HomeMy WebLinkAbout03292016 City Council Laydowns To the Board and Administration of Cook Inlet Aquaculture Association - March 19, 2016
Meeting 3/2 q ,
V4ydobort
Concerning the Seward Area Salmon Habitat Rehabilitation plan, I was upset and left the
meeting not at the rejection of the plan, but at the bum's rush by our chair Brent
Johnson and by the statement by not one, but two of our prominent members that they
could care less about Seward or words to that effect! CIAA has had the ability to do cost
recovery, egg take and fry and smolt sales to the City of Seward for 25 years, do I dare say
that without Resurrection Bay, Bear lake and City of Seward, CIAA would not be in
existence today due to bankrupcy? Our natural systems are challenged, we know better
than anyone what they have produced in the past and what they produce now. Unless
improvements are made to our natural spawning habitat, natural runs are in jeopardy.
First, to those Board members who don't know, a second does not imply support to a
motion, only a willingness to hear the argument and vote on the question; I notice how
everyone jumps to second the routine business. Second, if CIAA is not willing to
consider habitat rehabilitation for the Seward Area, there is something wrong. No place
is more in need than the Seward Area and in CIAA's estimation there should be no place
more deserving than Seward, considering the uses that the association has put the
Seward area to! The Seward Area plan was locals willing to meet the association half
way and if the locals aren't good enough for you, who is? One can only reach the
conclusion that CIAA is intent on dominating the Seward area for its own purposes and
that to enhance habitat for increased natural return is seen as competition for smolt and
fry sales to The City of Seward. Cost recovery seining is impacting natural stocks of reds
and kings, with no mechanism for protection of those stocks. Bear lake and the salmon
creek wier (Bear lake weir) are not being managed to protect wild stocks, but for CIAA
salmon and egg take. The license to do cost recovery on the Bear Lake Sockeye run is
clearly flawed and was issued with flawed numbers and science. This needs to be
revisited by the legislature and rescinded. Due to my lack of faith in CIAA integrity and
acceptance of plastic science (the 7 year straying study by AK F & G reputed to prove
once and for all that hatchery fish are the same as wild fish, repeated 3 times at our
meeting where we contributed $25k is obviously a forgone conclusion and a waste of
money) not to mention your overt local colonialism concerning Seward would do the
fisheries companies with their fish traps in the 1940's and 50's proud.
With this in mind I do not believe that I can serve CIAA any longer as a Board Member;
consider this letter my resignation, Thank You. Tim McDonald, CIAA Board member
for Seward Alaska