William Tweit, Interim Chair
David Witherell, Executive Director
SUBJECT: title
BSAI halibut abundance-based management PSC limits - Preliminary review
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STAFF CONTACT: Diana Stram and Sam Cunningham (NPFMC)
ACTION REQUIRED: recommended action
* Review Preliminary analysis
* Refine alternatives for Draft EIS/RIR
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BACKGROUND:
The Council is in the process of revising alternatives for a draft EIS/RIR of alternatives for abundance-based management (ABM) of BSAI halibut prohibited species catch (PSC) limits. This preliminary analysis provides information on the draft suite of alternatives in order for the Council to refine them for a comprehensive impact analysis in the EIS/RIR.
The Council adopted five alternatives in April 2018, which were developed through iterative discussion papers since 2016. The staff interagency Workgroup for this project added one additional alternative (Alternative 6) for Council consideration in this preliminary analytical document. These six alternatives range from status quo, with fixed halibut PSC limits by sector, to a range of gear-specific PSC limits indexed to BSAI halibut abundance. Once calculated by gear, PSC limits are then allocated to sectors within each gear type.
One objective of Council review at this meeting is to revise the alternatives for the Draft EIS/RIR analysis. As such, some preliminary analysis of alternatives has been done to compare the alternatives across a subset of Elements and Options. This has been done to demonstrate the behavior of certain elements and options and to indicate where clarification from the Council is needed. For example, based on the preliminary analysis, the Workgroup recommends that Alternative 3 be eliminated from the suite of alternatives as it is redundant with, and its intent already covered by, Alternative 4. The Workgroup also recommends moving Element 1 under each alternative, which is intended to dampen interannual variability in PSC limits, to a standalone option...
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