The final program likely would exclude the divisive requirement that deliveries must be made to specific processors, federal officials said.

At its October meeting in Anchorage, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council reviewed a number of alternatives defining a management program for the central gulf to be implemented when the current rockfish pilot program expires.

The fishery essentially involves only Kodiak-area harvesters delivering to processing facilities on Kodiak Island.

The council considered a preliminary analysis of those alternatives and a discussion paper on the issues before revising the options for further analysis.

Options now under consideration include giving harvester shares to processors, which would entice boats to deliver to them, said Julie Bonney, executive director of the Alaska Groundfish Data Bank, and manager of the cooperative fishery.

Other options include an individual fishing-quota style cooperative, in which cooperative members would deliver to the processor of their choice, and cooperatives formed with an initial link to one processor, but the option to change processors later, Bonney said.

The current program, which began in 2007, was to sunset two years after implementation, but is now scheduled to end in 2011.

The program allowed fishermen to form cooperatives, but the fishermen, who received their quota shares based on their individual catch history, were required to partner with their previous processors.

Whatever program comes out of the alternatives now being considered, it will be significantly different than the existing program, said Mark Fina, a spokesperson for the North Pacific Fishery Management Council.

"If the existing options remain on the table, it will lose the requirement of (fishermen) having to join a specific cooperative in association with a specific processor," Fina said.

The whole issue of fishermen being required to deliver to specific processors has become a stormy one because of the privatization of Alaska's crab fisheries, in the midst of a larger battle over privatizing other fisheries, which many consider a public resource.

Associations between fishermen's cooperatives and processors are not defined under the current options on the table, other than to say that the co-ops and the processors agree that they want to do business together.

Under the current program, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council sets annual total allowable catch limits on the pilot program, but those harvests also include Pacific cod and sablefish, both valuable seafoods, plus some other rockfish.

The amount of Pacific cod allocated in the rockfish fishery is based on the historic catches of those species in the rockfish fishery, Fina said.

Prior to the start of the rockfish pilot program, the entire fishery used to be conducted in July, but with allocations in place for the pilot program, the rationalized fishery now runs from May through November.

The total allowable catch for 2009 included 2,300 metric tons of northern rockfish, 3,400 metric tons of pelagic shelf rockfish and 8,250 metric tons of Pacific Ocean perch. Also allowed was a 400 metric ton incidental catch of a mixture of all three of these rockfish species.

Bonney, of the Alaska Groundfish Data Bank, has praised the program for slowing the pace of the fishery, improving the quality of the product, reducing the amount of fish caught incidentally and helping to improve the local economy.

Others, like veteran Kodiak commercial fisherman Shawn Dochtermann, say the program slowed down the fishery, but at the expense of excluding most future participants the chance to fish for 95 percent of the rockfish in the Gulf of Alaska.

Some Kodiak fishermen who have Pacific cod allocations have voiced concern over the amount of Pacific cod taken as secondary catch in the pilot program.

Others, like Stormy Stutes, skipper of a mid-water trawler, are particularly concerned about pilot program regulations that dictate which processor to use when delivering their catch.

"I don't mind the government telling me to deliver in Kodiak, although I deliver statewide with halibut," Stutes said. "I don't like being told I have to deliver them to a specific plant. That's not free enterprise."

The first year the rockfish pilot program went into effect, processors paid 16 cents a pound for Pacific Ocean perch and 15 cents a pound for northern and other rockfish harvested in the fishery, he said.

Prices were similar the second year, but this year, processors paid 7 to 10 cents a pound for the same fish, but the retail price hasn't changed, Stutes said.

"I think they realize they have us where they want us," he said.

All that could change, depending on which options the federal council votes to adopt for the future of the program.

Options under consideration also include one under which the program would expire 10 years after implementation.

Global Seafoods North America LLC is a Washington-based company that operates a small processing facility in Kodiak and receives some of the rockfish harvested in the pilot program. Officials there have asked the federal council to discontinue the rockfish pilot program.

"We consider the rockfish pilot program an ongoing restraint on trade that has protected a few large competitors at the expense of over $2 million in lost contribution to our firm and employees," Oleg Nikitenko, president and owner of the company, said in written testimony to the council. "The rockfish pilot program protects select competitors at the expense of competition itself, excluding Global Seafoods North America from future growth as well as current participation."

He also urged that the program's cooperative system and how it is linked to major processors be reviewed by the Justice Department's antitrust division as a de facto antitrust violation and means of price-fixing.

The federal fisheries council and NOAA fishers are required by law to make available to the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission the information needed to evaluate the antitrust and restraint of trade effects of the rockfish pilot program, he said.

Nikitenko also urged the council to completely halt all agenda action on the rockfish pilot program until it is clear that both the council has the authority and congressional intent allows this or any similar program.

"The plenary powers granted by rationalization schemes primarily to the largest competitors unfairly distributes the opportunities in U.S. fisheries, largely to foreign-owned entities that dominate the Kodiak processing sector," he said.

John Lepore, an attorney with NOAA general counsel's Juneau office, noted that the Secretary of Commerce will eventually review any recommendations made by the council to ensure it is consistent with the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act.

Agendas for the council's upcoming meetings in December in Anchorage, in February in Portland, Ore., and in April in Anchorage, still list the option of action as necessary on the rockfish pilot program.

Margaret Bauman can be reached at margie.bauman.@alaskajournal.com.