5.5 percent to 32 percent of that $50 million.
“Given an estimated 5,000 qualified shares in the sport fishing charter sector each applicant would receive $7,868 per share,” they said. “In comparison, there are over 20,000 shares on the commercial fisheries side and commercial fishery applicants would receive only $790 per share.”
That increase in allocation to the sport charter sector was essentially funded by decreasing the allocation to the processing sector, UFA said. The processing sector, in fact, incurred large costs very much linked to the novel coronavirus pandemic, in order to ensure the health and safety of workers and residents in rural communities where they operated this summer.
UFA further objected to private nonprofit salmon hatchers currently excluded from the plan. The organization urged ADF&G to grant eligibility for the hatcheries to apply for relief by modifying Section 12005 of CARES Act Relief of the Fisheries Participation Draft Spend Plan on grounds of the significant economic impact the hatcheries contribute to the state of $602 million annually. Several of these hatcheries have faced serious losses this year due to the impact of COVID-19 on operational costs and seafood markets and should be eligible for relief they said.
