Staff kept busy Thursday at the Board of Fisheries meeting in Homer running microphones around the room to keep up with the public wanting to weigh in.
The board moved into its Committee of the Whole process Thursday, a town-hall style consideration process in which the staff and public can provide additional information about the proposals. The board covered all 46 proposals for the Lower Cook Inlet cycle and will move into the deliberation process Friday.
One of the major issues that arose in the morning was conflict over Cook Inlet Aquaculture Association’s cost recovery harvest operations in Resurrection Bay. Three proposals ask the board to change the allocation and harvest areas for cost recovery harvest, which the aquaculture association does most years to help cover the cost of its hatchery operations. Commercial fishermen, hired by a processor that wins a contract from CIAA, harvest some of the returning sockeye salmon between approximately mid-May and mid-June. When there are fish left over once CIAA has harvest enough to cover its cost recovery goal, those fish are opened up for commercial common property harvest.
