Use it, then lose it, was the fate of a long-delayed Kenai River habitat study until the Alaska Department of Fish and Game finally published it last fall.<\/p>\n
A 14-year publication delay on a Kenai River habitat study has made ripples through ADFG and the Cook Inlet fishing sphere, as officials have acknowledged that taking so long to finalize the report was a mistake but insist they still used the report\u2019s recommendations in management plans.<\/p>\n
Some commercial fishing stakeholders have alleged the report\u2019s delay was politically motivated because it found adverse impacts to habitat caused by shoreside angling, while ADFG maintains it was a simple lapse.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not uncommon for reports to get stacked up,\u201d said ADFG Commissioner Sam Cotten. \u201cThere\u2019s no knowledge of holding back information or anything other than a tardy report.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cotten also dismissed speculation that Gov. Bill Walker had learned of the report and ordered its publication.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe would have had to act through me to do that, and that certainly didn\u2019t happen,\u201d said Cotten, who had a briefing from ADFG division directors prior to an interview with the Alaska Journal of Commcerce. Walker\u2019s office also denies he had anything to do with the report being published.<\/p>\n
The study was part of a series that produced five annual reports from 1997-2001. Those between 1997-99 were published within the usual one- to three-year range, but the 2000 and 2001 studies weren\u2019t published until October 2015. <\/p>\n
The series was born into a tense political situation around the Kenai River\u2019s user groups \u2014 commercial, sport and personal use. Throughout the 1990s, the Board of Fisheries had been slowly changing Kenai River management plans for the growing sport fishing sector, partly in-state and partly tourist driven.<\/p>\n
At the 1996 Board of Fisheries meeting, the board boosted the sockeye salmon share and slackened bag and possession limits for the in-river sport fishery and personal use fishery at the Kenai River\u2019s mouth.<\/p>\n
The department and board said they would rethink liberalizations if there were evidence sportfishing contributed to habitat damage. According to the study\u2019s authors, Mary King and Patricia Hansen, the 1997, 1998 and 1999 studies were less precise than the unpublished 2000 and 2001 studies.<\/p>\n
The cleaner data showed linkages between shore-based angling and riparian habitat degradation. King and Hansen presented the information at the 2002 Board of Fisheries meeting, which Hansen said partially explains the length of the publication delay. Ironically, with the best data having been already presented to the board, publication took a backseat to management.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople felt that that data had been put our there,\u201d Hansen said. \u201cThat\u2019s why it took so much longer. We had been improving our methods all along. Our data was less noisy. It was just better data toward the end.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hansen and other ADFG biologists said the report moved to the bottom of the pile and stayed there. Department staff moved around or retired, so the report didn\u2019t receive continual pressure for publication.<\/p>\n
Knowledge of the report\u2019s delay surfaced at the Board of Fisheries\u2019 2014 Upper Cook Inlet finfish meeting. Lisa Gabriel, administrative assistant for commercial fishing industry group Kenai Peninsula Fishermen\u2019s Association, submitted a statement to the board asking why the board had not completed any further habitat studies.<\/p>\n
Gabriel\u2019s insistence prompted the department to move the report forward for publication.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe did want to get this out of our hair,\u201d said Hansen. \u201cIt shouldn\u2019t have taken that long, it was a bad thing on our part.\u201d<\/p>\n
Forrest Bowers, director of ADFG\u2019s Commercial Fisheries Division, said he\u2019s familiar with the King and Hansen study. Bowers\u2019 feelings on the report\u2019s 14-year publication delay are mixed.<\/p>\n
ADFG often shelves studies; however, he said that betrays an obligation the department has to the public.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we undertake a report or a study, it\u2019s our intention and our obligation to the public to publish it for peers,\u201d Bowers said. \u201cBut sometimes the timelines do get drawn out. I\u2019ve been involved with reports earlier in my career where it took several years to get those reports out for one reason or another.\u201d<\/p>\n
While he recognizes the need for timely publication, he also knows studies can impact policy without being formally published.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust because a report hasn\u2019t been published, doesn\u2019t preclude us from acting on any of the findings,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The department maintains that the 2000 and 2001 studies weren\u2019t published because the concerns were already beginning to be addressed. ADFG biologists said the department regularly considers habitat, and that the delayed reports don\u2019t represent the totality of effort put into protections.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone is aware of habitat issues,\u201d said Hansen, who still works as a statistician for ADFG. \u201cThat\u2019s just something everybody works with in mind. No habitat, no fish.\u201d<\/p>\n
ADFG chief fisheries scientist Jim Hasbrouck said he couldn\u2019t remember specifically which programs the department began as a result of the study. Habitat restoration projects were ongoing at the time and hard to tie to one origin in particular.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know that walkways were in specific response,\u201d said Hasbrouck, referring to structures along riverbanks that were constructed to preserve habitat. \u201cI think some of that was just a recognition that things like bank restoration projects would be good for the environment. There were stream bank closures that were done prior to 2001. I don\u2019t know that there are specifics in Mary\u2019s report, but there is a relationship there. It did provide information to the board.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Robert Begich, ADFG\u2019s Kenai River area sportfishing manager, the department had already begun implementing some of the report\u2019s recommendations by the time it was presented to the Board of Fisheries in 2002.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a whole bunch of studies that aren\u2019t published,\u201d said Begich, \u201cbut the information is still used. Some of the properties the project was working on were closed. River Mile 25 was in the study, it\u2019s a habitat closure now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Begich said other habitat-related studies in the area were similarly used without publication. A study on Slikok Creek riparian habitats in the early 2000s wasn\u2019t published, but ADFG nevertheless installed a recommended culvert in 2006.<\/p>\n
Continual water quality and habitat studies prompted the department to ban two-stroke engines in the Kenai River Special Management Area in 2008 along with assorted horsepower and length restrictions for powerboats.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese reports are all still germane to how the river is managed today,\u201d Begich said.<\/p>\n
Unpublished scientific papers, called \u201cgray literature,\u201d are a divisive issue within the academic community. Without peer review, some question whether the studies meet the strictest scholastic muster. Former ADFG biologist Ken Tarbox said the delayed publication is evidence of ADFG shaving become less transparent.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re missing the purpose of science,\u201d Tarbox said. \u201cScience is supposed to put your information out there reviewed by peer reviewers and other scientists.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even if ADFG uses the information in gray literature, Tarbox said the department does a disservice by ignoring the rest of the scientific community.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are errors of omission,\u201d he said. \u201cYou\u2019re assuming you know everything that needs to be done, which is very arrogant.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2022 DJ Summers can be reached at daniel.summers@alaskajournal.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Use it, then lose it, was the fate of a long-delayed Kenai River habitat study until the Alaska Department of Fish and Game finally published it last fall. A 14-year publication delay on a Kenai River habitat study has made ripples through ADFG and the Cook Inlet fishing sphere, as officials have acknowledged that taking […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-7936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7936"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7936\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7936"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=7936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}