Unless you fished for salmon this summer at Bristol Bay, it’s been slim pickings for fishermen in other Alaska regions. Salmon returns have been so poor that communities already are claiming fishery disasters.

Cordova’s City Council last week unanimously passed a resolution asking the state to declare disasters for both the 2018 Copper River sockeye and Chinook salmon runs and the 2020 sockeye, chum and Chinook runs at the Copper River and Prince William Sound.

The resolution also urges the state and federal governments to declare a “condition of economic disaster in Cordova as a resu...