Eight Alaska fishery disaster requests are past the deadline federal law sets

Eight Alaska fishing communities are still waiting for a federal decision that the law says should already have arrived.

NOAA Fisheries lists twelve Alaska fishery resource disaster requests as pending on its determination page as of August 2026. Nine of those have reached the stage where the agency publishes a date by which a determination is due. Eight of those nine dates have passed with no decision issued.

The determination is the gate. Without it there is no allocation, no spend plan and no payment to a permit holder, a crew member or a processor.

Those dates are not targets the agency set for itself. Under the Fishery Resource Disasters Improvement Act of 2022, the Secretary of Commerce shall complete the review "not later than 120 days after the Secretary receives a complete request." Every due date on the Alaska list falls exactly 120 days after the day NOAA deemed that request complete.

The oldest overdue request covers the North Alaska Peninsula drift gillnet salmon fishery for 2023. NOAA deemed it complete on December 11, 2024, and posted a determination due date of April 10, 2025. It has been pending more than sixteen months past that date.

Three requests deemed complete on December 3, 2025, with determinations due April 2, 2026, all remain pending: the Kotzebue District salmon fishery, the Kodiak pink salmon fishery and the Lower Cook Inlet pink salmon fishery, each for 2024. Four more deemed complete on April 1, 2026, with determinations due July 30, also remain pending: Prince William Sound pink and chum, the Chignik salmon fishery, the Alaska Peninsula sockeye and South Alaska pink salmon fisheries, and the Upper Cook Inlet east side setnet salmon fishery, all for 2024.

One Alaska determination on the list is not yet late. The Yukon River salmon fishery request for 2024 was deemed complete on May 4, 2026, and its determination is due September 1.

Three further Alaska requests carry no completeness date, so no clock has started on them: the Bering Sea snow crab fishery for 2024 and 2025, the Alaska Peninsula sockeye salmon fishery for 2025 and the Upper Cook Inlet east side setnet salmon fishery for 2025. The setnetters and the Alaska Peninsula sockeye fishery each appear twice on the list, with the earlier request still undecided.

A governor, an Indian tribe by official resolution, or a comparable elected or appointed representative may ask the Secretary to declare a disaster, generally within a year of the season's end. NOAA reviews the request for completeness, and only then does the 120-day clock start. The gap between filing and completeness can run a year or more, so the list understates how long communities have waited.

Money has moved on earlier requests. The determinations behind the $123.6 million allocated to Alaska, Oregon, California and the Squaxin Island Tribe were issued in April and May 2024. That total included $75.2 million for Bering Sea snow crab harvest lost in the 2023 to 2024 winter, $18.5 million for the 2022 Chignik salmon disaster and $5.8 million for the 2023 Upper Cook Inlet east side setnet harvest. The funds reached Alaska in 2026. The twelve pending requests have not cleared the first of those steps.

This account is drawn from NOAA Fisheries' published determination page and the statute behind it, and reflects what that record shows: dates the law sets and dates passed. The record does not state why any determination is late, and the agency has not addressed the delays in the material reviewed here.

The next posted date on the Alaska list is September 1, when the Yukon River determination comes due.