Tribal groups, seeking restrictions on Alaska’s Bering Sea trawlers, get day in court

U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason heard oral arguments Thursday in a lawsuit filed by two of Alaska’s largest tribal groups against federal managers of the state’s groundfish trawl fisheries.

The Association of Village Council Presidents and the Tanana Chiefs Conference claim the federal government has failed to adjust trawling rules in the Bering Sea and off the Aleutian Islands to compensate for the ongoing salmon crisis on Alaska’s Interior rivers.

Victory by the plaintiffs could lead to new restrictions on the world’s largest trawl fishery. If plaintiffs lose, the status quo is likely to continue.

On Thursday, Gleason asked plaintiffs whether they’re seeking a halt to trawl fishing in the Bering Sea.

No, the plaintiffs said.

Instead, they’re seeking an acknowledgment from the federal government that ocean conditions have changed since 2007, the last time the National Marine Fisheries Service conducted a full environmental impact statement for the fishery.

That document has been incrementally updated since then, but plaintiffs argue that the updates haven’t taken into account changing ocean conditions, including the arrival and departure of “the blob” — a marine heat wave that struck the North Pacific last decade.

They contend that the National Environmental Policy Act requires a new reassessment.

A full reassessment could result in new rules for the trawl fishery, and industry groups have intervened in the lawsuit on the side of the federal government, which says that a reassessment isn’t needed because the process of setting annual harvest limits includes a regular look at the health of the fishery.

“NMFS has concluded, based on voluminous data informed by the most up-to-date science, that the new circumstances described by Plaintiffs are not significant in the context of the impact of the harvest specifications decisions on the environment,” attorneys for the agency wrote in a court filing.

At the end of Thursday’s hearing, Gleason took the case under advisement and said she will issue a written order at a future date.

If she rules in the plaintiffs’ favor, an additional hearing may be scheduled to determine what steps the National Marine Fisheries Service needs to take to fix the problem.

Originally published by the Alaska Beacon, an independent, nonpartisan news organization that covers Alaska state government.