CDCF SS 120110 Part Arev

SUPPORTING STATEMENT
COMPREHENSIVE SOCIOECONOMIC DATA COLLECTION FROM
ALASKAN COMMUNITIES
OMB CONTROL NO. 0648-XXXX

A.

JUSTIFICATION

1. Explain the circumstances that make the collection of information necessary.
This is a request for a new information collection.
Various federal statutes, including the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and
Management Act (MSA) and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), among others,
require agencies to examine the social and economic impacts of policies and regulations.
National Standard 8 of the MSA specifically states that communities need to be considered when
changes in fishing regulations are made, requiring that we “take into account the importance of
fishery resources to communities” in order to provide for communities’ sustained participation in
fisheries and to minimize adverse economic impacts on fishing communities. Thus, the study of
the ‘human dimensions’ of marine ecosystems and fisheries has been implemented over the last
several years with the addition of social science staff within National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA) National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). This addition has proven
NMFS’s commitment to understanding how people fit into marine resource management systems
and has been followed by an increased effort to systematically collect data related to the human
dimensions of marine resource use.
As part of this commitment and legal mandate, in 2005, the Economic and Social Science
Research Program (ESSRP) of the Alaska Fisheries Science Center (AFSC) published
Community Profiles for North Pacific Fisheries – Alaska (Sepez et al 2005). This document
profiles 136 fishing communities in Alaska, providing basic information from the year 2000 on
social and economic characteristics for each community. Given the wide range of users that rely
on the profiles to make decisions about fisheries management in Alaska and that the information
presented in the profiles is now over 10 years old, it is imperative that the information be updated
and improved to reflect the current links between communities and fisheries, to best support the
decision making process.
To begin the profile update process, ESSRP social scientists held community meetings in August
and September 2010 in six regional hub communities (Anchorage, Unalaska/Dutch Harbor,
Bethel, Nome, Petersburg, and Kodiak) to solicit community member input on how the
community profiles can be better representative of the communities and their ties to Alaskan
fisheries. In the process of holding the community meetings, a variety of relationships were
forged between ESSRP team members and community representatives, who expressed a desire
to be more intimately involved in the process of providing feedback on the profiles 1. Much of
the input received at the community meetings consisted of suggestions for new types of data that
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As a result of this request, ESSRP plans to send each community a copy of their revised profile in the event they
would like to comment on the information included or add additional information about their community
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should be included in the revised community profiles, to better represent the interests of
communities in the fisheries management process. However, a large amount of the data
requested by communities for inclusion is not obtainable from other sources other than directly
from the communities themselves.
Furthermore, much of the existing economic data about Alaskan fisheries is collected and
organized around different units of analysis, such as counties (boroughs), fishing firms, vessels,
sectors, and gear groups. It is often difficult to aggregate or disaggregate these data for analysis
at the individual community or regional level. In addition, at present, some relevant community
level economic data are simply not collected at all. The NPFMC, the AFSC, and community
stakeholder organizations have identified ongoing collection of community level economic and
socio-economic information, specifically related to commercial fisheries, as a priority.
As a result of this information and the requests at the 2010 community meetings, the proposed
data collection will provide systematic annual data over the next 10 years for the socio-economic
impact assessment of communities involved in North Pacific fisheries and will ensure that both
commercial fisheries data and community level socio-economic and demographic data are
collected at comparable levels over space and time. Such data will facilitate analysis of
regulatory impacts on communities and commercial, recreational, and subsistence fisheries, and
proposed changes in fisheries management, both within and across North Pacific communities
involved and engaged in fishing activities.
The types of data that will be collected from communities include those based on
recommendations from community representatives that participated in our community meetings
and a subset of those which have been identified by the Comprehensive Socioeconomic Data
Collection Committee of the NPFMC in the document titled Comprehensive Socioeconomic
Data Collection for Alaskan Fisheries: Discussion and Suggestions, and represent the most
important data to obtain from communities. This includes information on community revenues
based in the fisheries economy, population fluctuations, fisheries infrastructure available in the
community, support sector business operations in the community, community participation in
fisheries management, and effects of fisheries management decisions on the community. This
data collection will capture the most relevant and pressing types of data needed for socioeconomic analyses of Alaskan communities. Given that the collection of most of the data in this
survey was directly requested by fishing communities for inclusion, the project has a high level
of support from the pool of potential respondents and is expected to result in a higher than
average response rate.
In the MSA, Sections 301 and 303, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and
Executive Order 12898, NMFS is required to provide social, cultural, and economic analyses of
Federal management actions and policies to improve the Nation’s fisheries. This data collection
effort will meet these statutory and administrative requirements by providing resource managers
with the information necessary to understand how new fisheries regulations could impact
Alaskan fishing communities.

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MSA
The following sections of the MSA pertain specifically to the requirements needing social and
cultural data. Data collected in this effort will support current and future requirements.

1) National Standard 8 Sec 301 (a)(8) states:
Conservation and management measures shall, consistent with the conservation
requirements of this Act (including the prevention of overfishing and rebuilding of
overfished stocks), take into account the importance of fishery resources to fishing
communities by utilizing economic and social data that meet the requirements of
paragraph (2), in order to (A) provide for the sustained participation of such
communities, and (B) to the extent practicable, minimize adverse economic impacts
on such communities.
2) Requirements for Limited Access Privileges Sec.303A. (c) (1) (C) states:
… any limited access privilege program (LAPP) to harvest fish submitted by a
Council or approved by the Secretary under this section shall promote:
… (iii) social and economic benefits.
3) Sec. 303A (B) PARTICIPATION CRITERIA – In developing participation criteria
for eligible communities under this paragraph, a Council shall consider (i) traditional fishing or processing practices in, and dependence on, the fishery;
(ii) the cultural and social framework relevant to the fishery;
…(iv) the existence and severity of projected economic and social impacts
associated with implementation of limited access privilege programs on harvesters,
captains, crew, processors, and other businesses substantially dependent upon the
fishery in the region or subregion;
4) Sec. 404(a) refers to:
…..acquire knowledge and information including statistics, on fishery conservation
and management and on the economic and social characteristics of the fishery.
The act clarifies this in Sec 404(c) (3) indicating
Research on fisheries, including the social, cultural, and economic relationships
among fishing vessel owners, crew, United States fish processors, associated
shoreside labor, seafood markets and fishing communities.
To achieve the goals, NMFS and the councils that ultimately manage commercially utilized
marine resources require a clear understanding of the stakeholders involved in this process. In
order for social science to best inform policy and meet the legal requirements of MSA, scientists

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working for NMFS must be able to carry out research like that proposed for this project in a
timely fashion so that it can be utilized to inform management decisions.
NEPA
NEPA requires Federal agencies to consider the interactions of natural and human environments,
and the impacts on both systems of any changes due to governmental activities or policies. This
consideration is to be done through the use of ‘a systematic, interdisciplinary approach that will
ensure the integrated use of the natural and social sciences . . . in planning and in decisionmaking. . .’ (NEPA Section 102(2)(A)). Under NEPA, an Environmental Impact Statement
(EIS) or Environmental Assessment (EA) is required to assess the impacts on the human
environment of any federal activity. NEPA specifies that the term ‘human environment shall be
interpreted comprehensively to include the natural and physical environment and the relationship
of people with that environment’ [NEPA Section 102 (C)].
Under this Federal mandate, NMFS must address the effects on the human environment of any
action, including the approval of fishery management plans. It must also evaluate a series of
alternatives in terms of the potential social impacts of such actions. The cumulative impacts of
Federal actions must also be taken into account. In order to improve the current level of
information used by the councils to produce these assessments, NOAA social scientists need to
collect qualitative and quantitative data, such as that proposed in this data collection, which will
allow us to evaluate impacts of approved fisheries management programs over time.
Executive Order 12898
The Executive Order 12898 of February 11, 1994 on Environmental Justice requires Federal
agencies to consider the impacts of any action on disadvantaged, at risk and minority
populations. To evaluate these impacts, information about the vulnerability of certain
stakeholders must be better understood. Indicators of vulnerability can include, but are not
limited to income, race/ethnicity, household structure, education levels and age. Although some
general information related to this issue is available through census and other quantitative data,
these sources do not disaggregate those individuals or groups that are affected by changes in
marine resource management or the quality of the resource itself. Therefore, other types of data
collection tools must be utilized to gather information related to this executive order.
2. Explain how, by whom, how frequently, and for what purpose the information will be
used. If the information collected will be disseminated to the public or used to support
information that will be disseminated to the public, then explain how the collection
complies with all applicable Information Quality Guidelines.
Information from this collection will be used by NOAA social scientists at the AFSC and Alaska
Regional Office, and by staff at the NPFMC, to meet the requirements of the regulations
discussed in Part A, Question 1 above. The information sought will be of practical use, as
NOAA social scientists will utilize the information for descriptive and analytical purposes. The
results of the research will also be available for use by the NPFMC, in their role in fisheries
management. In addition to direct fisheries management utility, this research and the resultant
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data may be utilized in increased and future ecosystem management efforts. These efforts
include the development of various ecosystem models which incorporate various socio-economic
indicators and other social information. The results of this research will increase the availability
of social data to the extent that it may significantly benefit new research efforts in ecosystem
modeling. The principle form of the results of this collection will be an update to the Community
Profiles for North Pacific Fisheries – Alaska document (Sepez et al 2005) and will be
supplemented by data from existing sources (e.g., 2010 U.S. Census, Alaska Commercial
Fisheries Entry Commission, Alaska Department of Fish and Game, National Marine Fisheries
Service Restricted Access Management Division, and Alaska Division of Community and
Regional Affairs). The updated profiles and the results of this data collection will also be
available for public use to support community development, other research concepts and future
research design.
The data will be collected on an annual basis in order to show any changes in the data over time.
The frequency of the use of the data is unknown at this time and is dependent on the regulatory
actions required in the future as well as public use. With that said, as this type of data has been
historically unavailable, it is expected that the availability of this type of information will have
high utility both for fisheries managers that are mandated to undertake socio-economic impact
analyses of potential regulations, and by Alaskan fishing communities themselves in
understanding their own dependence on fishing and socio-economic structure.
The primary data collection tool is a survey instrument. The survey instrument will collect social
and economic information at the community level, which are currently unavailable. This
information will be collected from the city and tribal government offices of each community.
The goal of the survey instrument is to provide information on the importance of fishing to
communities in Alaska to be included in the updated community profiles. Aggregate data from
the survey instrument can be used to describe demographics of Alaskan fishing dependent
communities, fishing related businesses, and the importance of fishing to various regions of
Alaska. The information may be used to give communities a voice in the decision making
process. The survey instrument was designed after conducting secondary research to determine
what needed data are not already available, consulting with experts in survey research design,
and conducting in-depth cognitive interviews with interested community members to test the
survey instrument and to ensure that all of the questions are clear and can be answered easily by
the respondents. The survey instrument is designed to provide community-specific information
by inserting the community name into the questions to make it clear to the respondent which
community they are being asked about. The following is a discussion of how individual
questions in the survey instrument will be used.
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Q1 collects information about how many people live the community as year round residents,
as seasonal workers or transients, and as year round residents that work in a shore-side
processing plant. The U.S. Census does not differentiate between residents that live in a
place year round or that are seasonal residents. The data collected in this question will
facilitate an understanding of the difference between the types of residents in terms of
reliance on social services and participation in civic activities.

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•

Q2 provides information on which months per year seasonal workers live in the community.
The ebb and flow of seasonal worker residents can have a strong impact on the population of
a given community. The information collected from this question will assist in
understanding the link between the peaks and troughs in fisheries participation and temporal
impacts of fisheries management decisions on the social structure of a given community.

•

Q3 requests information on the length of the fishing season(s) that residents of the
community participate in. The information gathered from this question will be used to
facilitate an understanding the temporal effect fishing has on a given community,
economically, culturally and socially.

•

Q4 asks for the month(s) that the community’s population reaches its annual peak.
Responses to this question will be used to map out the population over time and determine
what months of the year will have the largest burden on civil services.

•

Q5 is used to determine the degree the community’s annual peak in population is driven by
employment in the fishing sector. Responses to this question will be used to map out the
population over time and determine what months of the year will have the largest burden on
the fishing-related infrastructure and support services.

•

Q6 collects information about the infrastructure available in the community and whether it
was completed in the last 10 years, is currently being constructed, is planned for completion
in the next 10 years, and the year of completion. Representatives from Alaskan fishing
communities have indicated that the availability of local infrastructure is imperative for the
sustained existence of a given community. The information collected in this question will be
used to respond to this request and as an indicator of vibrancy and resiliency of a given
community and the quality of economic performance of a local fishery.

•

Q7 and Q8 provide information on the availability of public dock space for moorage of
permanent and transient vessels (Q7) and the maximum length of vessels that can moor in the
community (Q8). Responses will be used to assess the capacity of each community to host
fishing vessels and generate revenue from public moorage facilities. If the availability of
moorage space changes over time, this could be an indicator that something is happening to
local participation in fisheries.

•

Q9 requests information about the annual revenue that public moorage facilities earned in the
previous calendar year. Responses will be used as a quantitative indicator of vessel transit
activity and revenue generation from public moorage facilities for each community. This
source of public revenue can directly feed into the community’s municipal finances and be
earmarked as a direct benefit of fishing to the community. As a result, changes in fisheries
management could have an effect on municipal finances if moorage revenue goes down from
fewer or smaller vessels utilizing public moorage facilities. This type of information will be
used to assist in the analysis of impacts of proposed fishing regulations or allocations that are
based on vessel size.

•

Q10 is used to determine the types of regulated vessels that the community’s port is capable
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of handling. Responses will be used to describe the non-fisheries fleet activity in a
community. This type of information will be used to measure the resiliency of communities
in the face of changes in fisheries management and with regards to the diversity of the
economic base that supports the port services. This is important in looking at the amount of
moorage space available as regulated vessels could account for a high level of dock space
available when fishing is not heavily present in a community.
•

Q11 collects information on the types of commercial fishing boats that use the community’s
port during the fishing season as their base of operations. Responses to this question will be
used to assist in describing the local fishing fleet’s contribution to the local economy. The
home port listed on the vessel registration most often does not reflect where the vessel is
based during the fishing season, and thus to which local economy the vessel is contributing to
during the fishing season. Since there are no known records of which fishing vessels use
which communities as their base of operations and since it would be too onerous to ask
harbormasters or community officials to list out which vessels use their community in a
given year, the data from the questions in this survey with regards to a community’s capacity
to host commercial fishing vessels will be used to form assumptions about the effect
commercial fishing has on a community’s economy. In addition, the capacity of a
community to host certain sizes of vessels will be used as an indirect multiplier of what
effects fisheries management actions based on size class might have.

•

Q12 and Q12a provide information about the trends in the number of different types of
vessels that are based in the community compared to five years ago. The responses to this
question will be used as one method of tracking the trends of the local vessel types over time.

•

Q13 and Q14 ask for the type of recreational or sport fishing that occurs in the community
(Q13) and the saltwater species that are targeted (Q14). The information collected from this
question will be used to describe the presence of recreational fishing in each community so
that a community’s dependence on recreational fishing can be determined.

•

Q15 is used to determine the types of fishing gear used by commercial fishing vessels based
out of the community. This question will aid in describing the effects of fishing regulations
that are based on fishing gear type per community and describing the commercial fishing
fleet that uses each community during the fishing season.

•

Q16 collects information about the types of fishing support businesses located in the
community. The information collected from this question will be used to provide insight into
how each community contributes to fishing both locally and regionally. The hypothesis is
that changes to services in a regionally important community hub will have a multiplier
effect in that they will affect not only their own community but also all of the satellite
communities that rely on the services in the hub to keep fishing operations active. This
question will also aid in determining the social organization of remote communities in
Alaska by identifying which communities serve as service hubs for fishing.

•

Q17 provides the location(s) of the communities that local residents go to for fishing support
businesses that are not located in the community. The communities provided as answers to
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this question will be used to provide insight into which communities are considered hubs for
fishing related services in a given region.
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Q18 asks for information about the public social services that are available in the community.
This question will be used to discern which public social services exist are available both to
residents and individuals that might be stranded in the community.

•

Q19 requests information about the natural resource-based industries that the community’s
economy relies on. The results of this question will aid in understanding the diversity of
each community’s economy and natural resources that a given community might have to
support itself in the event that fishing does not bring in adequate money or food. In addition,
this data will be used to evaluate the resiliency of a community’s economy and alternate
sources of jobs.

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Q20 is used to determine the three most important subsistence marine or aquatic resources
the residents of the community rely on. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game
(ADF&G) does not undertake subsistence harvest surveys on an annual basis. The results of
this question will be used to gain an understanding of what aquatic resources a community
might rely on for subsistence purposes. In general, communities have expressed concern that
not enough data is collected on the subsistence activities of Alaskan communities. The
purpose of this question is to document that subsistence harvesting is important to
communities and will be used to show differences between the subsistence resources that
communities rely on in different regions of the state.

•

Q21 and Q22 collect information about funding or grants that the community received from
Community Development Quota entities and from fisheries-related taxes or fee programs in
the previous calendar year. The results from this question will be added to all other known
community revenue streams to determine the total amount of revenue that a community
receives related to fishing related activity. This data will be used to understand the total
benefit that a community receives from fishing and assist in understanding how positive or
negative changes to this revenue stream from fisheries management decisions might affect a
community’s ability to provide community services. In addition, each revenue stream type
will be converted to a percentage of the total municipal budget in order to determine its
strength as an indicator of a community’s dependence on fishing.

•

Q23 asks for information about the community’s public services that are at least partially
funded by a local raw fish tax, the state Shared Fisheries Business Tax, the state Fisheries
Resource Landing Tax, or marine fuel sales tax. The responses will be used to understand
which community services are dependent on fisheries-related revenue, and thus which
community services might be affected by changes in revenue caused by fisheries
management decisions.

•

Q24 and Q24a request information about additional local fishing-related fee programs
charged to the fishing industry that specifically support public services and infrastructure.
The responses will be used to determine local fishing related revenue streams that might be
affected by fisheries management decisions. Community representatives have been
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requesting for years that fisheries managers take into account such municipal fee programs
that are susceptible to changes in fishing activities and incorporate potential impacts to those
revenue streams into socio-economic impact analyses for potential fisheries management
changes. The results of this question will be used to direct analyses of this type of impact.
•

Q25 and Q25a are used to determine how the community participates in the fisheries
management process in Alaska. Since this data collection will happen on an annual basis, the
results will be used to understand the level of participation that a community has in fisheries
management as data from each year is collected. It is hypothesized that the more ways and
professionalized a community’s participation is in these processes; the more likely their local
concerns are to be considered in the fisheries management process. An individual
conducting a socio-economic impact analysis needs to understand which communities do not
participate as much so that their impact analysis can pay particular attention to those
communities that might be least able to represent themselves. The importance of community
participation in fisheries management was brought up as a significant concern at the
community profile update community meetings as something that communities want
fisheries managers to understand about them.

•

Q26-29 collect information about the current challenges for the portion of the local economy
that is based on fishing (Q26), the effects of fisheries policies or management actions on the
community (Q27), the past or current fisheries policy or management action that has affected
the community the most (Q28), and the potential future fisheries policy or management
action that concerns the community the most. The responses will be used to understand what
fisheries management issues are most important to and are affecting each community from
their perspective and to qualify the cumulative effects of fisheries management actions in
compliance with NEPA.

•

Q30 provides information on the individuals in the community that contributed to filling out
the survey. The responses to this question will be used to analyze the likely
representativeness of the subjective questions included in the survey.

•

Q31 asks for any additional information that the respondent would like to provide NOAA
and the AFSC about how the community is engaged in or affected by fisheries. The
responses to this question will be used to identify any additional issues that communities
have with regards to their involvement in fishing that were not addressed in the survey but
that they would like AFSC to understand and know about.

An advance letter will be sent out explaining the data collection to potential respondents. In
addition, telephone contact will be made with each potential respondent to recruit participation
and provide further information about the importance of their response. Following an initial
mailing of the survey and postcard follow-up, we will contact non-respondents by telephone o
encourage them to complete the mail survey2 and to collect limited information from those who
decide not to participate in the mail survey at all 3. The information provided by these non2

Those needing a replacement survey will be mailed one following the telephone interview.
In the telephone follow-up, a limited amount of information may also be collected from those agreeing to return
the mail survey.
3

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respondents can be compared with that from respondents to address issues concerning nonresponse bias. Publically available information about each community will be used to
statistically test whether non-respondent communities differ from respondent communities with
respect to socio-economic demographics. This information can be used to evaluate and adjust the
results for potential non-response bias among sample members.
It is anticipated that the information collected will be used by the NPFMC to inform decision
making, disseminated to the public or used to support publicly disseminated information. As
explained in the preceding paragraphs, the information gathered has utility. NMFS will retain
control over the information and safeguard it from improper access, modification, and
destruction, consistent with NOAA standards for confidentiality, privacy, and electronic
information. See response to Question 10 of this Supporting Statement for more information on
anonymity, confidentiality and privacy. The information collection is designed to yield data that
meet all applicable information quality guidelines. Prior to dissemination, the information will
be subjected to quality control measures and pre-dissemination review pursuant to Section 515 of
Public Law 106-554.
3. Describe whether, and to what extent, the collection of information involves the use of
automated, electronic, mechanical, or other technological techniques or other forms of
information technology.
The survey data collection does not utilize any specialized information technology.
4. Describe efforts to identify duplication.
NMFS social scientists and contractors work closely with regional academics, community based
organizations, industry groups, and other parties interested in this type of information. Reviews
of existing information are common practice when initiating social science studies. A thorough
literature review has identified where similar studies have been initiated and will ensure that
efforts are not duplicated. The information collected in this survey is not collected by other
Federal, state, or local agencies. We have informed the NPFMC, the NMFS Alaska Regional
Office, and the Alaska Division of Community and Regional Affairs about this project. None of
these entities have conducted or are conducting similar economic data collections
An overall strategic research plan will also guide this process and ensure that all data collected is
relevant, new, and essential for achieving NMFS social science goals. Research conducted in the
Alaska community profiling project (Sepez et al 2005) will be utilized as a source and guide for
information to support this effort. As stated previously, these profiles will be updated with 2010
information once the U.S. Census data is released for 2010. Although the data currently included
in the original profiles provides a very important baseline for Alaskan fishing communities, it is
missing key socio-economic indicators specific to the fishing dependence of the communities
profiled. The proposed data collection is necessary to fill this void in the 2010 revised profiles,
and to address communities’ preferences for improving the community profiles and having their
voices heard by the NPFMC, NMFS, and AFSC.

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5. If the collection of information involves small businesses or other small entities, describe
the methods used to minimize burden.
The collection does not involve small businesses or other small entities.
6. Describe the consequences to the Federal program or policy activities if the collection is
not conducted or is conducted less frequently.
Without current information on the involvement in fishing and importance of it to Alaskan
communities, NMFS and the NPFMC will be unable to adequately understand impacts of
fisheries policy and management decisions on Alaskan communities, particularly those who do
not regularly attend public meetings, but are nonetheless affected by the decisions.
The federal mandates and executive orders described in Part A, Question 1 above require the
analysis of the impacts that government actions have on the individuals and communities
involved in fishing and marine resource related activities. Socio-economic impact assessments,
analysis of the affected human environment, cumulative impacts, as well as the distribution of
impacts with a special emphasis on vulnerable or at risk communities, are all examples of these
requirements. The ability of NOAA Social Scientists to adequately respond to this charge rests
on access to timely and relevant information about the stakeholders involved.
A significant concern related to the quality of these analyses is the risk of being vulnerable to
litigation for not fulfilling these mandates and executive orders. Therefore, not collecting this
information may lead to incomplete representation of the communities affected by fisheries
policies and management decisions in Alaska. This could impact the decision making process
and negatively impact the communities subject to the decisions.
7. Explain any special circumstances that require the collection to be conducted in a
manner inconsistent with OMB guidelines.
The data collection will be consistent with OMB guidelines.
8. Provide information on the PRA Federal Register Notice that solicited public comments
on the information collection prior to this submission. Summarize the public comments
received in response to that notice and describe the actions taken by the agency in response
to those comments. Describe the efforts to consult with persons outside the agency to
obtain their views on the availability of data, frequency of collection, the clarity of
instructions and recordkeeping, disclosure, or reporting format (if any), and on the data
elements to be recorded, disclosed, or reported.
A Federal Register Notice published on September 28, 2010 (75 FR 59687) solicited public
comment on this proposed information collection.
One comment was received that expressed concern that the proposed data collection was only
aimed at fishing communities in Alaska and did not include fishing communities in Washington
and Oregon that are responsible for the majority of fishing in Alaska and did not account for the
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benefits that Alaskan communities receive from the Western Alaska Community Development
Quota (CDQ) Program. An email response explained that NMFS' Northwest Fisheries Science
Center published profiles for communities in Washington and Oregon with the information
requested and that data regarding the CDQ Program already exists and does not need to be
collected again by this proposed data collection.
Several individuals outside AFSC were consulted about elements of the survey, availability of
existing data, data to collect, and other aspects of the project. These included staff at the
NPFMC, NMFS Alaska Regional Office, and the Alaska Division of Community and Regional
Affairs who have experience collecting data about Alaskan fisheries and working with fishing
communities in Alaska.
9. Explain any decisions to provide payments or gifts to respondents, other than
remuneration of contractors or grantees.
There are no plans to provide any payment or gift to respondents.
10. Describe any assurance of confidentiality provided to respondents and the basis for
assurance in statute, regulation, or agency policy.
The questionnaire has been designed in a manner to keep the information provided anonymous
and asks respondents about a specific community or tribe rather than about themselves. No
personally identifiable information is included on the questionnaire. The questionnaire will
contain code numbers that will be associated with the community or tribe being asked about
rather than the respondent. Respondent names will be kept in a separate document, not linked to
the survey proper. Respondent names are being kept for the purpose of avoiding duplication of
survey respondents. In the cover letter accompanying each mailing, respondents will be told that
their responses are voluntary and will be kept anonymous. The cover page of the survey will also
include the following statement:
Your participation in this survey is voluntary. All responses are anonymous.
11. Provide additional justification for any questions of a sensitive nature, such as sexual
behavior and attitudes, religious beliefs, and other matters that are commonly considered
private.
Only one area of the survey contains issues of a potentially sensitive nature that will be explored.
This is listed and discussed below.
1. Business Information: Survey questions inquire about business characteristics of the
communities being surveyed. These questions are necessary to understanding each
community’s involvement in fishing. None of the business information requested in the
questionnaire can be linked back to the financial characteristics of individual businesses.

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12. Provide an estimate in hours of the burden of the collection of information.
A total of approximately 521 burden hours will be accumulated from the full survey
implementation. The survey will be sent to representatives of 250 Alaskan fishing communities,
composed of the 136 communities that were profiled in the 2005 Community Profiles for North
Pacific Fisheries – Alaska and the remaining 114 populated communities involved in
commercial fishing that were considered for inclusion in that document, but did not meet the
selection criteria (Sepez et al 2005) for inclusion in the study. The survey will be sent to the city
or village office and the office of the village council, for a total of 500 potential respondents.
Where known, the survey will be directed to a specific person (i.e., mayor, city manager, or
village council president) to facilitate completion and mail it back. To be conservative, we will
assume that addresses for local government offices will not change, which means that the
number of respondents receiving the survey will be 500.
In general, a response rate of 60% is expected for mail surveys sent to the general population
(Salant and Dillman 1994, pp. 43-44; Rea and Parker 2005, pp. 9-11; Dillman et al 2009, pp. 59).
As part of the editing process for the 2005 community profiles (Sepez et al 2005), all 136
communities were sent a draft of their respective profile for review and comment. Only 15% of
community contacts returned their profile with comments. However, for that project, no advance
letter was sent and no follow up was done. Based on this experience, given the highly
specialized nature of the sample population for this study, and the fact that we have received a
significant amount of buy-in from members of that population for this survey, we expect a final
response rate of at least 70%, and potentially up to 90%, leading to between 350 and 450 surveys
being returned.
We expect approximately 45% of the population to have returned completed surveys following
an advance letter, telephone recruitment call, initial mailing and postcard reminder, including
30% from the initial mailing and 15% from the postcard reminder, or 225 returned surveys. Past
experience with Alaskan fishing community representatives has shown that telephone contact is
the most effective method to get their specific input, hence the inclusion of a telephone
recruitment call to increase potential response rate before the initial mailing is sent out. In
addition, we expect that a follow-up telephone contact will account for up to an additional 25%
response rate, or 125 returned surveys. The follow-up telephone contact serves to increase the
number of mail responses as well as gather information by telephone needed to estimate the
impact of non-response. Community representatives that need a replacement questionnaire will
be identified and sent a new one.
For the purpose of receiving approval for an adequate ceiling of burden hours, we assume that no
more than 450 or 90% of potential respondents will complete the survey. In addition, while
cognitive interviews showed that individual surveys can be completed in 45 minutes, we assume
that the survey will take one hour to complete. As a result, those ultimately completing the
survey are expected to contribute up to 450 hours to the overall hour burden, 290 from the initial
mailings (58% of potential respondents) and 160 from the follow-up phone contact (32% of
potential respondents). Additional burden hours are expected from the telephone recruitment
call with all 500 potential respondents and follow-up telephone contact with the 210 potential
respondents that have not yet completed the survey. Given that phone numbers for municipal
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and tribal offices are publically available on the internet, we expect that attempts will be made at
contacting all potential respondents. To be conservative, it is assumed that all of the potential
respondents will be reached. Both the telephone recruitment call and the follow-up telephone
call are expected to take six minutes on average to complete. As a result, the telephone
recruitment call will contribute approximately 50 hours of burden and the follow-up phone
contact approximately 21 hours of burden.
Description

Estimated No. of Respondents

Estimated No.
of Responses

500

Initial telephone
recruitment
Mail survey
(from initial
mailing, postcard
reminder, and full
follow-up mailing)
Follow-up
telephone survey
Mail survey (from
follow-up
telephone contacts)
Total Burden

500

Estimated Time
per Respondent
(minutes)
6

Estimated Burden
Annual Burden
Hours (hours)
50

290

290

60

290

210a

210

6

21

160

160

60

160

500 (unduplicated)

1,160 b

521

a

This assumes that 100% of respondents that have not returned completed surveys following initial mailing and
postcard reminder will be reached by phone.
b
Total responses reflect the total number of respondents that complete the mail survey plus the total number of
respondents that are contacted by phone.

13. Provide an estimate of the total annual cost burden to the respondents or recordkeepers resulting from the collection (excluding the value of the burden hours in Question
12 above).
There will be no reporting or recordkeeping costs to the respondents. Surveys will be mailed
with pre-paid postage envelopes enclosed.
14. Provide estimates of annualized cost to the Federal government.
Total estimated annual cost to the federal government is $55,000, divided as follows: $40,000 in
contract award money and $15,000 in staff time and resources. Contractor services include final
survey implementation, entering and cleaning the data, and preparing a report that documents the
survey procedures and response rate. Survey design, data collection and processing, and report
development will be conducted by both NMFS federal staff and a contractor.
15. Explain the reasons for any program changes or adjustments.
This is a new collection.

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16. For collections whose results will be published, outline the plans for tabulation and
publication.
A report describing the sampling methods, experimental design, response rates, and descriptive
statistics of data collected will be prepared. The data will be principally published in a revised
version of the Community Profiles of the North Pacific Fisheries – Alaska document (Sepez et al
2005). In addition, a separate paper describing how the survey data was analyzed and the results
from the data will be submitted to a peer-reviewed journal to disseminate the findings. Where
possible and relevant, final reports and other relevant portions of the research process will be
posted on the appropriate Web site and/or presented at professional conferences.
17. If seeking approval to not display the expiration date for OMB approval of the
information collection, explain the reasons why display would be inappropriate.
The expiration date will be displayed on the survey.
18. Explain each exception to the certification statement.
No exceptions are noted.

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