A collapsing salmon season could force Cordova to cut services this winter

Cordova's budget runs on fish. When the boats work, the fuel they burn feeds the city's tax revenue. This year the boats aren't working — and a council member is warning residents to brace for what that means.

"We're going to have some extremely hard choices to make this winter," Council Member Mickelson said Wednesday — "what services we value the most and which ones we are willing to maybe suspend, and hopefully only temporarily."

The problem is the near-total absence of pink salmon in Prince William Sound. With tenders idle and, as Mickelson put it, "almost every single salmon fishery is closed," the fuel-tax dollars the city leans on have thinned out. He expects the gillnet season to be "most likely going to be a disaster," with "huge ripple effects" on the city's taxable income.

That runs against the state's own preseason forecast, which projected a Prince William Sound pink run of more than 21 million fish. On the water, council members say, it hasn't shown up. Collins, a former gillnetter, put it plainly: "It's not looking good so far."

Mayor Smith said the worry was already in the room. "I think that's probably been on everybody's mind," she said.

No budget cuts are on the table yet. The warning came during general comments at a meeting otherwise focused on routine business.