(CN) — A federal judge on Tuesday rejected a bid by Alaskan tribal nonprofits to force the National Marine Fisheries Service to prepare a supplemental environmental impact statement that takes into account the degrading ecosystem in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands and curtails the bycatch of salmon by pollock trawlers.
Chief U.S. District Judge Sharon Gleason in Anchorage concluded that the federal agency had not violated the National Environmental Policy Act, as the plaintiffs had claimed, by relying on environmental impact statements from 2004 and 2007 to determine in recent years the annual harvest specifications for the groundfish trawling fishery off the Alaska coast.
“The harvest specifications decisions are not arbitrary and capricious because NMFS concluded, based on its reasoned evaluation of the new information regarding changes in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands region, that the harvest specifications would not result in significant impacts to the human environment that were not considered in the 2007 Harvest Specifications EIS, such that a supplemental EIS was not required,” the judge said.
Gleason, a Barack Obama appointee, granted summary judgment for the National Marine Fisheries Service and dismissed the lawsuit with prejudice.
The federal groundfish trawling fishery off the coast of Alaska is the largest such fishery in the world, harvesting about 2 million metric tons of fish each year. Trawlers catch pollock and other groundfish using large, cone-shaped nets that are towed through the water by a vessel.
The trawls are imprecise, however, and they accidentally catch thousands of Chinook and chum salmon each year.
The Association of Village Council Presidents and Tanana Chiefs Conference, represented by Earthjustice, claim that subsistence fishing in western and interior Alaska has been severely restricted over the past decade or more due to poor runs of Chinook and chum salmon. Bycatch in the groundfish fisheries, they say, contributes to the collapse of salmon runs, preventing tribes from fishing as they traditionally have for thousands of years.
“Since at least 2014, the Bering Sea has been in a period of turmoil,” Katherine Glover, an attorney with EarthJustice, told the court at a hearing in Anchorage last year.
Gleason’s decision observed that between 2014 and 2021, the Bering Sea underwent an extended warm period that resulted in changes to the physical and biological environment that caused ripple effects throughout the ecosystem.
She also noted that changes to the marine ecosystem in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands region have depleted salmon stocks and that salmon bycatch in the groundfish fishery has further diminished the number of salmon that “escape” fisheries in the ocean and survive to return to freshwater streams to spawn.
However, Gleason agreed with the federal defendants that they reviewed up-to-date information and considered whether this information indicated a substantial change in the impacts of the harvest specifications process that hadn’t been considered in the 2007 environmental impact statement.
“In particular,” the judge wrote, “although NMFS determined that it was a low abundance year for Chinook salmon based on salmon runs in the Unalakleet, Upper Yukon, and Kuskokwim rivers, it nonetheless concluded the information and circumstances presented in the 2023 [Stock Assessment and Fishery Evaluation] reports indicate the annual implementation of the groundfish harvest specifications will not affect the human environment in a significant manner or to a significant extent not already considered,” in the 2007 environmental impact statement.
“We are disappointed in the decision and reviewing it with clients,” Kate Glover, senior attorney at Earthjustice’s Alaska office said.