Alaska Board of Fisheries votes 4-3 to revisit voided Area M salmon rules

The Alaska Board of Fisheries voted 4-3 Thursday in Anchorage to reconsider Area M salmon restrictions that the state Department of Law voided in May.

The board accepted five agenda change requests. The requests cover four measures: a 10-day June closure for seine and drift gillnet gear in the South Unimak and Shumagin Islands fishery, king salmon harvest caps, shallower drift gillnets and smaller seines. Area M, off the Alaska Peninsula, catches chum and king salmon headed for Western Alaska rivers.

The board first adopted the rules in February, when it voted 4-3 to cut June fishing time in Area M. The Department of Law disapproved them after the acting attorney general found ethics violations, as Alaska News reported May 20. Member Curt Chamberlain said Wednesday that the finding concerned his disclosures and did not find a conflict.

Agenda change requests let the board act outside its regular three-year cycle, but only when a request meets specific criteria, such as an unforeseen effect of a regulation. Department staff said none of the requests met that bar. Chair Märit Carlson-Van Dort disagreed: "It was voided by a legally questionable and unprecedented action by the Department of Law. And I think that definitely falls squarely into the unforeseen category."

Member Tom Carpenter said the requests were mainly about dividing fish among fishing groups, something board policy bars without compelling new information. "To me, new information is not something that was thrown out by somebody at the Department of Law," he said.

The board's Department of Law attorney said the policy allows competing readings of that standard and reminded the board to build a clear record on allocation, distinct from the one behind the earlier rules.

Member Olivia Irwin said 320,000 Western Alaska chum were caught in the area from 2022 to 2025, and that Yukon River passage goals at the Canadian border went unmet in that span. Staff said that since 2023 the fleet's voluntary fishing pauses have kept June chum harvest below the regulatory triggers, which cut seine fishing time if the catch reaches 300,000 chum by June 18 and close it if the catch reaches 450,000 by June 23. Staff also said about 1.1 million Yukon summer chum passed the Pilot Station sonar this year, well within the escapement goal.

A special meeting is tentatively planned for mid-December or February, with staff checking logistics for a four-day meeting Dec. 13-16. The board's Department of Law attorney said the department could reach a final resolution of the legal questions by February. The Aleutians East Borough asked that the meeting be held in Sand Point or King Cove, but Carlson-Van Dort said the board is looking at Anchorage instead.