We have both an obituary and a video reflecting on Sen. Ted Stevens contribution to the U.S. Seafood industry.
SEAFOOD.COM NEWS by John Sackton - Aug 11, 2010 - Many in the seafood industry are in shock today at the news of the death of Alaska's Ted Stevens, the longest serving Republican Senator in history. Stevens was killed in a small plane crash, in which five passengers died and four survived, on their way up the Nushagak to a fishing lodge near Dillingham.Remembering Ted Stevens as the key fisheries architect of the modern era
As we report elsewhere, Stevens was one of the architects of Alaska statehood, and was involved in every aspect of the growth and development of Alaska. But most of the material written today in memory of Ted Stevens only mentions the fishing industry in passing.
Yet his fishing legacy is probably the most lasting contribution he has made to public policy, and as a model for sustainable fishing on a large scale, it is influential around the world.
Stevens himself would be amused to realize that his legacy of sustainable fishing is now widely praised by environmentalists, with whom he often clashed.
Stevens first began serving as a Senator from Alaska in 1968, appointed by then Governor Wally Hickel. When the Magnuson Act, originally known as the Fishery Conservation and Management Act of 1976, established the 200 mile limit and the regional fisheries management councils, Stevens was still a relatively young Senator from Alaska.
But in subsequent years, he made the act his own, and in various revisions it was renamed the Magnuson-Stevens Act.
Stevens rose to become head of the Senate Appropriations Committee, where he had major influence on any legislation impacting Alaska.
In 1992, he was responsible for the creation of the Western Alaska Community Development corporations. This is one of the most successful fisheries allocation programs ever devised.
The CDQ program directed NMFS to assign 10% of the quotas allocated in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands to a group of six corporations, representing native villages from the Aleutians to Bristol Bay to Norton Sound, and including the Islands of St. Paul and St. George. The groups were then to use the money from these fish resources to create jobs, income, and social services.
Collectively, the CDQ groups have done a spectacular job. Parlaying their harvest rights into ownership of fisheries corporations, the CDQ groups now collectively have assets of over $600 million. Meanwhile, the incomes of the populations have improved dramatically, and poverty rates have fallen.
At the same time, the CDQ groups are transforming Alaska's fisheries. Many of them are now owners of parts of the major pollock, cod and crab fleets, and they are the force behind some of the new investments in Bristol Bay, transforming salmon from a canned to a more valuable fillet product.
Stevens loved Alaska and he loved business. As a result, he looked for business oriented solutions to problems. In this case, he strengthened Alaskan ownership, protected remote communities, and did so in a way that strengthened the business environment.
One of the most intractable fisheries issues of the 1990's was the battle in the pollock industry between the offshore catcher processors and the shore based processing plants in Dutch Harbor and Akutan.
As the pollock stock and markets boomed, the offshore sector was gaining an increased market share, and the onshore plants, with huge investments on the ground in Alaska, felt increasingly threatened.
The issue was so heated that a fist fight broke out at one of the North Pacific Council meetings.
Finally, Sen. Stevens stepped in and told the parties they had to work out a joint compromise, and he would get it through Congress. The result was a permanent inshore - offshore allocation, in which the inshore plants gained about 10% more pollock, and the American Fisheries Act, passed into law in 1998.
The American Fisheries Act provided that US citizens had to own at least a 75% share of any vessel participating in US fisheries, bringing an end to the practice whereby American built keels were brought to Norway by foreign owners, rebuilt as catcher processors, and entered the pollock fishery.
But even more importantly, the Act capped the quotas and fishing percentages of the pollock stocks, and allowed the participants to create co-ops whereby they allocated the total catch among themselves, both in the inshore, offshore, and mothership sectors.
The result was ending a race for fish, and spectacularly increasing the value of the pollock fishery, so that it became the backbone of all Alaskan fisheries. Today, the pollock fishery, the largest fishery in the U. S. is globally recognized for an unparalleled record of conservation, effective management, efficiency, and great profitability.
Stevens also shepherded though major amendments to the Magnuson Stevens Act, setting in place American standards for fisheries conservation. These included national standards that required stocks to be managed using the best available science, and supporting long term sustainable yield.
Stevens also steered a great deal of money and effort into fisheries research and science.
Jim Balsiger, head of NMFS Alaska region, wrote:
'This is an especially sad day for the Alaska Region of NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service, where we have worked in cooperation with former Senator Ted Stevens to make Alaska's fisheries among the best managed in the world. '
'Senator Stevens was distinguished as a champion of sustainable ocean policy and influenced nearly every marine environmental and resource management law in the U. S. Senate over the past four decades. Alaska waters were often the test bed of revolutionary new ways of science-based fishery management and resource allocations that promoted safety and incentives for sustainability. '
'Senator Stevens was a tireless advocate for U. S. fisheries and marine science. He was instrumental in promoting the new Alaska Fisheries Science Center in Juneau which replaced the aging Auke Bay Lab. This laboratory honors his legacy with the name, the Ted Stevens Marine Research Institute.'
Stevens also was instrumental in efforts to market Alaska fish. Alaska is one of the most recognized brand names in the world when it comes to fish and seafood. This is in no small part due to the long term efforts of the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, an organization that is supported both by direct industry funds, and state and occasionally federal appropriations.
The marketing done by ASMI helped revitalize the Alaska salmon industry, which was on the ropes in the early 1990's when farmed salmon exploded into the market. Today, Alaska's wild salmon is recognized as a premium, differentiated product, routinely getting higher prices than farmed salmon.
Stevens also fought for equity for Alaskan salmon, making the point that if USDA was going to extend its 'organic' standard to fish, then there had to be a mechanism whereby the USDA would recognize the wild and natural nature of wild salmon, as well as a route whereby farmed salmon could be certified organic. The issue has not been resolved, but this was the kind of fight Ted Stevens loved.
For the seafood industry, Stevens was the person in Washington who got things done, and who prevented diversions in terms of frivolous or burdensome rules. He never allowed Washington to lose sight of the fact that fishing was a vast economic enterprise, vital to the health of Alaska and many other parts of the country.
Stevens finally was a victim of his own long 40 year career and as he put it, his willingness to trust people too much. He was burned by false accusations from Bill Allen, CEO of Alaska contractor Veco corp., which led to a federal prosecution and his loss in the 2008 election. Later, a judge ruled that this prosecution represented the most serious case of prosecutorial misconduct he had seen in 25 years on the bench, and an embarrassed Justice Department declined to pursue the case further. But the damage had been done, and Stevens' Senatorial career was over.
Without Ted, the industry has lost much of its clout in Washington, and even though the Alaska and Washington Senate delegations often take a united stand on fisheries issues, the balance of power has shifted away from the business oriented legislators to more social and environmentally oriented legislators. Without Stevens to watch for ridiculous approaches to fisheries, there is an increased danger that legislation will weaken some of the strongest fisheries management systems in the world.
Ted will be sorely missed, even out of office. His legacy to the seafood industry was a period of phenomenal success and growth for U. S. fisheries, and it is fair to say that without his efforts, the seafood industry in the U. S. would be vastly different, weaker, less conservation minded and less profitable, than it actually is today.
John Sackton, Editor And Publisher
Seafood.com News 1-781-861-1441
Email comments to jsackton@seafood.com
I would like to thank you for the article on Ted Stevens. It was well written and to the point.Ted Stevens did more for the state of Alaska and its resources than any man in the history of this state and it is so sad that his service was tarnished by purely political BS to get him out of the Senate. I would love to see this article re-posted in the bigger newspaper's of this country.
Posted by: Mel Adkins | September 22, 2011 at 12:57 PM