On Tuesday, the State Division of Elections certified a ballot measure that would ban commercial setnets in urban areas of Alaska.
The Alaska Fisheries Conservation Alliance stated in a release on Wednesday that the 43,000 signatures the group had collected in support of the initiative had been certified.
Of those signatures, 36,000 were deemed valid, a number well above the 28,545 signatures required by the Division of Elections.
While the initiative aims to outlaw “shore gill nets and set nets in non subsistence areas” in five urban areas of the state, it targets Cook Inlet setnetters and the king salmon they catch.
The original initiative was denied by former Lt. Governor Mead Treadwell in 2014 who said it was seen as allocative.
Lt. Gov Treadwell: “You can say it’s not allocative, because it just simply says what kind of gear you can use, but if it essentially takes the commercial gear off the table, then you’re leaving it for personal use or sport fisheries, which has an allocative effect, so that’s the way we read it.
The alliance and the state continue to argue their sides in court. Legal arguments are set in court for the end of August.
If the initiative clears the courts, it will appear on the 2016 August Primary ballot.