SWAK SS Part A 091015

SUPPORTING STATEMENT

Regional Economic Data Collection Program

for SouthWEST Alaska

OMB CONTROL NO. 0648-xxxx

A. JUSTIFICATION

1. Explain the circumstances that make the collection of information necessary.

Regional or community economic analysis of proposed fishery management policies is required by the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSA), National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and Executive Order 12866, among others. To satisfy these mandates and inform stakeholders, policymakers and the public of the likely regional economic impacts (REI) associated with fishery management policies, appropriate economic models and the data to implement these models are needed. Much of the data required for REI analysis of the fishing industry in the Southwest Alaska (SW Alaska) economy are unavailable, unreliable, or outdated.

Accurate fishery-level data on employment, labor income, and expenditures are needed to estimate the effects of fisheries on the economy. To remedy this information gap, this information collection will gather data from industry sources (i.e., commercial fishing vessel owners, seafood processors, and local businesses) on these important regional economic variables needed to develop REI models. The information collected will enable development of more reliable estimators of the fishing industry’s economic response to fishery management alternatives and thereby significantly improve the information available to decision makers and stakeholders.

The SW Alaska region for this survey includes six boroughs and census areas (BCAs) – Aleutians East Borough, Aleutians West Census Area, Bristol Bay Borough, Dillingham Census Area, Lake and Peninsula Borough, and Kodiak Island Borough. In 2007-2008, a similar data collection project was administered for the SW Alaska region by obtaining 2006 annual data. However, that data is now outdated and incomplete. In the proposed survey, 2014 annual data for important regional economic variables will be collected from fish harvesting and seafood processing businesses operating in the region. The data will be used to develop SW regional and BCA-level REI models that will provide more reliable impact estimates and significantly improve policymakers’ ability to assess effects on fishery-dependent communities in SW Alaska. A departure from the prior survey effort is that more information will be collected this time on the source locations of business expenditures by catcher vessels and seafood processors. The survey will be conducted one time only.

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.

The information collected will be used by economists at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center (AFSC) and AFSC contractors to supplement deficient fishery data in IMPLAN (IMPLAN is a widely used, commercially available economic modeling system. See IMPLAN Group, LLC www.IMPLAN.com). The data collected by this project will be made available to develop REI models for fisheries in SW Alaska, including input-output (IO) models and computable general equilibrium (CGE) models. An important difference between the proposed and the previous data collection efforts is that the data from the proposed data collection will be used to develop BCA-level as well as SW Alaska regional level models. The resulting REI models will be used to estimate both SW Alaska regional and BCA-level impacts resulting from changes in fishery management policies for Alaska fisheries, and thus provide policy-makers with additional information to aid in decision making.

In this project, two different data collection methods will be used: (1) a mail-out survey of catcher vessel owners¹, and (2) personal interviews with “key informants”, mainly seafood processors and input suppliers, but also including other representatives from local fishing industry-related businesses (see page 4, Heading b for definition and determination of “key informants”). The mail survey will be administered to five different vessel classes. The vessel classes were determined by analyzing the vessels’ main target fishery and gear used. The vessel classification system is more thoroughly described in The Research Group (TRG 2007).² The mail-out survey will include an option for the respondent to fill out a survey form by accessing an internet website. The key informant interviews of industry representatives, shorebased seafood processors and other local fishery-related businesses will generally take place in SW Alaska and West Coast communities.

The data collection method is more fully described below: mail-out survey instruments, including the questionnaire, an advance letter for the mail survey, the questionnaire's transmittal letter, a postcard reminder for the mail survey, a second reminder letter for the mail survey, and phone call script for those non-responders to the mail survey who want to complete the survey by phone. The key informant interviews will be used to gather information about expenditures in and outside SW Alaska economies by processors and input suppliers (interview scripts will also be submitted). The interviews will be informal but will follow standardized worksheets. Compared with the mail out surveys, the interviews will use a less-rigidly structured conversational approach to glean information from key informants.

a. Mail Surveys for Vessel Owners

The vessel owner survey questionnaire is structured to gather a limited amount of information related to specific vessel expenditures for labor and other inputs and the geographical distribution of the expenditures. Questions will be asked about the number, remuneration, and location of residency (i.e., ten geographical areas including the six BCAs, other Alaska, West Coast, elsewhere US, and outside of US) of crew members, skippers, and vessel owners who worked on the vessel. An additional question will be asked about expenditures related to operating, maintaining, and owning the vessel. These expenditures include operating expenses (i.e., for fuel and lubricants, groceries, fishing gear, vessel mechanical parts, vessel equipment, repair services, bait, etc.), longer-term capital expenditures and other costs. Finally, a question about the geographical location of these expenditure items will be asked. The resulting information will contribute to a complete set of data for use in modeling five fishing vessel economic sectors in SW Alaska.³ Detailed explanations of each question in the vessel survey are given below.

• Question 1 is intended to demonstrate the accuracy of the data on the vessels and owners that is in the possession of the researchers and to personalize each questionnaire. Showing this information to the respondent elicits confidence. This confidence should help raise survey response rates.

• Question 2 asks whether the subject vessel had landings or deliveries in the SW Alaska region to confirm that the recipient is a member of the target population; if not, the respondent is directed to skip the survey content and go to Section E to enter any comments.

• Question 3 will provide information on how many months in the calendar year the survey respondent was an owner of the vessel. If the owner owned the vessel for less than a full year, the expenditure information may need to be pro-rated to represent annual expenditures. Vessel identification doesn’t change with transfer of ownership, so it will be possible to screen responses to avoid double counting.

• Question 4 will provide the total number of three different types of labor (crew members, skippers, and owners who provided labor) associated with vessel operations. The question directs the responder’s thinking to the vessel's labor requirements. The logical flow from general questions to more specific ones should improve survey accuracy.

• Questions 4a, 4b, and 4c provide information needed to determine the residency location of those employed in the three types of labor. The question will address the crew members, skipper(s), and owners residing in each of the ten geographical areas (i.e., the six BCAs and the four additional areas).

• Question 5 requests the percentage of total vessel revenues that were spent on vessel costs. This information is needed to calibrate the responses to Question 6.

• Question 6 elicits information by asking respondents to fill in a table on expenditures made by the vessel including remuneration paid to crew, skippers, and vessel owners. This question does not directly ask for the dollar amounts, but rather asks for approximate percentages of total vessel costs that were spent on each item. Asking for approximate percentages rather than actual dollar amounts should make providing this information more intuitive and less intrusive for respondents.

• Questions 7, 8 and 9 are needed to identify and quantify cases where expenditures recorded in question 6 for repair and replacement of vessels, engines or gear include amounts paid for periodic, scheduled major overhauls or refits.

• Question 10 is designed to elicit information about the location of expenditures. This question asks for the percentage of total expenditures on each expenditure item that were made in each of the ten geographical areas. This information is used in REI models to determine the sources of inputs obtained from areas inside and outside the region where fish-landing (and processing) occurs.

The survey concludes with space for respondents to comment on the survey.

b. Personal Interviews with Key Informants

Personal interviews will be conducted with key informants selected from among seafood processors and input suppliers. Other representatives from local fishing industry-related businesses may also be interviewed to provide context and background information. For our purposes, “key informant” means a representative of seafood processing or input supplier businesses or other commercial fishing industry representative who has unique knowledge of their industry in SW Alaska and who is willing to provide that information.⁴

Key informants from seafood processor and input supplier businesses will be solicited through contact with fishing industry associations, SW Alaska port staff, and other business representatives. Processor and supplier key informants will be selected so that a high proportion of spending by these business types in SW Alaska is represented in the responses.⁵

Several days before an interview is desired, candidate key informants will be contacted to schedule interviews. This contact call will inform them of the purpose of the study and describe the type of questions to be asked. Interviews will take the form of informal conversations, but using standard interviewer worksheets (included in this request, Attachment B) as a guide.

Personal interviews with seafood processor key informants will be used to obtain information about (i) value added components for seafood products manufactured in SW Alaska (such as product recovery rates, average variable costs and average fixed costs per processed pound) (ii) total jobs and the numbers of workers who reside in the ten geographical areas, (iii) the expenditures on inputs (including labor) used in manufacturing, (iv) the geographical distribution of those expenditures, and (v) sales and mark-up percentages of supplies such as fuel, ice, and bait sold to fishing vessels. It is not necessary to ask processors about their purchases from the fish harvesting sectors since this information is available on fish tickets.

Personal interviews with key informants from input supplier industries will gather additional information on (i) the level of supplier sales to regional seafood industry businesses, and (ii) the portion of business expenditures for labor and non-labor inputs that were made in each of the above ten geographical areas.

Other key informants with expert knowledge of the SW Alaska fisheries who are willing to provide information will also be interviewed to provide background information and cross checking of survey and interview responses. Information collected from these interviews will be used to construct regional economic data for the input supplier and processing industry sectors of regional economic models.

The survey information gathered by the contractors will be turned over to the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration’s (NOAA) Fisheries. NOAA Fisheries 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 Question #10 below (pages 7-8) in this supporting statement for more information on confidentiality and privacy. This information collection is designed to yield data that meet all applicable information quality guidelines. Although the information collected will not be disseminated directly to the public, results may be used in scientific, management, technical or general informational publications. Should NOAA Fisheries decide to disseminate the information, it will be subject to the 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 mail-out survey will have an optional response procedure for filling out the questionnaire using a form hosted on an internet website. A unique password provided with each individual mailed questionnaire will allow the respondent to gain access to a form. The form will contain the same pre-coded information and ask the same questions as the mail-out questionnaire. The responder will be informed that there is a 72-hour period during which time submitted answers can be edited. After the 72-hour period expires, the information will be considered final. In the case that both a mail and a web-based response are received, the web-based response will have precedence.

4. Describe efforts to identify duplication.

There have been several other economic data collection efforts in Alaska that are noteworthy. Hartman (2002) collected regional economic information for Southeast Alaska from 1995-96 (for data year 1994).⁶ Another study [Hermann et al. (2004)] tried to collect regional economic information in Alaska related to the snow crab fishery in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands (BSAI) region.⁷ More recently, surveys gathering regional economic information from harvesting vessels have been completed for Alaska's SW and Gulf Coast regions (OMB Control Nos. 0648-0562 and 0648-0571). The former SW data collection (OMB Control No. 0648-0562) was administered in 2007-2008, and gathered regional economic data for year 2006. However, that data is now outdated and was also incomplete. Therefore, that data needs to be updated with information from this data collection project. In addition, specific fleets will be targeted in the vessel owner survey for which no alternative sources of expenditure data are available. Economic Data Report data collections conducted by NOAA already provide annual economic census data for vessels participating in the BSAI crab fisheries (OMB Control No 0648-0518). Consequently those vessels will be excluded from the sampling frame.

5. If the collection of information involves small businesses or other small entities, describe the methods used to minimize burden.

The mail-out survey and personal interviews will be used to obtain information about expenditures for goods and services made in the regional economy and elsewhere. Many of the vessel ownership arrangements and the supplier/processor businesses contacted will meet the definition of a small business.⁸ Questions are limited in number and scope, thereby minimizing the burden to each respondent. The vessel owner mail-out survey should not take more than 45 minutes to complete, and the business interviews will take no more than 45 minutes each on average.

The vessel owner survey was specifically developed so as to minimize the amount of time required to answer questions. For example, the question on vessel expenditures asks for corrections to be made to a prepared list of expenditure percentages rather than asking the responder to supply original information. The list shows example percentages of expenditures rather than actual dollar amounts and is tailored to each respondent's vessel class. The lists of expenditures are adapted from an earlier economic model that should provide a reasonable starting point. Also, characteristics specific to each vessel are pre-printed on each individual survey so that the respondent does not need to spend time supplying this information.

The interviews with suppliers and processor businesses will be conducted by experienced personnel with many years of experience in fishing industry economics. Conversations will be informal but guided to gather useable data about processes, sales and expenditures made in different geographical areas. Examples of prepared personal interview worksheets that will be used to guide interviews with suppliers and processors are included in Attachment B.

In the case of input supplier businesses, the main goal will be to determine how well the regional industry is represented by IMPLAN data. A few questions about the suppliers’ customer base and sales levels in different regions will provide sufficient information for this determination. These conversations will also pursue information about sources of supply and the locus of operating expenditures.

In the case of processors, rather than simply asking the respondent to provide original numbers, they will be shown a prepared list of expenditure percentages (derived from an earlier economic model) containing financial accounting information itemized in a way they are accustomed to seeing. The respondent will review and correct these percentages. The processor interviews will also gather information about product forms and yields. Processor representatives are generally open-minded about providing this information as they are proud of their business successes. In return, the experienced interviewer may also be able to provide general information about the fishing industry to assist the responder in making future business decisions.

6. Describe the consequences to the Federal program or policy activities if the collection is not conducted or is conducted less frequently.

No other entity is likely to collect the information needed to resolve the IMPLAN data deficiencies to construct accurate models of the SW Alaska fishing industry and its contribution to the SW Alaska regional economy. Therefore, if the data collection is not conducted, the deficiencies in the regional data will not be corrected, and therefore, the mandates of MSA, NEPA, and Executive Order 12866 described in Question1 above will not be satisfied.

7. Explain any special circumstances that require the collection to be conducted in a manner inconsistent with OMB guidelines.

None.

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 5, 2014 (79 FR 53018) solicited public comment. No comments were received.

9. Explain any decisions to provide payments or gifts to respondents, other than remuneration of contractors or grantees.

We do not plan to provide any payments or other gifts to the respondents.

10. Describe any assurance of confidentiality provided to respondents and the basis for assurance in statute, regulation, or agency policy.

On the first page of the survey, we provide a confidentiality statement as follows:

YOUR RESPONSES WILL BE STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL AND USED ONLY TO ESTIMATE THE ECONOMIC CONTRIBUTIONS OF SW ALASKA FISHERIES TO SOUTHWEST ALASKA AND OTHER U.S. REGIONS.

Confidentiality: Per Section 402(b) of the Magnuson-Stevens Act (16 U.S.C. 1801, et seq.), all individual survey responses are confidential and will be held by only a limited number of researchers at Alaska Fisheries Science Center and contractors who are authorized to work with the data. After the data have been entered in an electronic format, only those researchers will have (password-protected) access to the data. Individual survey forms and electronic responses will be destroyed upon completion of the study. Your name, business name, and address will be used only for mailing and survey administration purposes. Only summary results of this survey will be reported to the public. NOAA Fisheries and other agencies will see only aggregate results in summary form, not individual responses.

YOUR RESPONSES AND THE DATA COLLECTED FROM THIS SURVEY WILL NOT BE SEEN OR USED FOR ANY OTHER PURPOSE BY NOAA FISHERIES, OTHER FEDERAL GOVERNMENT AGENCIES, THE STATE OF ALASKA OR OTHER PARTIES.

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.

No sensitive questions will be asked.

12. Provide an estimate in hours of the burden of the collection of information.

The mail-out survey will be used to gather information from owners of vessels that delivered raw fish to SW Alaska ports for processing (i.e., excluding catcher-processor and mothership vessels). Phone interviews will be conducted to follow-up this information. Also, key informant interviews will be conducted to gather information from seafood processors and local input suppliers. The mail-out survey will be sent to a sample of vessel owners. Ex-vessel revenue information contained in the Alaska Fisheries Information Network (AKFIN) database for vessels delivering to SW Alaska ports was used to derive the sample. The sample size was determined using an unequal probability sampling (UPS) method (included in a supplementary document) to account for the unequal distribution of harvest in each vessel stratification. The questions to be asked of survey respondents will pertain to their activities during calendar year 2014. AKFIN data for 2014 will be used to tabulate survey results and perform a non-response analysis. The AKFIN database will also provide information about ex-vessel sales and processor purchases at SW Alaska ports. While the survey of vessel owners uses a scientific UPS procedure to determine an optimal sample size in order to achieve statistical significance, the selection of key industry informants to be interviewed will use much less formal selection procedures. The following describes the estimated responder burden for both the vessel owner and key informant survey procedures.

The estimated number of respondents/contacts is 1,872. The estimated total annual burden hours are 599. These numbers are derived as follows. It was found using AKFIN data that 2,500 vessels delivered to SW Alaska ports during 2013⁹. Excluding 87 vessels that are covered by the mandatory data collection from the BSAI crab rationalization, the total population size for this proposed project is 2,413 fish harvesting vessels consisting of five subpopulations corresponding to the five distinct vessel classes. The five distinctive vessel classes (or sectors) include Trawler, Hook and Line, Pot Gear, Gillnet Gear, and Other vessel classes. The optimal sample size¹⁰ for each subpopulation is calculated using the UPS procedures described in Attachment C assuming a ±10% error in the estimate of population totals of interest and an alpha of 0.05 (or percentile of the standard normal distribution of 1.96).

The resulting optimal sample size for each vessel class is divided by the expected response rate of 35%¹¹ in order to obtain the mail-out sample sizes. It was found that the mail-out sample sizes for three vessel classes (Trawler, Hook and Line, and Pot Gear) are much larger than the population sizes. This means that the mail-out sample sizes for these three vessel classes should be set equal to the population sizes. In case of Gillnet Gear vessel class and Other vessel class, the mail-out sample sizes (829 and 393, respectively) are smaller than their population sizes (1,632 and 401, respectively). The sum of the resulting mail-out sample sizes for all vessel classes is 1,602 (see Table 1). Applying the 35% response rate, the sum of the expected responses for all five vessel classes is 562. The mail-out questionnaire will take about 45 minutes to complete. Therefore the expected 562 responses to the mail-out vessel survey represent a total burden of about 420 hours to the survey respondents.

In order to assure getting at least 562 completed survey responses, we will make follow-up phone calls¹² to all the partial responders and non-responders to the mail survey, with the goal being to complete the incomplete mail surveys and to conduct telephone interviews with those non-respondent vessel owners who indicated they were willing to complete the survey by phone.

For example, assuming that only 362 of the expected number of responses (562) return completed mail survey, we would make 1,240 phone calls to contact those vessel owners who either returned incomplete responses or did not respond at all to the survey (5 minutes each). From these 1,240 contacts of non-responders and partial responders, approximately 100 scripted phone calls would be made to follow up with vessel owners who returned questionnaires that contained blank or incomplete responses (30 minutes each), and about 100 scripted phone calls would be made to conduct telephone interviews with those vessels owners who indicated they were willing to complete the survey by phone.¹³

We will also make phone calls to arrange and conduct interviews with key informant seafood processors and input suppliers. About 40 phone calls will be made to contact and arrange interviews with input supplier and seafood processor key informants (5 minutes each). From these contacts, about 15 scripted phone interviews will be conducted to gather information from input suppliers (45 minutes), and about 15 scripted interviews will be conducted to gather information from seafood processors (45 minutes).

Thus, it is estimated that up to 1,510 total phone calls will be made. The total burden hours for all phone calls to vessel owners and input supplier and seafood processor key informants will be 179 hours (i.e., excluding the estimated time required for follow-up phone interviews with vessel owners in order to avoid doubling counting).

Based on 2014 AKFIN data on shoreside processors’ purchase of raw fish from SW harvesting vessels, about 20 major shoreside processing companies will be contacted. We will try to interview approximately 15 of these companies. Information about supplier businesses will be assessed by talking with fishing industry and local community representatives during port visits. Local knowledge will be used to identify candidates for key informant interviews. A list of candidate business contacts for the interviews will be compiled to ensure broad coverage of business types. The evaluation will consider the range of goods and services provided to harvesters and processors, as well as the relative size of the businesses. It is anticipated that approximately 15 total interviews with supplier business key informants, either in person or by phone, will be conducted.

Therefore, the total burden of all respondents is estimated to be 603hours (423 hours for mail-out survey and 180 hours for phone calls and interviews), as shown in Table 1, below.

Table 1. Estimated population, respondents and burden on data collection participants.
Respondent type	Populaion	Actual mail-out sample size	Expected contacts / responses	Responses per respondent	Estimated time per response (minutes)	Estimated hours (responses multiplied by time per response)
Trawl Vessels mail survey	116	116	41	1	45	31
Hook and Line Vessels mail survey	225	225	79	1	45	59
Pot Gear 1 Vessels mail survey	39	39	14	1	45	11
Gillnet Gear Vessels mail survey	1,632	829	290	1	45	218
Other Vessels mail survey	401	393	138	1	45	104
SUBTOTAL	2,413	1,602	562			423*
Phone calls to follow-up and/or arrange interviews with vessel owners			1,240	1	5	104
Phone calls to vessel owners to fill in missing responses			100	1	30	50
Phone calls to conduct interviews with vessel owners a			100	1	45	0
Phone calls to arrange interviews with input suppliers and processors.			40	1	5	3
Interviews (in person and by telephone) with input suppliers and processor key informants			30	1	45	23
SUBTOTAL			1,510			180
TOTALS	2,413 vessels	1,602 vessels	2,072 contacts / responses			603

a To avoid double counting, phone interviews with non-responding vessel owners are not included in calculating the total burden hours in Table 1, because the total burden hours estimated for the 562 survey respondents already include the time required for follow-up phone interviews with these vessel owners.

*Rounded down to 422 in ROCIS

13. Provide an estimate of the total annual cost burden to the respondents or record-keepers resulting from the collection (excluding the value of the burden hours in #12 above).

The estimated total annual cost to the public is $0 (mail surveys will be accompanied by postage-paid envelopes).

14. Provide estimates of annualized cost to the Federal government.

The total cost of this data collection project is estimated to be $160,000. This covers (a) compensation for labor used to develop the survey, (b) travel cost associated with survey development, (c) labor cost for implementing the survey, (d) mailing costs (for mail surveys, advance letters, and postcard reminder), and telephone calls for interviews. Since this project will be spread over three years, the annualized cost is $53,000.

15. Explain the reasons for any program changes or adjustments.

There are no program changes or adjustments.

16. For collections whose results will be published, outline the plans for tabulation and publication.

The data collected will be used to revise or replace IMPLAN data for the study region. The collection of data is expected to be implemented in early 2016. The construction and revision of the regional economic data set (which will occur after the data collection is completed) will be completed by 2017. Summary results of data collection will be published in a project report. It is anticipated that data collected under this project will be used to construct REI models for the SW Alaska region as a whole and the six BCAs under subsequent projects. Results from these models and descriptions of the data methods used to develop the models will be published in peer-reviewed journals.

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.

N/A

18. Explain each exception to the certification statement.

There are no exceptions.

1 The mail-out survey will not target catcher-processors or motherships.

2 The Research Group. Estimating Economic Impacts of Alaska Fisheries Using a Computable General Equilibrium Model Data Acquisition and Reduction Task Documentation. Draft. Prepared for National Marine Fisheries Service Alaska Fisheries Science Center. November 2007.

3 IMPLAN data provides only aggregate information on harvesting activity; there is only a single commercial fishing sector in IMPLAN data. To estimate the potential impacts of fishery management actions on individual harvesting sub-sectors, it is necessary to disaggregate this into different sub-sectors.

4 To increase the response rate to the mail survey of vessel owners, we plan to conduct some phone interviews with vessel owners who either return incomplete mail surveys or do not respond at all to the mail survey. However, these vessel owners are not “key informants” as defined in this document.

5 We will not conduct sampling to select key informants to be interviewed. While we will contact all major seafood processors and the main input suppliers operating in the SW Alaska region, we will conduct conversations with any key informant who agrees to be interviewed.

6 Hartman, J. 2002. Economic Impact Analysis of the Seafood Industry in Southeast Alaska: Importance, Personal Income, and Employment in 1994. Regional Information Report No. 5J02-07. Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

7 Herrmann, M., J. Greenberg, C. Hamel, and H. Geier. 2004. Regional Economic Impact Assessment of the Alaska Snow Crab Fishery Integrated with an International Snow Crab Market Model. University of Alaska, Fairbanks, School of Management Working Series Report 2004-001.

8A fish harvesting business is considered a small business by the Small Business Administration if it has annual receipts not in excess of $4.0 million. For related fish-processing businesses, a small business is one that employs 500 or fewer persons. For wholesale businesses, a small business is one that employs not more than 100 people.

9 For sampling purpose in this document, we used 2013 fish landings data. However, it is expected that the 2014 landings data will be available by the time this PRA packet is approved. When the 2014 data is available, we will conduct the sampling job again using the 2014 data, and collect the data for year 2014.

10 Optimal sample size as used here is the number of vessels needed for analysis to achieve the level of precision desired given an allowed error of population estimate and an alpha.

11 We assume a 35% response rate because of the reasons explained in Section B.1 below.

12 A follow-up phone call will be made about 1-2 weeks following the second reminder letter (See Section B, Item 3(a) below). Follow-up calls and telephone interviews are intended to help achieve the 562 estimated total completed responses, i.e., the estimated number of total completed responses (562) already includes those that will be completed by follow-up phone calls.

13 To avoid double counting, phone interviews with non-responding vessel owners are not included in calculating the total burden hours in Table 1, because the total burden hours estimated for the 562 survey respondents already include the time required for follow-up phone interviews with these vessel owners.

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