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"We are an important industry that brings new money into the Alaskan and Kenai (Peninsula) economy," said Roland Maw, executive director of the United Cook Inlet Drift Association.
Salmon, halibut, black cod and gray cod commercial fisheries in 2005 collectively landed more than 62 million pounds of fish, generating payments to fishermen in excess of $113 million, Maw said.
That $113 million is spent directly into the Kenai and Alaska economy, for everything from crew wages and fish taxes, to homes, property taxes, clothing, food and miscellaneous costs of operating commercial fishing vessels, he said.
In addition to those four fisheries, there are others, including herring, pollock, bottom fish, scallops and octopus, also bringing millions of dollars in payments to fishermen, he said.
Maw's criticism April 28 was directed at a recent report produced by the Kenai River Sportfishing Association, which estimated that recreational fishing in upper Cook Inlet generates $290 million (in 2003 dollars) in total annual sales and supports 3,400 annual jobs on average that generate $95 million in income. According to the sport fishing association report, that accounts for about 55 percent of the sales, jobs and income related to sport fishing in Southcentral Alaska.
By comparison, according to the sport fishing report, commercial fishing in upper Cook Inlet during the mid-1990s - when ex-vessel prices were higher - supported about 500 jobs a year, providing $15 million in income.
The sport fishing association report is the extrapolation of data from a number of previous studies conducted by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development, and the University of Alaska Anchorage's Institute of Social and Economic Research, among others. None of the data contained in it is new.
What is new, said Maw, is the dramatic increase in the percentage of salmon leaving Cook Inlet processing facilities as a fresh, rather than frozen, product. "In the mid 1990s, the percentage of salmon that left the inlet as fresh was about 5 to 6 percent. This year, it is about 65 percent," he said.
"We are now into a different market with these fish," he said. "We are no longer competing with all the frozen and farmed fish going to Japan. We are now into a U.S. market, into a higher quality market. It is much better for the fishermen, the processors and the community in general."
Maw said more than 100 vessel owners and their crew members also live on the Kenai Peninsula. While they fish commercially in Prince William Sound, Kodiak, Bristol Bay and the Aleutian Chain, they bring the money they earn back home to spend on the Kenai Peninsula, pouring tens of millions of dollars into their communities, he said.
Maw calculated that it takes more than 1,200 semi-trucks annually to bring millions of pounds of seafood produced on the Kenai Peninsula to market, much of it backhauled on trucks that bring fresh produce north to Alaska. Having that fish to backhaul helps cut the cost of shipping other products to Alaska, he said.
In addition, Maw said, the commercial gillnet fishing industry consumes more than 100,000 gallons of gasoline and diesel fuels during every fishery's opening. At $2.50 a gallon, that equates to $250,000 spent on fuels for each opening, he said.
Maw said his own annual personal expenses for commercial fishing include about $14,600 for diesel fuel.
The whole argument boils down to whether fish are better in the commercial fishing industry or sport industry, he said.
"We are very much supportive of mom and dad and the kids having fish on their table, whether you buy that as a commercial product or take the kids and do it as a sports activity," he said. "But there is a point where that activity starts to eat away at the foundation of our industry, and that is where we have to have a talk."
Margaret Bauman can be reached at margie.bauman@alaskajournal.com.
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