One more voting member must be seated on the North Pacific Fishery Management Council and it has to happen fast.
State governors submitted their choices in March for regional fishery councils to the US Secretary of Commerce who announced her choices last week.
But a special appointment must be made to fill the seat held by recently deceased Kenny Down, one of two Washington voting members out of 11 on the NPFMC. Down was long active in the freezer-longline sector and served on the NPFMC from 2015 until his death in May. The NPFMC appointment to replace Downs must be made by Aug. 16- 45 days before the start of the Sept. meeting.
The anniversary date “for measuring terms of membership is August 11,” according to the Statement Of Organization, Practices, And Procedures For The North Pacific Fishery Management Council. A delay could jeopardize procedures and voting at the full Council meeting set to begin on September 30 in Anchorage.
Last Friday, Governor Jay Inslee of Washington forwarded the same slate of candidates for Down’s seat that he submitted in March, minus Anne Vanderhoeven, Director of Government Affairs for the Arctic Storm Management Group, who was reappointed for a second term by the Secretary after an extended and unexplained delay.
It is customary for a governor's top choices to be rubber-stamped by the Commerce Secretary. However, the potential shake-up of the Council make-up that would prioritize ocean ecosystem protections over fishery profits drew months of relentless lobbying from Seattle trawl interests.
Over 300 fishing vessels are homeported in Seattle, and 226 make their living fishing in Alaskan waters. The vessels, nearly all large trawlers, take home nearly 75% of the value of ALL groundfish from the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska.
Their efforts succeeded in getting Vanderhoeven reappointed to the NPFMC.
“We were hoping a strong, independent, conservation-minded voice would be added to the Council,” said SalmonState Director Tim Bristol in a press release. “Instead, we get pro-trawl business as usual. This decision makes it hard to have faith in a fair and balanced Council process moving forward.”
Topping Governor Inslee’s list for Down’s seat again is Becca Robbins-Gisclair, Senior Director of Arctic Programs for the Ocean Conservancy, who has been involved in the NPFMC process for two decades, including six years on its Advisory Panel. She also is a member of the North Pacific Research Board and an advisor for the North Pacific Anadromous Fish Commission.
Inslee’s second choice for the WA voting seat is Jamie Goen, Executive Director of Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers, a trade group representing crab harvesters. Goen worked for NOAA Fisheries for 15 years and was part of a leadership team at the International Pacific Halibut Commission.
The third nomination is Elaine Harvey, a member of the Yakima Nation and the Watershed Department Manager for the Columbia River Intertribal Fish Commission.
Inslee’s selection of Robbins-Gisclair has drawn “a huge push to be rejected,” said industry insiders, because she is viewed as being “so radical” by the trawl sector.
But she also was Kenny Down’s top choice to replace him on the North Pacific Council.
Down was a longtime advocate for tribal, hook-and-line fishing and the crab sector. His obituary described the NPFMC as “stacked with trawler-biased members.”
His wife, Shannon, said that her husband made it very clear, including directly to Governor Inslee just days before he died, that he wanted to be replaced by someone with a similar point of view.
She told Nat Herz of Northern Journal that Kenny “was making calls when he was in bed, trying to fight for his life. This was his dying wish.”
