The state will renew a Sitka hatchery's Deep Inlet lease for 10 years, not the 25 it wanted

Alaska's Department of Natural Resources is set to renew the Northern Southeast Regional Aquaculture Association's lease for its Deep Inlet net pen site for 10 years, less than half the 25-year term the association asked for. The decision, issued in late February, does not take effect unless it survives the appeal period.

The site, on state-owned tide and submerged lands southeast of Sitka, is the seasonal moorage for the association's remote salmon rearing and release operation, the same Deep Inlet that opens to the commercial fleet as a terminal harvest area. It holds 36 steel-framed pens and a support barge with a warehouse and living quarters, with mooring buoys and anchors left in place year-round.

The notice does not explain why the land office settled on 10 years rather than the requested 25, and it includes no response from the association to the shorter term. No one objected to the renewal on the record.