The petition was submitted by Robert Williams, Jeffrey Beaudoin and Herman Hermansen, all of Kasilof, and Brent Johnson of Clam Gulch. It was brought to the board at its March meeting, at which time the board decided the petition met the criteria for an emergency meeting. It was not considered at the March meeting because any regulation change made by emergency petition is only in effect for 120 days and would expire before the 2007 UCI salmon season ended.

The petition said ADF&G has acknowledged that the UCI management objectives are "unclear." The UCI salmon management plan states that, "It is unclear which is the higher priority: allowable fishing time or management within the escapement goals."

One major issue is the mandatory closure "windows" adopted for setnetters in 2005, UCI's last regular cycle in front of the board. The windows close the fishery for 36 hours prior to the weekend to allow a predictable pulse of fish in the Kenai and Kasilof rivers for sport and personal use anglers. Fishermen also have a limit on how many hours they can fish each week.

Had the petition carried and escapement goals been established as a clear priority, salmon fishery managers would have been able to open the commercial setnet fishery during mandatory closure windows by emergency order. Being able to open the fishery when there is a big push of fish to the beach, regardless of what day of the week it happens, is seen by some as an important management tool.

Also at issue is over-escapement. There is considerable debate over whether high over-escapement damages future runs. A memorandum to the board from John Hilsinger, director of commercial fisheries for ADF&G, and Kelly Helper, director of sport fish for ADF&G, prior to the emergency teleconference, said the term "over-escapement" has generated some confusion in reference to managing Alaska's salmon fisheries. It said the department's definition of over-escapement is relevant to the current escapement goal. Simply put, it says, escapement beyond the upper end of the range of the current goal would be considered an instance of over-escapement. It goes on to say the immediate effect of over-escapement is the obvious loss of catch in the year of the event.

The memo also said that a single year of over-escapement will lower the expected yield to the fishery in the next generation, but due to unpredictable environmental influences on survival, the actual yield may be higher or lower than expected. The result of repeated over-escapement for the Kenai/Kasilof systems has yet to be determined.

The Kenai and Kasilof rivers have experienced chronic over-escapement in the past several years, far exceeding the upper end of the escapement goal range for both rivers. That has not so far translated into weaker runs in the next generation, but the Upper Cook Inlet Drift Association has pointed out that the smolt out-migration from the 2004 parent year in the Kenai River system, which will return in 2008-2009, was the lowest in years, predicting a return that might not be enough to cover escapement goals, let alone commercial, sport, and personal use fisheries. However, area management biologist Jeff Fox cautioned UCIDA that the smolt out-migration studies have only been used for a short time, and that fry counts have a more proven track record. The 2004 brood year showed the largest number of fry, but with the lowest average weight. The 2008-09 fisheries will determine their survival rate.

The written public testimony submitted prior to Monday's emergency teleconference split down predictable sport/commercial lines. The Kenai River Sportfishing Association submitted a 2005 press release showing how the sonar counts of sockeye in the Kenai River spiked considerably on weekends during the first year mandatory windows were in place. KRSA called the windows "a tremendous success."

Commercial fishermen and fishing groups submitted studies showing the deleterious effects of over-escapement in other systems and invoked the Alaska Constitution, implying that fish that could have been harvested and sold over and above the escapement goal, but were not due to mandatory closures, did not qualify as using the resource to the best benefit of the most Alaskans, as the constitution mandates.

Processors weighed in, also, explaining that relying on the Kasilof River Special Harvest Area, at the very mouth of the Kasilof River, to try to halt over-escapement was detrimental to processors, commercial fishermen, sport and personal use fishermen, and consumers, and might possibly have been avoided had fishery managers been able to give setnetters more fishing time.

Board of Fisheries members Jeremiah Campbell, John Jensen, Larry Edfeldt and Bonnie Williams voted against the petition, while Art Nelson, Mel Morris and Robert Heyano voted for it. Upper Cook Inlet issues come before the board for their regular cycle during the 2007/2008 meetings.

The petition and public comments can be found on the Boards Support Web site at http://www.boards.adfg.state.ak.us/.

Cristy Fry has commercial fished in Homer since 1978. She also designs and builds gear for the industry. She currently longlines for halibut and gillnets salmon in upper Cook Inlet aboard the F/V Realist, and is a member of UCIDA. She can be reached at cristy-fry@excite.com.