Mr. Terry Goes to a Meetin'--Chapter Four

I'm sitting at the Sheraton sushi bar feeling angry and depressed.
St. Jude is slumped beside me. Even he seems a little put off.

The Fish Council's Advisory Panel, its members only too aware they are being carefully watched by bankers in sweat stained suits, crumpled the Crew Quota Proposal and kicked it under the table. The majority of the A.P. officially signed off on the Crab Ratz Program, saying "the crab program is achieving most of its objectives and that many of the major changes identified in the Council's April Motion would de-stabilize the harvesting, processing, and community sectors and are not necessarily based on the findings of the Council's 18 month and 3 year reviews."

The real truth is jammed between those lines like the sweet greasy middle of an Oreo cookie.

De-stabilize means nervous bankers.

Most of the resistance to making reasonable tweaks to the program lie in the fact that so many owners have "doubled down": using their initially allocated quota as collateral to borrow money to buy more quota. Banks extended the "priviledge" of using quota as collateral because halibut and pollock quota has been such iron-clad investments. What the bankers now know is that the law gives no guarantee of rights, and in fact explicitly states they can be taken away at any time. Any proposal that might redesignate even a small portion of the quota changes the numbers for the crunchers and that makes them nervous.

This is, of course, a terribly short sided view. The real danger to the program, and to every fisherman, banker and processor with a stake in it is in not fixing it. Its easy enough to fend off those of us who come to the Council and engage in the process in good faith. Looming clouds of lawsuits based on the program's parentage are the real danger. Crab Ratz was hatched because Senator Ted Stevens sat on it, in a nest built by his son, Ben, and a flock of cronies. Dissenting voices were ignored. Even the former Council Chair admitted, after Ratz was pushed through, that unresolved crew issues were her greatest concern. The Senator's system of marking ears for corporate lobbyists who hired his son has cast a shadow across the industry from Adak to the Southeast salmon grounds. A slight alteration of shares over time is a far cry from having the whole shebang thrown out in a federal court. A real effort to correct the program could pre-emp this by making it a moot point.

Four members of the Advisory Panel deserve recognition for their minority opinion, "that it is premature to assert that the Crab Rationalization Program fully meets its original objectives, conservation goals or community protection needs...we recommend that analysis of the 90/10 split continue, while additional analysis on crew shares, WAG issues and ROFRs be initiated."

Signed: Beth Stewart, Michelle Ridgeway, Chuck McCallum, and John Moller.

And is is worth noting the Fish Council is a near autonomous body. They are no more bound to listen to the Advisory Panel than they are the President of Somalia. Or me for that matter.

Meanwhile the ongoing struggle to keep Ratz unchanged (Ratus Quo) is centered on Data Suppression. At the direction of the Fish Council and NOAA General Counsel, a number of studies are in progress that tend to confirm evidence that Ratz has had quite dramatic consequenses for working fishermen and their communities. Owners groups like the Alaska Crab Coalition have spend a great deal of time and money begging the Council to ignore the data, on the basis that it is still being gathered and analyzed and because such a poor job was done gathering Socioeconomic data prior to the implementation of Ratz that there is nothing with which to compare it. I tried to answer this lame circular argument in my official comment to the Council, below:

Sea Change at Fish Council

Tuesday, September 30--Anchorage Alaska

I run up the circular stairway to the Sheraton's second floor where the Advisory Panel for the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council is reconvening.

Growling halibut fishermen are settling into hard back chairs as the AP members reluctantly sit back down in front of their vast ring binders full of recomendations and analyses compiled by staff. The fishermen will soon be telling them all the different ways the binders are wrong. The Advisory Panel is a non paid group of industry spokespersons. The Council may listen to them or completely ignore them.

I am hesitant to go inside so I loiter in the hall. Strategic loitering is a big part of effective advocacy. Stephanie from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game is there, listening intently to an effusive baseball cap clamped down over the red face of a longliner. I do a shark circle around her, browsing at the documents table, picking out the stuff I might be able to use and slipping them into my faux leather zipper binder.Palming my Kodiak City Council business card with my cell number and the address to this blog written on the front I hover closer, trying to be silently insistent but not overtly rude. I'm hoping to slip her the card and head back to my room--its naptime for grandpa. She is too quick for me. "I'll call you in a while. I want to talk about your proposal."

Stephanie is a front line soldier, the face of the Department's new philosophy under Commissioner Denby Lloyd--to use their Council seat to look out for the citizens of the State, rather than their former role of throwing bloody steaks to the lions of the industry.

I grab a double breve and retire to my room. I've shmoozed my way onto the fifteenth floor, looking straight down the runway of Merrill Field and at the mountains beyond. I grab the desk chair and balance it on the heater unit so I'm sitting window level at the top floor as I sip the breve and watch the Beech Bonanzas and Cessna Citations climb right at me and then bank away from the window at the last minute. There's a lesson here somewhere.

Picking through the papers I took from the governmentese document buffet table I start writing notes like "Ha!" and "?". Then I look down and see the Mammoth Music store across the street.

"Harmonica!" I shout to myself as I jump up and run for the elevator. I have forgotten to bring a harmonica on this trip and I never travel without one. (Be sure to tell the TSA guy about harmonicas in your carry on. They look like gun clips or something in the X-ray--it freaks them out.)

Coming out with a blues harp in "E" I see Jeff Stephen from Kodiak at the curb. Jeff is a boat owner rep and compulsive community servant: he serves on the thankless School Board, for instance. I like him (I like most people- a terrible weakness).

We visit and he mentions my new role as Kodiak community representative to the Council. I leaped at the chance to be the comrep. I have a hard time saying no to a profitless challenge. He mentions something I will hear later from another boat owner rep-that is, whether I can advocate for crew issues and communities at the same time.

"Heck yeah. Crew is part of Community. What's good for one is good for the other."

Stephanie calls and I run off. We go over my Crew Quota Proposal (reprinted below). She has many questions. (So do I, truthfully). She is a deadly serious person, intent on doing her job well and not given to frivolity (or smiling).

I soberly explain to her that the idea is not to sell or give quota to crew- a misapprehension shared by many. "The problem with the program now is that it privatized a public resource, allowing owners to set up a tollbooth in the ocean that charges working fishermen 50-70% for access..."

She stops me. She has heard this from me before.

"How would it work?"

"That's what I'm here to find out."

NEXT: The Council Comes to Town, I Play Bar Trivia with the New York Times and Why the Trial of Ted Stevens Matters to the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council

Mr.Terry Goes to a Meetin'

Starting Tuesday September 30th

Follow Your Intrepid Blogger as I Attempt to Represent at the October Meeting of the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council

In their clenched hands will be a copy of a Proposal that could change the very face of the Deadliest Catch:

Preliminary Crew Quota Proposal for BSAI Crab Committee,
NPFMC Meeting, September 2008

Problem Statement

What is wrong with Crab Rationalization as it is presently structured?

The program has created an unnatural imbalance in the most basic economies of fishing communities by focusing access rights into the hands of a very few, allowing them to charge lease fees that extract the maximum possible value. The result is less money in fishing communities and less opportunity for fishermen.

How can these problems be corrected?

Skippers and crew, that is, boots on deck fishermen, will be allowed access to a portion of the quota equal to their traditional share on a yearly basis with no ownership rights. Quota owners will be required to have a significant stake in the industry at a time certain or they must divest themselves of their held quota. Meaningful vessel caps will be implemented, allowing more opportunity for traditional users.

Purpose and Need Statement

To restore traditional balance in the industry a redesignation of a portion of the TAC equal to the traditional share taken by skippers and crew will occur. This redesignated quota, or Crew Quota, will be accessible to BOD (Boots On Deck) fishermen without landing restrictions on a yearly basis based on past participation. In this way the entry level fisherman will be able to work his way up, working boats will be relieved of the burden of heavy lease fees, and the cash value of the fishery will be distributed in a more traditional manner, with fishing communities benefiting from more money in more hands.

Proposal

Quota would be redesignated in three ways:

1. All increases in TAC will be designated Crew Quota.

2. All holders of crab quota will be required to show a significant investment in the industry, or to divest themselves of said quota at a time certain. At the time of transfer a share of the transferred quota will be redesignated as Crew Quota.

3. A portion of existing “A” and “B” shares will be immediately redesignated as Crew Quota.

BOD fishermen will then be encouraged to form a Regional Fishery Association as defined in MSA:

The term Regional Fishery Association means an association formed for the mutual benefit of members--

A) To meet social and economic needs in a region or sub region;

B) Comprised of persons engaging in the harvest or processing of fishery resources in that specific region or sub region or who otherwise own or operate businesses substantially dependent on a
fishery.

This document is meant to be a starting place for discussions which will result in a formal presentation to the NPFMC at its October 2008 meeting in Anchorage Alaska. All interested parties are encouraged to contact the Crewmen’s Association to help refine the proposal.

Terry Haines, CA representative, 907-942-0365, yohaines@alaska.com

Anyone at the Meeting (At the Anchorage Sheraton first week of October) can contact me through this site or the phone number above for an official meeting at Humpy's.