Salmon fishermen closer to federal aid

GRANTS PASS, Ore. – Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez agreed Thursday to take the first steps toward declaring an economic disaster for salmon fishermen in Oregon and California, whose season has been practically shut down this year to protect dwindling returns to the Klamath River.

In a conference call with the governors of California and Oregon, and members of Congress from both states, Gutierrez said he was declaring a fisheries resource disaster, which makes fishermen and associated businesses eligible for Small Business Administration loans, but offers no direct grants.

“We will move quickly to implement both a short- and long-term effort to find ways to help,” Gutierrez said in a statement from Washington, D.C. “Today’s announcement is not the end of the process, but the beginning.”

Gutierrez is sending the head of NOAA Fisheries, William Hogarth, to the West Coast on Monday to start gathering information needed to decide – perhaps before the end of July – whether to issue a higher-level disaster declaration that will make it possible for Congress to appropriate direct grants and other aid, said Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore.

Until now, efforts to secure $85 million in aid have been stymied by the lack of a declaration.

“We don’t really need loans, we need cash grants and assistance,” DeFazio said. “It’s a start. We appreciate that.”

At Gutierrez’s request, the governors of Oregon and California agreed to look at $13 million in federal aid they share in federal salmon restoration funds and direct some of it toward programs in the Klamath Basin, where salmon fishermen would get priority in hiring on projects.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is pushing for $45 million in state aid, called the federal efforts welcome, but long overdue.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said the governors and lawmakers have been working for months to get the support of the Bush administration, and felt they were now taking it seriously.

After being told by NOAA Fisheries that no decision was likely before February, angry members of Congress from California and Oregon had cornered Gutierrez in the halls of Congress last week, where he agreed to this meeting on the salmon disaster declaration.

Federal fisheries managers last spring drastically curtailed commercial salmon fishing on 700 miles of the California and Oregon coast to protect dwindling returns of wild chinook salmon to the Klamath River in Northern California.