By BARBARA HANEY
April 9, 2026 – On April 8, during House floor debate on the operating budget (HB 263), Fairbanks Reps. Ashley Carrick and Maxine Dibert voted down Amendment 28, an amendment offered by Rep. Rebecca Schwanke to restore funding to the Ruth Burnett Hatchery right here in Fairbanks.
This is the hatchery that stocks over 100 lakes across the Fairbanks, Tanana, Delta, and Glennallen areas. The hatchery that releases nearly half a million fish annually. The hatchery that generates an estimated $10 to $20 million per year for the Fairbanks economy.
Our own representatives voted to close it.
Fairbanks voters deserve to know the full story of how this happened. Let me break it down for you:
This disaster began in the House Finance Fish and Game Subcommittee, chaired by Rep. Nellie Jimmie. Without consulting any member of the fisheries committee, Rep. Jimmie unilaterally proposed a fund source switch, replacing $2.243 million in Unrestricted General Funds with federal Dingell-Johnson funds that, as ADF&G has since confirmed, are already fully allocated and cannot cover hatchery operations.
It was a budget illusion that looked like savings on paper while gutting the hatchery in practice.
When a Republican member of the subcommittee questioned ADF&G Commissioner Doug Vincent-Lang about the real-world impact of Rep. Jimmie’s cuts (cuts she had not discussed with anyone on the fisheries committee) Rep. Jimmie refused to allow the commissioner to answer. The state’s top fisheries official was silenced before he could explain what her decision would cost Fairbanks.
So Commissioner Vincent-Lang did the next best thing. On March 9, a full month before the floor vote, he wrote a detailed letter to House Finance Co-Chairs Josephson, Schrage, and Foster warning them explicitly that this fund source change would force the closure of the Ruth Burnett Hatchery. He named the hatchery. He described the consequences. He put it in writing.
Democrat majority rejects hatchery funding; two from Fairbanks vote to close Ruth Burnett hatchery
Rep. Cal Schrage, one of the Finance co-chairs to whom that letter was addressed, stood on the House floor and claimed he did not know about it.
Either the co-chairs of the House Finance Committee do not read letters from the commissioner of Fish and Game, or they chose to ignore the warning. Neither explanation is acceptable.
When Amendment 28 came to the floor, both Reps. Carrick and Dibert claimed they had only just seen it and hadn’t had time to review it.
That admission should alarm every Fairbanks voter. It means our representatives are voting down amendments without reading them, blindly following caucus orders regardless of the consequences for their own constituents.
Rep. Schwanke, who brought Amendment 28, is a former ADF&G fisheries biologist. She understands this program better than almost anyone in that chamber. She identified the damage, documented it, and offered a straightforward fix. She was voted down by the Fairbanks representatives whose constituents will pay the price.
This matters beyond sport fishing. The Ruth Burnett Hatchery is also the state’s primary tool for rebuilding Chinook salmon in the Chena and Salcha rivers, both designated “Stocks of Concern” by the Board of Fisheries. Closing it doesn’t just end popular fisheries. It ends Alaska’s ability to restore a struggling Chinook population in Interior Alaska’s most important rivers.
The budget has not yet passed. There is still time to fix this. Under House rules, either Rep. Carrick or Rep. Dibert, as members who voted on the prevailing side when Amendment 28 was defeated has the ability to move to rescind that action and bring Amendment 28 back before the full House for a revote. That is exactly what they should do. Today.
Reps. Carrick and Dibert, your constituents are watching. You have the power and the obligation to correct this mistake. If you refuse, you own the closure of the Ruth Burnett Hatchery; at every step of this process, you had the opportunity to stop it, and you chose your caucus over Fairbanks.
Barbara Haney, Ph.D., is an economist, former UAF faculty and Director of the Center for Economic Education, and former borough assembly member. Her opinions are her own.Â
4 thoughts on “Barbara Haney: Fairbanks legislators voted to kill the Ruth Burnett Hatchery — and they knew it”
Democrat’s position:
No Native land acknowledgement of Burnett hatchery location, then no fish sticks for Interior white anglers.
The operation doesn’t have to close. Its administrators can learn how to become private and make its own money to pay for its own operation.
More Alaskans need to learn how to survive without taxpayer monies funneled through the legislature and congress. Truthfully the money does not belong to the fish hatchery.
It’s not a threat to losing something. It’s a challenge. Alaska is watching. how will they respond roll over into depression calling it quits because they lost taxpayer money or rise up to use entrepreneurial skills developing a for profit business that pays for its operation?
Makes one sick seeing Alaskans crying over money that never even belonged to any group whoever they are
There is so much government dependency up here that actually believe they are Entitled to taxpayer money like its a right
Wouldn’t you sleep better at night that the money you took in your paycheck was money your sweat and exhaustion through labor you did do with your own two hands and your paycheck didn’t come from someone else labor
Did I make my point clearer.
When things are cut from the budget, there will be pain and people will have to endure it and find a new way to make the money that government used to provide