Alaska Journal of Commerce
ADFG insists studies were used despite going unpublished
By: DJ Summers
Posted: Wed, 01/06/2016 – 2:07pm
Use it, then lose it, was the fate of a long-delayed Kenai River habitat study until the Alaska Department of Fish and Game finally published it last fall.
A 14-year publication delay on a Kenai River habitat study has made ripples through ADFG and the Cook Inlet fishing sphere as officials have acknowledged that taking so long to finalize the report was a mistake but insist they still used the report’s recommendations in management plans.
Some commercial fishing stakeholders have alleged the report’s delay was politically motivated because it found adverse impacts to habitat caused by shoreside angling, while ADFG maintains it was a simple lapse.
“It’s not uncommon for reports to get stacked up,” said ADFG Commissioner Sam Cotten. “There’s no knowledge of holding back information or anything other than a tardy report.”
Cotten also dismissed speculation that Gov. Bill Walker had learned of the report and ordered its publication.
“He would have had to act through me to do that, and that certainly didn’t happen,” said Cotten, who had a briefing from ADFG division directors prior to an interview with the Journal. Walker’s office also denies he had anything to do with the report being published.
The study was part of a series that produced five annual reports from 1997-2001. Those between 1997-99 were published within the usual one- to three-year range, but the 2000 and 2001 studies weren’t published until October 2015.
The series was born into a tense political situation around the Kenai River’s user groups — commercial, sport, and personal use. Throughout the 1990s, the Board of Fisheries had been slowly changing Kenai River management plans for the growing sport fishing sector, partly instate and partly tourist driven.
At the 1996 Board of Fisheries meeting, the board boosted the sockeye salmon share and slackened bag and possession limits for the in-river sport fishery and personal use fishery at the Kenai River’s mouth.
The department and board said they would rethink liberalizations if there were evidence sportfishing contributed to habitat damage. According to the study’s authors, Mary King and Patricia Hansen, the 1997, 1998, and 1999 studies were less precise than the unpublished 2000 and 2001 studies.
The cleaner data showed linkages between shore-based angling and riparian habitat degradation. King and Hansen presented the information at the 2002 Board of Fisheries meeting, which Hansen said partially explains the length of the publication delay. Ironically, with the best data having been already presented to the board, publication took a backseat to management.
“People felt that that data had been put our there,” Hansen said. “That’s why it took so much longer. We had been improving our methods all along. Our data was less noisy. It was just better data towards the end.”
Hansen and other ADFG biologists said the report moved to the bottom of the pile and stayed there. Department staff moved around or retired, so the report didn’t receive continual pressure for publication.
Knowledge of the report’s delay surfaced at the Board of Fisheries’ 2014 Upper Cook Inlet finfish meeting. Lisa Gabriel, administrative assistant for commercial fishing industry group Kenai Peninsula Fishermen’s Association, submitted a statement to the board asking why the board had not completed any further habitat studies.
Gabriel’s insistence prompted the department to move the report forward for publication.
“We did want to get this out of our hair,” said Hansen. “It shouldn’t have taken that long, it was a bad thing on our part.”
Forrest Bowers, director of ADFG’s Commercial Fisheries Division, said he’s familiar with the King and Hansen study. Bowers’ feelings on the report’s 14-year publication delay are mixed.
ADFG often shelves studies; however, he said that betrays an obligation the department has to the public.
“If we undertake a report or a study, it’s our intention and our obligation to the public to publish it for peers,” Bowers said. “But sometimes the timelines do get drawn out. I’ve been involved with reports earlier in my career where it took several years to get those reports out for one reason or another.”
While he recognizes the need for timely publication, also knows studies can impact policy without being formally published.
“Just because a report hasn’t been published, doesn’t preclude us from acting on any of the findings,” he said.
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