New $330,000 Dock Proposal for 6-8 Boats Smells Fishy; Ugashik Tribal Council Calls It “Economic Development” Part 2: The Project Moves Forward

Aug 29, 2010

About a three-and-a-half years ago, the Ugashik Traditional Village’s Tribal Council applied for permits to build a new dock.  The dock proposed in that permitting process is ambitious and includes converting the back portion of the old cannery building into a processing area at a later date.

The Permitting Process

During the permitting process, I publicly questioned a few things about the proposal which, apparently, upset the drift boat owners who favor the new dock.  Among the issues I questioned were subsistence fishing, the proximity of commercial set net fishing sites to the proposed construction and what the timing of demolition would do to those fishing sites.  My questions drew the ire of not only the president of the Tribal Council but also some of the small drift boat owners, the part-time villagers who are most likely to benefit from the dock.

My husband and I took our questions to our Lake and Peninsula Borough’s planning committee, which had its own concerns.  Before the  planning committee agreed to approve and issue the their permit  they asked that modifications be made to address things like safety, the commercial fishing set net sites located about 1000′ up river from the proposed dock  and a host of other issues before they would agree for the permits to be issued.

The changes were made and the permits were approved by the various borough, state and federal agencies.

Where’s the Funding

At the time I felt filing for the permits was a case of the “putting the cart before the horse” as the Ugashik Traditional Village Tribal Council had not yet received ANY grant monies from any agency towards this project. Getting permits before approval for grant monies is sometimes done to show that the project will not hit any major hang-ups during the permitting phase. Permits can then be extended.

The lack of overall infrastructure in Ugashik, the aging and tiny number of actual, year-round residents  and a lack of fish remaining after the current processor completes seasonal harvesting are all reasons that this line of thinking has never worked in the past in getting grant monies. This did not seem to dawn on any of the council enough to rethink the need for a new dock.

The tribal council appears to suffer from a lack of awareness that all these grant agencies know each other and ‘talk’. Many times my husband and I have been  personally contacted and asked to supply facts about our community that the grant reader felt were left out to help disguise how small a village we really are.

This pricey dock proposal seems especially questionable to me due to an occurrence I witnessed only a few months earlier.  A meeting was held with yet another of many economic development consultants about how the village might move forward with some type of economic development plan.

This latest consultant represented a very respectable company and met with the few local winter residents, as well a few summer residents, trying to glean input on what type of economic development might be feasible, especially as it might be relate to the new proposed dock. Although this meeting lasted more than three hours, I do not recall even a SINGLE concrete idea expressed to support this new dock as proposed.

At one point, my frustration with the group on the lack of solid, well-thought out planning led me to ask: “What if, heaven forbid, the old rotted dock fell into the river tonight.  How would the local fishermen, especially the drift fishermen pushing for this new dock, be hurt?”  The answer……wait for it, I am sure your jaw will drop as mine did…..’We would be inconvenienced’!!!

Might this be a case of these few drift fishermen feeling they are entitled to the new proposed dock,  as much as$330,000, that would never be used by more than maybe a total of 6-8 local residents to load/unload gear, for ONLY about 4-6 weeks each year?

About this time last year the ‘dock project’ stalled, despite efforts by the tribal council to the contrary.  It was also about then that I learned the use of funds available by our CDQ, Bristol Bay Economic Developent, as ‘community block’ grants were being sunk into the project WITHOUT consulting the specific residents these funds are directly meant to assist.

My efforts to get these funding details might well surprise some of you who are new to this type of fight. Other readers will see a pattern many of us fight in Alaska!!!

Coming soon — Questionable use CDQ/BBEDC Funds by Tribal Council

~ Victoria

New $330,000 Dock Proposal for 6-8 Boats Smells Fishy; Ugashik Tribal Council Calls It “Economic Development” Part 1: Overview

Aug 26, 2010

Ugashik is a tiny village in lower Bristol Bay Alaska. Currently there are about 10 full-time residents. The population swells to about 50 people in the summer, all associated with fishing in one form or another. The village has an interesting history. It was one of the largest Native villages on the Alaska Peninsula until it was almost totally wiped out by the flu pandemic of the early 1900′s. It lives on today as a small community of fishermen.

In exploring old land surveys from the village we found that in the late 1800s there were as many as seven fish canning or salting companies here at once.

No large processing company has been in business here since the 1950s, when the Wingard’s Cannery operated here. It was acquired then by Alaska Packers Co. and shut down.

Getting Fish to Market

Since the Ugashik cannery closed decades ago, local fishermen have depended on a tender, a large boat sent the twenty miles up the Ugashik River by a large processing company, to buy our fish and get it to market. Five years ago, the major processing company that bought Ugashik salmon for last few years stopped buying fish in the village.  No other buyer was found who was willing to send a tender up to village to buy fish.

Fishermen can’t sell their fish to just any processor. The processor must agree beforehand to buy fish from the fishermen, and ALL buyers maintain a mysterious ‘A list’ of preferred fishermen. You can be ‘downgraded’ or dropped at any time for any reason. You then have to find someone new to sell fish to, and if they want to freeze you out for any reason, it is a done deal.

You are not allowed to fish if you don’t have a buyer.

That year we people in Ugashik were lucky to be able to skip around to various buyers and get our fish sold over the course of the next few weeks. Fish were in short supply that year, and the quality of fish we were bringing to the processors was very good.

The following year this same processor that had shut our village fishermen out sent a letter to all the fishermen in the Ugashik fishing district telling them they would not be buying their fish the coming year. This was done in January and sent such a shock wave through the villages that we are still trying to recover.

It can take years to secure a good steady market for your fish. This left the fishermen floundering just months before fishing preparations were ready to start.

My husband’s family started a small processing company in the village back in the early 60′s. It mostly processes fish we catch after the large processors leave the area since they are usually only in Bristol Bay for the heaviest 4 weeks of an up to 12 weeks season. If area fishermen were inclined to work longer than the heaviest 4 weeks of the season, the company bought their fish as well.

That focus changed a few years ago when none of the large processors would send a tender up river to buy fish from the villagers. We worked to help bring in a new larger processor into the bay four years ago to buy fish during the heavy part of the season and began gearing up our plant so we could process more fish locally.

The Old Dock

After the cannery closed back in the ’50s, the old buildings and dock were parceled out and are now privately owned, including the ‘old dock’ portion which is owned by Ugashik Traditional Village, our local tribal entity.

This old dock portion has been used by the residents and visitors as a place to assemble, ‘hang’ nets, store boats and load gear on and off drift boats. At one time, when we still had boats delivering freight to the village, it was also used as a place to unload freight.

The old dock’s deteriorating condition the last 5-10 years had made most of this activity impossible or at ‘your own risk’, at best.

The actual dock and outer portion of the building finally collapsed about a year ago when a summer resident led an effort to demolish it. The workers were lucky enough to be ‘at lunch’ when the supports under the building portion splintered and led to the result shown in the photo, below.

Here it is this past winter — after the summer resident-led group tried to do the demo

Another view- they started UNDER the structure supposedly for a demo project.

Somehow the crew was under the assumption that the place to start in the demolition effort was UNDER the building. Excuse me for still being baffled by why they felt they needed to START there.

In April of this year, thank heavens, a professional company that used local people with some engineering experience was able to bring the building down safely.

What is left of the collapsed portion after the contractor/locally led effort that started the demo FROM THE TOP!

The New Dock

During the last 6-7 years the Ugashik Traditional Village Tribal Counsel has been trying to get grants to either refurbish the old one or build a new dock. For a number of years before that there had been efforts to get a small, village-based fish processor started that would be owned by the tribe.

About 7-8 years ago the Tribe hired a consultant who suggested that they needed to concentrate on getting a dock built and then pursue a processing plant and other projects to boost the local economy. At that time there was an effort by the Denali Commission, an Alaska-based federally funded agency, to update docks in Western Alaska. The thinking back then was that getting monies for a dock,  would be easier to obtain than funding for a processing plant. Build a dock, and a processing plant would follow.

The tribal council hired one consultant after another to help the council come up with some type of direction in which to develop more of an economical base than just their riverfront access to Bristol Bay’s salmon returning to their spawning grounds. Eventually, the Tribe hired a contractor/consultant to design a new dock. The drawings were done, and permits filed for. It was proposed that part of the existing building would be demolished, and a new steel and wood structure would be built.

Is This Project Necessary?

Ugashik has only 6-8 local drift boats that use a dock, for loading and unloading gear, and for no longer than 4-6 weeks each summer. The actual concentration of use is probably less than 10-14 days for the entire year.

The tribe is planning on spending $330,000 on this project. Does Ugashik really need a state of the art dock?

Coming soon — The Project Moves Forward

~ Victoria

Obama Reaches Out to American Indian Tribes

Nov 5, 2009

Pres. Obama Reaches Out to American Indian TribesPres. Obama Reaches Out to American Indian Tribes

C-SPAN  OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TODAY (11/5/09)

Pres. Obama delivered the opening remarks at a White House Tribal Nations Conference and participated in a discussion with leaders from the 564 federally recognized tribes. The conference is addressing issues facing American Indian tribes such as economic development, housing and education. This is the first such meeting since 1994. Washington, DC

* * *

This is definitely a huge and wonderful step in the right direction!

Victoria Briggs: On the Verge of Winter

Fall sunset in Ugashik

Oct 25, 2009

While returning home from Dillingham, we flew over the tundra that is starting to show signs of real winter. Lake after pond, after stream after river, after lake after pond, well you get it, mushy tundra swamp. Everything is either a shade of blue/white or brown/tan.

Up to a third of most lakes are now frozen over, mostly the southern end because the winds have been from the north lately. It had been an evening and morning of frozen rain and light snow.

Many would call this area God forsaken, many call it beautiful, and a few of us call it home.

So many thoughts were going through my head, fast, slow, back and forth, from when I first saw this area, to pondering how the future is going to show itself.

I have been reading Erin McKittrick’s book  A Long Trek Home about Alaska and the 4,000 mile trip she and husband Hig took walking, paddling and skiing which brought them through here a little over a  year ago. We had a great visit with this super couple when they stopped for a few days in Ugashik while on their trek.

Erin & Hig leaving Ugashik last fall

Her writings of what all they saw and experienced on their trip up through SE Alaska and then down and out to the start of the Aleutian Islands keep you turning the pages to enjoy more. The beauty, the sad things, the wildlife, the loss of culture, the maintaining of cultures, all something we need to pay attention to more here in Alaska.

Since then I have tapped into Hig’s knowledge of what all is facing us here in Alaska, everything from oil drilling and mining to coal exploration.

How he, as a well trained scientist, sees us learning about and getting involved in those things which will affect everything from our fisheries, jobs, environment, to education for our kids so they can have a future.

http://www.groundtruthtrekking.org/blog/

I found myself wondering how we can use this knowledge to hold those in positions of ‘leadership’ accountable for OUR future. From our state officials but more importantly, in my mind, our local organizations and people?

How we can move past the self–interests, racism, and short sightedness?

Push past the knowledge holders instead of knowledge sharers?

Push past those who would prefer to hold back more than move forward?

How do we push past those who REALLY do NOT care about people and cultures, despite the rhetoric, and move into a future of sustainability and thriving villages?

As we move into this season of not only cold but also of getting together for holidays, village events but also meetings and working on regional issues I will be watching and hoping we can really accomplish something towards helping people learn and be able to comment on those issues dear to them.

This is the time of year when most organizations in Alaska get together to discuss not only what has happened but also what needs to happen, from businesses organizations, fishing regulation agencies to tribal organizations.  Most all meet in the next six month at one time or the other to tackle a range of issues.

How do we work to show a complete picture of what village life is like,  work against those who stack the meetings/testimony (using monies that SHOULD be going to help) with only those who speak to only one side of an issue and move into REAL addressing of issues??

I hope, maybe, after the last 18 months or so and all the ‘outside’ attention we have garnered as a state it will make people realize we ARE on a world wide stage.

That our decisions and the directions we choose will impact many and for years to come.

Watching, and at times participating, has made me all the more determined to help others learn what they need so they too can speak up.

We need the tongues and feet of many to move forward.

Letting someone else always speak for you, even if you do not totally understand, is not acceptable.

To help people realize they have a right to by-laws, to minutes, to resolutions of their village governments, tribal governments and regional organizations.

If you are a member of an organization and you can’t get this information, ask WHY!!  Better yet ask, “WHY THE HELL NOT?”.

The “information holders” have to go!!

We have to move toward the people who are “information sharers” so we can ALL move forward.

~ Victoria