Last month we told you the National Marine Fisheries Service had published regulations for a potential buyback of Southeast Alaska salmon seine permits.
The fishery currently has 379 permits.
Naturally, Deckboss was wondering how many permits we might retire, and at what cost.
Well, here's a reduction plan buyback organizers submitted to NMFS.
They accepted bids on 67 permits, with the bids totaling $13.65 million.
The document lists the owners of the 67 permits, and bid amounts for each.
The idea of the buyback is to trim the number of permits, especially latent permits, to preserve the value of the fishery for those who remain.
With the high price of pink salmon seen the past couple of seasons, active seiners are worried new boats might pile back into the fishery and water down profits.
Thus, they say, the timing for the buyback is ideal.
The expectation is that permit holders soon will vote on whether to shoulder a federal loan to actually carry out the buyback.