The Aleutians East Borough, the Native Village of Unga and two Aleutian fishing groups are asking a state court to void fishing regulations adopted at a February state Board of Fisheries meeting.
The lawsuit, filed in the Alaska Superior Court last week, asks to overturn five regulations for the Alaska Peninsula and Aleutian commercial salmon fishery known as Area M. The borough is leading the lawsuit alongside the Native Village of Unga — a federally recognized tribe based in Sand Point — the nonprofit Concerned Area M Fishermen, which represents permit holders for the fishery, and the Area M Seiners Association — another nonprofit representing commercial harvesters in the region.
The plaintiffs say the new regulations would cause them significant financial and emotional harm, impacting the local communities that rely on fish tax revenue from the fishery.
Area M has been the center of a decades-long debate about salmon returns in Western Alaska.
The recent changes to the fishery, approved at the board’s February meeting, are part of an effort to reduce the interception of chum salmon headed for the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers, where salmon returns have reached crisis lows. Two of the proposals, approved by a 4-3 vote, limit fishing time and area for certain gear types in the South Alaska Peninsula. Others impose closures during the post-June fishery and change the maximum allowable net depths for purse seines and gillnets. But the plaintiffs argue the combined regulation changes would encourage derby-style competition, and increase chum and chinook harvests in the commercial fishery. They say that is the opposite of the board’s stated conservation goal, and undermines local economies.
The lawsuit states the state board failed to properly consider important evidence and mishandled alleged conflicts of interest while adopting new regulations, violating administrative laws.
“Area M fishermen built an adaptive management program from the ground up, voluntarily, in cooperation with the Department of Fish and Game, that reduced June chum harvest by 50% compared to our pre-program average,” Kiley Thompson, President of Area M Seiners Association said in a press release from the Aleutians East Borough. “The state's own biologists testified on the record that it was working. The Board heard that testimony and dismantled the program anyway. That is what this lawsuit is about.”
According to the press release, the groups raised concerns prior to the Board of Fisheries meeting. Six federally recognized tribes then formally expressed their concerns to the board, filing a complaint with the state’s Attorney General’s Office in late February.
The plaintiffs are asking a Superior Court judge to put a preliminary block on the regulations, then void them and permanently prohibit their enforcement.
