Tribal groups demanding restrictions on trawlers in Alaska’s Bering Sea are in court

Updated: 15 minutes ago Published: 15 minutes ago

U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason heard oral arguments Thursday in a lawsuit filed by two of Alaska’s largest tribal groups against federal managers of the state’s groundfish trawl fishery.

The Association of Village Council Presidents and the Conference of Village Chiefs say the federal government has failed to adjust trawling regulations in the Bering Sea and off the Aleutian Islands to compensate for the ongoing salmon crisis in Alaska’s Interior Rivers.

A victory for the plaintiffs could lead to new restrictions on the world’s largest trawl fishery. If the plaintiffs lose, the status quo will likely remain.

On Thursday, Gleason asked the plaintiffs whether they were seeking an end to trawling in the Bering Sea.

No, the plaintiffs said.

Instead, they are demanding that the federal government acknowledge that ocean conditions have changed since 2007, when the National Marine Fisheries Service last conducted a full environmental impact statement on fishing.

The document has been gradually updated since then, but plaintiffs say the updates did not take into account changing ocean conditions, including the arrival and departure of the “blob,” a marine heat wave that has hit the North Pacific over the past decade.

They argue that the State Environmental Policy Act needs to be re-evaluated.

A full reassessment could result in new trawling regulations, and industry groups have intervened in a lawsuit on the side of the federal government, which argues that a reassessment is not necessary because the process of setting annual catch limits involves regular reviews for the health of the fishery.

“NMFS has concluded, based on extensive data resulting from cutting-edge science, that the new circumstances described by Plaintiffs are not relevant to the environmental impact of the harvest specification decisions,” attorneys for the agency wrote in a court filing.

At the end of Thursday’s hearing, Gleason reviewed the case and said she would issue a written order in the future.

If it rules in favor of the plaintiffs, an additional hearing may be scheduled to determine what steps the National Marine Fisheries Service must take to resolve the issue.

Originally published by Alaska Lighthousean independent, nonpartisan news organization covering the state of Alaska government.