1 Seward Peninsula Federal Subsistence
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1 SEWARD PENINSULA FEDERAL SUBSISTENCE 2 REGIONAL ADVISORY COUNCIL MEETING 3 4 PUBLIC MEETING 5 6 7 VOLUME II 8 9 Aurora Inn 10 Nome, Alaska 11 October 8, 2014 12 9:00 a.m. 13 14 Members Present: 15 16 Timothy Smith, Acting Chairman 17 Reggie Barr 18 Peter Buck 19 Tom Gray 20 Ted Katcheak 21 Scott Lockwood 22 Charles Saccheus 23 Elmer Seetot 24 25 26 27 28 Acting Regional Council Coordinator - Robert Larson 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 Recorded and transcribed by: 44 45 Computer Matrix Court Reporters, LLC 46 135 Christensen Drive, Suite 2 47 Anchorage, AK 99501 48 907-227-5312; [email protected] 1 P R O C E E D I N G S 2 3 (Nome, Alaska - 10/8/2014) 4 5 (On record) 6 7 CHAIRMAN SMITH: Yeah. Dan, this is 8 Tim Smith. If you would like, could you take a few 9 minutes to clarify something that's been ongoing for -- 10 just about every meeting we talk about -- we're looking 11 -- what the committee is looking for, or what the 12 Council is looking for is a nexus between Federal 13 jurisdiction and the information needs that we have on 14 fish and wildlife resources. And we're always trying 15 to find the connection. 16 17 MR. SHARP: I understand. I think it 18 happens about every fisheries cycle, this question 19 comes up, and we sort of grapple for..... 20 21 CHAIRMAN SMITH: Yeah, you want to go 22 through and clarify? Maybe we can put this to rest 23 now, though, you know, we're going to -- you know, we 24 have a need for -- we have lots of information needs 25 here, and we're just trying -- and there's inadequate 26 funding for research. We're looking for some way to 27 get Federal funding to do research on Seward Peninsula 28 issues. And so can you just brief us on the problems, 29 the jurisdictional problems? There was a disagreement 30 yesterday on how it works with Federal lands and 31 Federal interest lands and navigability and all that 32 stuff. Can you kind of put that together for us. 33 34 MR. SHARP: I can try and I've stumbled 35 over this myself. And like I say, this has been a 36 recurring issue. There has been some I guess 37 background emails flying around trying to address that 38 question as it came up from people listening. I can do 39 what I can. I think Bob Larson maybe has been party to 40 those emails, too, if I misspeak or so, but I think we 41 can get there. But I think the situation almost 42 remains the same. It's a difficult link for us to make 43 with respect to Federal funding, and competing with the 44 dollars and the regions it has to -- it's hard to get 45 projects in that area to rise up. 46 47 But especially with Federal subsistence 48 management, and generally we don't necessarily manage 49 the subsistence fish. That's mostly done by the State. 50 And that's common. It's an artifact of dual 114 1 management. And without the State's participation, and 2 it also being a State priority, it makes it doubly 3 difficult to get things off the ground. One, competing 4 for limited Federal dollars where there are significant 5 priorities everywhere; and then the -- just where those 6 fisheries occur, in generally a State-managed fishery, 7 the information we'd be getting wouldn't really have 8 in-season management implications. You know, it's 9 tough. 10 11 I know we've had this question before, 12 and it won't go away either. I'm willing to do what I 13 can, but I just -- I think the Federal nexus has been 14 pretty difficult. Just the fact that there are -- you 15 know, they don't really -- the subsistence fisheries 16 don't take place in those water, you know, they take 17 place in State waters. So I think the State in any of 18 these projects and information needs has to be a big 19 player. 20 21 But with respect to the navigability 22 issue, I believe Theo chimed in on an email. When it's 23 outside of its CSU, navigability, when it's navigable 24 waters, yes, there's Federal management. When it's not 25 navigable, no. I think I -- I'll check my message 26 again to make sure I didn't reverse that. But the 27 Unalakleet River is our strongest nexus, and that's 28 where we have something going on. 29 30 CHAIRMAN SMITH: Okay. Does anybody 31 have any questions on that? It would be nice to, you 32 know -- I'm suer we're not going to give up on it, but 33 I mean that really is pretty standard now. 34 35 MR. SHARP: Well, I know -- and as you 36 know, I'll echo the concerns and, you know, the 37 priorities, and you guys are sort of getting the short 38 end of the stick. BLM lands are sort of scattered. We 39 just don't have that same contiguous boundary, and it 40 doesn't work as well, and, you know, unless we'd have 41 those sort of wild and scenic designations on BLM 42 lands. You know, unless you have a God-awful mine up 43 there that we're permitting and doing something 44 horrendous to your waters -- that would get some 45 attention. 46 47 CHAIRMAN SMITH: Well, we can always 48 hope. We do have the largest uranium deposit in 49 Alaska, so we can always hope that they'll come up and 50 irradiate everybody. 115 1 (Laughter) 2 3 MR. SHARP: And there's probably 4 someone willing to try. But, no, I'm sure we can 5 discuss it, and I think there's probably a number of 6 people at the meeting who have been privy to the 7 discussion. 8 9 CHAIRMAN SMITH: Okay. Thanks. And 10 Bob wants to say a word or two about that. 11 12 MR. LARSON: Thank you, Mr. Chair. And 13 regarding the emails that have been distributed, if 14 anybody cares, the lands under Federal jurisdiction or 15 lands that are excluded from Federal jurisdiction are 16 clearly identified in Federal regulations. And you can 17 find those in 50 CFR 100.3. The (a) section says what 18 areas are excluded. Those include national parks and 19 things like that. The (b) section includes some 20 special cases where lands or waters are included. 21 Section (c) is all those conservation units, they're 22 all listed individually, and there's -- if you go to 23 those, you'll find the exact boundaries. And then in 24 (d), and I'm -- maybe I'll read this so we're clear as 25 to what it is, is that -- Section (d) says, the 26 regulations contained in this part apply to all other 27 public lands, other than to the military, Coast Guard, 28 Federal Aviation Administration's lands that are closed 29 to access by the general public. So it's closed to 30 access to the general public, then we don't have 31 jurisdiction. And it says then -- it follows up, 32 including non-navigable waters located on these lands. 33 So if it's outside of (c), of a conservation unit, and 34 it's navigable, then we do not have jurisdiction. If 35 it is outside of a conservation unit, one of those 30 36 that are listed in part (c), then we do have. 37 38 Now, my understanding of the way that 39 the BLM administers the navigable or non-navigable 40 identifications is that they're concentrating on what 41 waters are navigable, but those waters that are not 42 navigable may or may or may not be non-navigable. So 43 their issues are with navigability, not with non- 44 navigability. 45 46 So I think for all practical purposes 47 that for your purposes, and for those things that 48 you're dealing with, you're actually talking about 49 waters within conservation units. That's the easiest 50 thing. 116 1 CHAIRMAN SMITH: Okay. Thank you. 2 Well, and that -- you know, there's certainly lots of 3 needs on the Unalakleet River. You know, what's 4 happening to kind salmon there is a tragedy. And as 5 usual, the Norton Sound is kind of being overlooked. 6 You know, all they're proposing to do is count the fish 7 harder, which is what we've done here with everything, 8 you know, we just count and count and count until we 9 don't have any more. And we need to take it to the 10 next level. So, I mean, that's -- there is enough of a 11 nexus there. 12 13 It's too bad we don't have 14 representation from Unalakleet. You know, they need -- 15 there's a lot of things they need to be doing down 16 there that they're not doing. You know, especially 17 when you come back from these meetings and you look at 18 what's going on on the Kuskokwim. Because it's 19 entirely within the Yukon Delta National Wildlife 20 Refuge, the level of effort put at studying that 21 situation and involving the public in it is 1,000 times 22 greater than what we have here.