After being delayed for more than a year, disaster funds will soon be disbursed for the 2018 East Side Setnet Salmon and 2020 Upper Cook Inlet Salmon Fisheries Disasters. That’s according to a press release from the Alaska Congressional Delegation on Friday.

Per previous Clarion reporting, those fishery resource disasters were determined by the U.S. Secretary of Commerce, Gina M. Raimondo, in 2022. A 2021 letter from Gov. Mike Dunleavy requesting the determination says that “sudden and unexpected” decreases in salmon abundance resulted in fishery closures and severe restrictions.

In 2022, $9.4 million was allocated by the National Marine Fisheries Service to address losses in the 2018 and 2020 seasons. A draft plan for spending the money was drafted by the State Department of Fish and Game in June 2023 and finalized on Sept. 6, 2023. The Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission applied for the funding on Sept. 11, 2023. Funds have still not been distributed.

The Friday release from the delegation says that $277 million in funding has been allocated by the U.S. Department of Commerce for Alaska fishery disasters. The funding will soon be transmitted to the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission for distribution.

The spend plan by the State Department of Fish and Game describes how the $9.4 million allocated for local fisheries will be disbursed. The plan says that 62% of the money, around $5.8 million, will be dispersed to harvesters. Around $2.3 million will go to processors, $882,000 to research, $281,000 to communities and $17,000 for program support. Funds will be disbursed to permit holders, “eligible processing companies,” as well as the City of Homer, the City of Kenai and the Kenai Peninsula Borough.

The disbursement of the money follows months of communication by the Alaska delegation to the Department of Commerce. The releases say that funding was held up at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration after that body launched new accounting software. The offices of all three members of the delegation did not immediately respond on Friday when asked whether the new funding from the department would still move through NOAA on its way to the commission.

A letter from Peltola to Raimondo is included in a release from her office. Peltola on April 5 wrote “to express my concerns” about nearly $348 million in fishery disaster funds that haven’t been disbursed. That funding includes the $277 million allocated this week by the department, as well as an additional $70 million for other fisheries in Norton Sound and the Bering Sea, which aren’t described in the release this week by the delegation or Peltola’s office.

The funds are “stuck,” Peltola wrote in April, because of “problems with NOAA’s new accounting software, Business Applications Solution,” which was adopted on Oct. 1. In describing the local Cook Inlet disasters, Peltola wrote that the spend plans are approved and the funds were released by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, but the grants haven’t been approved by NOAA “because of BAS.”

She calls in that letter for fixes to the BAS system or the finding of a different approach to releasing the funds.

The release from the Alaska congressional delegation says that U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski on May 15 asked Raimondo for an update, and U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan on May 23 organized an Alaska Seafood Industry Roundtable with Raimondo “to facilitate dialogue.”

A Sept. 4 letter to the U.S. Department of Commerce from the United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, signed by Sullivan, Murkowski, and ranking member U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, outlines some of the issues with the BAS.

They write that, in October, the launch of the software “caused a backlog of thousands of unpaid invoices reportedly resulting in a loss of both alerts in tornado prone areas and vital weather information for pilots.” They write that this issue has delayed the fishery disaster allocations, writing “currently seven separate unfunded fishery disaster requests for salmon fisheries alone.”

A Bloomberg story cited in the letter says that “tens of millions of dollars worth of invoices and reimbursements” weren’t processed for payment after rollout of the software.

The letter calls for an update from the department on when the BAS will be fully operational, what operational issues at NOAA result from the software, how those issues impact NOAA’s ability to perform its mission, and a list of and estimated dates for all overdue funding disbursements. The releases don’t describe any further action between when that letter was sent and when the Department of Commerce produced the funding. It’s unclear when exactly this funding will begin to be distributed.

“There is no question that fisheries and coastal communities in Alaska need help as they navigate catastrophic fishery collapses,” Murkowski says in the release. “Although I am grateful our fishermen and communities will finally see some relief, for many it might be too little too late. After years of waiting, some have already moved onto other professions, and in some cases have even left the state.”

“I’m glad to see this significant batch of federal relief dollars finally being distributed to our hard-working fishermen and coastal communities,” says Sullivan in the release. “We need this funding to expeditiously reach Alaskans so that they can weather these disasters over the long-term and continue to responsibly harvest the freshest, most sustainable seafood in the world.”

“Our fishermen and fishing families have suffered enough the last few years – when disaster strikes, it only sets us back further,” says Peltola in the release. “This funding is critical in helping our fisheries recover and support the communities all over Alaska, and beyond, that rely on their seafood product output.”

Local fisheries disasters were also previously determined for the 2021, 2022 and 2023 Upper Cook Inlet ESSN salmon fisheries. For the 2021 and 2022 fisheries, $11.5 million has been allocated, and a public comment period on the second draft of a spend plan ended on Sept. 17. Funds have not yet been allocated for the 2023 disaster.

More information about local fisheries disasters can be found at adfg.alaska.gov.

Reach reporter Jake Dye at jacob.dye@peninsulaclarion.com.