The second round of fisheries disaster relief funds totaling around $13 million to assist fishermen affected by the 2012 disaster has been approved.
Julie Speegle with NOAA outlined the distributions for the Cook Inlet.
Speegle: “There’s $1.1 million for Cook Inlet to go towards salmon disaster research, restoration, education, gear replacement or modification, and outreach. And then additionally there will be $700,000 in direct payments to commercial buying stations and salmon buyers in the Cook Inlet area and then $4.5 million in direct payments to the recreational fishing sector in both the Cook Inlet and the Yukon Kuskokwim areas.”
The Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission is in charge of coordinating, planning, and administering the disaster relief funds.
This is the final round of the $75 million in funds allocated by the U.S. Congress for six fisheries nationwide in February of 2014, $20.8 million going to Alaska for the Chinook salmon fishery failure in 2012.
The first round began being distributed in August of 2014 with $4.6 million going to the Cook Inlet Region.
