PORT ANGELES — The Port Angeles City Council has joined the chorus of business and fishing interests who object to this year’s limited halibut fishing season as hurting the economy and compromising sport fishers’ safety.
The 7-0 vote supported a resolution for a longer season than the one planned for 2017.
Council members said a three-day May 4, May 6 and May 11 season for 2017 in Puget Sound, the Strait of Juan de Fuca and off the coast of Neah Bay, La Push and Westport was too short.
The resolution calls for a fixed 2018 annual bag-possession limit of six fish per person compared to the one-per-day, three-per-year 2017 limit.
It also calls for a far lengthier, pre-2006-type season from the second Saturday in March through the third Saturday in October.
Under the city council resolution, there also would be no poundage limit on individual fish and a limit of one fish per day and two in possession for the March-October season.
Michele Culver, intergovernmental ocean policy manager for the state Department of Fish and Wildlife, said Wednesday that those three dates — May 4, May 6 and May 11 — are preliminary though likely to be approved by the end of February along with four other days.
Culver said halibut fishing days also will likely be set for May 21, May 25, June 1 and June 4 by Fish and Wildlife after the National Marine Fisheries Services has adopted fishing dates as federal regulations.
Culver, who listened to a city website recording of Tuesday’s council meeting Wednesday, said a representative of Fish and Wildlife was not invited to the council session and would have attended.
“We would have welcomed the opportunity,” Culver said.
But the March-October season championed by the council Tuesday is unlikely for 2018, she said.
“We would love to offer the season that’s being proposed, but our quota is just over a million pounds,” Culver said.
“To be able to offer the season that’s proposed, it would have to be 30 [million] or 40 million pounds, which is the total quota for Alaska, Canada and all the West Coast.”
The city council vote came after a public comment session during which more than a half-dozen fishing enthusiasts urged the council to take action.
“Fish and Wildlife must think first of citizens and less about commercial interests,” Ralph Burba said.
“Let the people fish,” he said to applause in council chambers.
Mark Thomas, describing himself as a local businessman, said he was born and raised in Port Angeles.
“We all grew up eating halibut,” Thomas said, wondering aloud what the season might be in five years if it’s so minimal now.
Sissi Bruch abstained from the vote, but under council rules of procedure, her abstention was counted as a yes vote because she did not abstain for appearance-of-fairness or conflict-of-interest issues.
Bruch said Wednesday that after she got home Tuesday night, she thought maybe she should have voted against the resolution rather than abstained.
“I wanted to be supportive of what the fishermen were saying, but I thought we could have come up with a better document, and I did not want to shoot it down,” she said.
“As a first draft, I thought it needed work.”
The halibut season has dwindled from 70 days in 2006 to 12 in 2014 to 11 in 2015 to eight in 2016, and the annual Port Angeles Salmon Club Halibut Derby has been canceled for this year.
Meanwhile, daily halibut catch rates rose in 2008, 2009, 2014 and 2016.
“We have substantiated, dramatic economic losses to local businesses in the motel, food, fuel tackle and other businesses as well as the impact of the cancellation of the annual halibut derby, which is a significant tourist draw,” according to the resolution, which added a safety factor to the argument.
“A three-day season is unsafe as lives and property have been and may be lost when someone makes a wrong decision to go out in bad weather because that is the only time they can legally fish during the year.”
Tuesday’s vote was spearheaded by Deputy Mayor Cherie Kidd and Councilman Lee Whetham, who were part of an ad hoc community group that provided input on the resolution.
They sought a resolution that asked the state Department of Fish and Wildlife to not change the quota but provide flexibility in meeting the quota, according to City Manager Dan McKeen’s memo to council members.
The current season “is undermining an important part of our tourism here in Port Angeles,” Kidd said at Tuesday’s meeting.
The resolution would give city officials the opportunity to ask the state Legislature to extend the season, she added.
Whetham said the resolution would “send a message” to Gov. Jay Inslee.
“He could probably make something happen if it came down to it,” Whetham said.
But Bruch said the quota was the issue, not the length of the season.
“If you are filling the quota in one day, it doesn’t matter how long the season is,” she said Wednesday.
Kidd vowed to ask other city councils, community groups and organizations on the North Olympic Peninsula to sign on to the resolution.
“We need to let our legislators and Fish and Wildlife know that just three days is an economic disaster and is unacceptable,” she said Wednesday.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 55650, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
Cherrie Kidd
