Four months after putting in a request for a federal fishery disaster declaration with the U.S. Department of Commerce, the state of Alaska is still waiting for an answer. Closures to the Yukon River king salmon fishery this summer shut off crucial income opportunities for fishermen, and also impacted their ability to fish for food. An answer from Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke is expected soon, but approval of the request doesn’t itself guarantee financial relief to the families that need it.
The process of declaring a disaster can take from several weeks to a number of months, according to Gaylen Tromble, chief of the Domestic Fisheries Division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association. Fisheries disaster assistance is administered by NOAA through the National Marine Fisheries Service and the Department of Commerce. Once a determination is made, NOAA acts as a conduit between any money set aside by Congress for relief and the state. No congressional appropriation is currently in place for Yukon River fisheries disaster assistance; however, congressional delegates often wait for a declaration to be made before moving forward with requests for financial relief, Tromble said.
Already saddled with few jobs and a high cost of living, Yukon River fishermen received a triple blow this summer. In May, a huge spring flood sent water and ice crashing through many communities, damaging boats, homes and in some communities, city infrastructure. Fishing for king salmon — the most prized and valuable catch — was shut down to ensure enough of the fish made it across the border into Canada, thus meeting U.S. treaty obligations. And another typically abundant but far less valuable fish, chum salmon, saw its lowest run in nearly 14 years, forcing a closure on it and also deeply curtailing access to silver salmon traveling upriver at the same time. To make matters worse, all of this came after the 2008 fishing season, which was also a terrible year for king salmon.