JUNEAU -- After more than four years of waiting, fishermen, processors and communities affected by commercial fishing closures in Glacier Bay are getting their money.
Altogether, they're splitting $23 million, as authorized by Congress. Some recipients say it isn't enough.
"I had a $35,000-a-year job that's now gone," said Mary McConnell, who worked for Pelican Seafoods for 11 years, until 1996.
Earlier this month, the federal government deposited $4,100 into McConnell's bank account, she said.
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The deposit is part of the Glacier Bay Compensation Program, which was instituted when federal law closed the bay. Part of it was closed immediately to commercial fishing in 1998, and other sections remained open to certain fishermen who were grandfathered in. McConnell's husband, Donald Kalk, is one of those fishermen. He received a compensation payout, but has retained his tanner crab permit.
"When he goes, the permit goes," said McConnell, a Juneau resident who now works for the state.
National Park Service spokeswoman Jane Tranel said the compensation amounts were based on a fisherman or processor's previous income and the amount of time they worked in that area. She said the money was deposited in bank accounts last week.
"It's all been shipped, there might be some problem with some payments if a number was wrong on a bank account," she said.
The program was open to fishermen, their crew members, processing employees, support businesses and communities that made money from Glacier Bay commercial fisheries. The payment amounts were based on the recipient's average yearly income derived from the fishery from 1989 to 1998. Each recipient received 9.8 times that average, said Ronald Dick, who manages the compensation program for the park service.
Former Pelican processing employee Glen Woods said he received a little more than $10,000, and expressed frustration at the amount.
"Can anyone make a living by taking his or her compensation and open a new business like a Taco Bell? Compensation principles assume the ability to shift gears and start an alternative business," he said, further characterizing the program as a "failure."
But Dick said the program was limited to the $23 million congressional allocation. He stressed that Congress, not the park service, chose the amount.
"It's not designed to sustain them," Dick said. "They're not being compensated for their actual losses. They're getting a percentage of the $23 million that Congress allocated."
But Joe Emerson, a salmon and halibut fisherman from Juneau, said he thought the money could have been put to better use.
"I would have been happier had they used the money for some sort of infrastructure that would benefit future fishermen," he said.
Emerson suggested some money went to people who didn't deserve compensation, and said some who should have received money didn't.
But Dick said the program only accepted official documents and that if it had received any complaints about fraud, it would have investigated them.
Fishermen and processors also complained that it was never made clear to them exactly how the payment amounts were determined. Dick said that information would be on the park service's Glacier Bay Web site in a few days.
