Oregon Public Broadcasting

Relief for hard-hit fishing communities in the Northwest is finally on the way.

$100 million is immediately available for people from Washington to California who lost money when the coastal salmon fishery closed this past year.

Another $70 million is also in the pipeline. But as Rob Manning reports, it's unclear whether all the money will actually make it to fishermen.

Last spring, West Coast governors predicted  up to $290 million in economic damage. That's  when virtually the entire coastal salmon fishery closed.

Congress later approved $170 million in relief for affected families and businesses. But the funding picture has since changed.

Bob Lohn is a regional director with the  National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s fisheries’ service.

Bob Lohn: “NOAA Fisheries service is today making available $100 million of disaster relief aid for West Coast salmon fishermen. This $100 million is immediately available. On October 1st, of this year, the additional 70 million will be available, if needed.”

Susan Jane Brown: “Why aren’t you cutting loose the full $170 million which is what Congress appropriated?”

That’s Susan Jane Brown. She’s a staffer with Oregon Congressman Peter DeFazio. She joined the conference call with reporters.

Susan Jane Brown:  “And who will decide whether there’s future need, at some point in the future, to release the remaining $70 million?”

Bob Lohn with NOAA was asked those questions several different ways by Brown, and reporters. That’s because the Bush Administration has advocated moving $70 million from salmon relief to other budget priorities.

Lohn says the money is for fishing communities, unless Congress changes direction.

Bob Lohn: “If, on October 1st, there is more than $100 million worth of requests, that money beyond the $100 million, will begin to flow.”

Members of Congress from all three states have expressed support for maintaining disaster relief.

A drop from $170 million to $100 million would be bad news for California and Washington. Those states would see allocations cut roughly in half.

Oregon’s would remain at the state’s low-estimate of about $25 million.

Randy Fisher is with the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission - the organization distributing the money. He says Oregon and California learned to work together, after going separate ways two years ago, when the Klamath fishery collapsed.

Randy Fisher: “What we were trying to do when we worked a lot of this out, was be as fair as we could between the states, so we’d have consistency, and wouldn’t have finger-pointing among the fishermen in each of the states. When we did the Klamath, the state of California and state of Oregon had different criteria.”

Over 4000 fishing families and businesses from Oregon, Washington and  California should get applications for relief funds in the next week or so.

They’ll get reimbursed largely based on how many fish they weren’t able to catch. There are countless other small businesses with ties to fishing that can also apply.

Oregonians are eligible for up to $75,000 to make up for the disastrous salmon season of 2008. Federal officials expect a better year in 2009, but say it’s too early to tell if it’ll be much better.