THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, October 25, 1994 TAG: 9410250346
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B7 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JAMES SCHULTZ, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NEWPORT NEWS LENGTH: Medium: 57 lines
About 300 watermen from all over Hampton Roads and the Eastern Shore turned out at City Hall on Monday night to plead for generations-old livelihoods.
Their hearts and wallets sewn tight to the fate of the once-hardy blue crab, the watermen passionately challenged proposed changes to their time-honored practices.
With crab stocks plunging to record lows, the Virginia Marine Resources Commission is considering drastic curbs on harvests. The commission will vote today on whether to impose a half-dozen major restrictions.
Under consideration are a shortened season, limitations on crab-catch size, expanded protection of females and juveniles, and cutbacks on the issuance of new licenses.
In sometimes-raw, sometimes-testy, sometimes-droll testimony before the commission, crabbers paraded to the podium to oppose virtually all the proposed recommendations made by the commission's staff scientists.
``Crabs are my whole life,'' said Jim Casey, president of Casey's Seafood Inc. of Newport News. ``If for some chance these regulations were passed, you can look around this room. Eighty percent of the people would be unemployed. We beg you not to pass them.''
With that, Casey turned on his heels and returned to his seat amid thunderous applause.
At one point, six presidents of watermen's associations approached the podium en masse and addressed the commissioners. The group presented six proposals to counter those being considered by the commission.
``We offer this as a package deal,'' said group spokesman Jeff Crockett, president of the Tangier Waterman's Association. ``Vote on it tonight, and we can all forget this and go home.''
But the commissioners declined the offer, electing instead to take action in a meeting scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. today at the commission offices at 2600 Washington Ave. Members may approve all, some or none of the recommendations before them.
The generally good-natured debate left at least one speaker unimpressed. Michael Firth, a Poquoson waterman, chided his colleagues and the commissioners.
``We're here joking, laughing. I'm ashamed of all of us,'' he said. ``I'm looking at my life, at feeding my family. That's what it's all about.'' ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by JOSEPH JOHN KOTLOWSKI
Crab fisherman Mark Miles, top, listens at a Virginia Marine
Resources Commission hearing. Watermen crowded the city council
chamber, above.
KEYWORDS: VIRGINIA MARINE RESOURCES COMMISSION
CRABS SEAFOOD INDUSTRY
by CNB