`Disaster' hits salmon fishery.

Byline: Winston Ross The Register-Guard

SEATTLE - West Coast salmon fishermen got the devastating news they've been expecting for weeks on Thursday, when federal regulators set the most Draconian season in the history of the fleet, allowing almost no chinook salmon to be caught by commercial or sport boats between Oregon's Cape Falconand the Mexican border.

The unprecedented closure will have unprecedented effects, salmon trollers say. Those effects will ripple through coastal communities that rely on selling fuel, ice, bait and supplies to fishermen, on packing and selling their catch once it comes in, and on chartering boats to tourists who spend millions of dollars annually for the chance to land an Oregon icon.

"This is a disaster for West Coast salmon fisheries, under any standard," said Don Hansen, chairman of the Pacific Fishery Management Council, whose recommendation will probably be adopted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration by May 1. "There will be a huge impact on the people who fish for a living, those who eat wild-caught king salmon, those who enjoy recreational fishing, and the businesses and coastal communities dependent on these fisheries."

The value of the fishery between California and Oregon averaged $103 million per year between 1979 and 2004, with an average impact to communities of $61 million, according to the council.

The closure alsowill hurt science, as the Pacific Council in an 8-5 vote decided against an option that would have allowed a limited amount of salmon to be caught as part of a coastwide study on salmon distribution, migration and behavior in the Pacific Ocean. The research's intent is to help understand what has caused record low returns on California's Sacramento River, which is the reason for this year's restrictions.

For the past two years, Oregon State University researchers have been tracking genetic markers of ocean-caught salmon via fin or tissue samples and then pinpointing the fish's river basin of origin to understand why they cluster and feed in certain areas. More than 190 salmon fishermen from 11 Oregon counties were trained in sampling protocols as part of the project.

Now, the research is in jeopardy, as scientists will have to rely on a fraction of the fish they have had available in recent years, instead using salmon accidentally caught in the whiting fishery.

"My worry is momentum," said Gil Sylvia, director of the Coastal Oregon Marine Experiment Station at the college's Hatfield Marine Science Center, which is conducting the research. "When you put in place the infrastructure to do this work, there are a lot of costs and investments already made and a cost to stop the project."

The same concern applies to the salmon fleet, which relies on ice plants and local fish buyers to keep their business afloat. When the salmon season is closed, those plants close down and the processors leave town.

"It's not just fishermen," said Darus Peake, chairman of the Oregon Salmon Commission. "It's the ice plant, the fuel dock, the motel on the corner, the gift shop. Everybody on the Oregon Coast will take a hit on this one. It's going to hurt, and not just the fishermen."

What's worse: Supermarkets replace their product with cheaper, farmed imports - shelf space that's hard to get back once it's gone.

"There are costs above and beyond what's visible," Sylvia said.

Some trollers may be able to catch 9,000 hatchery-reared coho salmon, if the National Marine Fisheries Service allows an emergency provision that permits the fleet to catch fish below a predetermined "floor." The federal agency still has to adopt the Pacific Council's recommendation to make the closure and such a provision official.

Others, unwilling to spend the fuel it takes to seek such a meager allotment, will turn their attention to tuna, black cod and what's left of the dwindling Dungeness crab season - most of those crustaceans were caught by February.

A political battle will also take shape in the coming weeks, as fishermen fight for a federal disaster declaration to help trollers make boat and moorage payments. Last year, after several consecutive years of poor returns on the Klamath River, fishermen won disaster assistance, but only because it was attached to a spending bill for Iraq.

"If we didn't tie that onto a war bill, we wouldn't have gotten a dime," Peake said.

On Thursday, Gov. Ted Kulongoski declared a state of emergency for affected parts of the coast, which frees up $500,000 in strategic reserve funds to be spent on job retention, unemployment benefits and re-employment opportunities to the fleet.

"This will be devastating to the communities and families on the coast that rely on salmon fishing for their livelihood," Kulongoski said. "Our job now is to help these communities make ends meet during this difficult time and to fight for federal assistance to help them for the longer term."

Down the line, salmon-hungry consumers will feel the effects of the worst shutdown in the history of the West Coast fleet. Retail prices for what few fish could be caught in state "bubble fisheries" - north of Cape Falcon, near Cannon Beach, and for what trickles down from Alaska - are expected to be twice what they were last year, Newport troller Mark Newellsaid. Consumers can expect to spend up to $30 a pound for wild salmon.The fish has enjoyed a steady increase in demand.

There's also a debate brewing about the root of the salmon crisis. Fishermen are calling for a congressional investigation into this year's collapse of juvenile fish stocks on the Sacramento, saying the government has done a lousy job of studying how the salmon fare once they leave important river systems and that too much water is diverted for farms to ensure healthy stocks.

But scientists point to ocean conditions, linking a precipitous drop in the food supply in 2005 with the bad returns of young salmon this year. The ocean outlook is improving, said Bill Peterson, a fisheries biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration - even if that doesn't help the struggling fleet this year.