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Magnuson Act plays a very important role in our lives. I myself 

 consider it probably the most important piece of legislation that we 

 fishermen are affected by, and we have derived some real positive 

 benefits from the act. 



With the passage of the act in 1976, we have seen our Bristol 

 Bay sockeye salmon returns rebound from the disaster years of the 

 early 1970's. We have seen the interception of our salmon stocks 

 by the foreign fleets in the eastern Bering Sea come to an end and 

 thereafter our salmon returns improve. We are very thankful for 

 that. 



Another benefit we have seen from the act is the emergence of 

 the community development quota program. The CDQ program is 

 an excellent concept which allows western Alaska communities to 

 directly benefit for the first time from the multimillion dollar 

 bottomfishing taking place in the Bering Sea. The CDQ program 

 has provided employment opportunities for our area residents. We 

 have a growing number of residents being hired and working on 

 factory trawlers on the Bering Sea. 



Once the local CDQ organization, the Bristol Bay Economic De- 

 velopment Corp., is off and running and continues to grow, we be- 

 lieve the CDQ program will open up additional economic opportuni- 

 ties in our area and will also provide educational opportunities for 

 our young people. And that is the way it should be. We live next 

 door to the great Bering Sea and we should benefit from it. 



As they say, the concern we have about the Bering Sea 

 bottomfisheries are the bycatch levels occurring on nontargeted 

 fish. We cannot afford to have high numbers of our herring and 

 salmon stocks caught incidentally in the Bering Sea. Both the her- 

 ring and salmon fisheries is all we have got. If any substantial 

 damage is done to these stocks, then we as fishermen will be im- 

 pacted. 



For the past several years, between 30,000 to 40,000 chinook 

 salmon have been caught and wasted by trawl boats fishing the 

 Bering Sea. While we have seen the growth of domestic factory 

 trawlers, we have also seen the decline of our chinook salmon fish- 

 eries here on the Nushagak River. We feel the chinook salmon fish- 

 ery is being taken away from us. In fact, some of us fishermen feel 

 that we have already lost it. 



Another concern we have about the Bering Sea bottomfisheries 

 is the dumpage and wastage of the fish resources. We do not think 

 that fish should be wasted for any reason at all, and we feel that 

 wastage in the Bering Sea should come to an end. 



I believe the most important concern we have about the Bering 

 Sea is the potential overfishing of the Bering Sea pollock stocks. If 

 the stocks are overfished, we feel that this would disrupt the whole 

 Bering Sea ecosystem. The pollock resource plays a critical role in 

 the ecosystem, and we are afraid a depletion of the pollock resource 

 will impact on near shore herring and salmon fisheries. 



Conservation and sustained yield are the primary goals of the 

 Magnuson Act, and reauthorization of the act must reaffirm these 

 two goals. We would like to see the North Pacific Fishery Manage- 

 ment Council's voting member's makeup consist of majority Alas- 

 kans. We feel that if that happened, then our concerns will be 



