THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, November 24, 1994 TAG: 9411240589
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LON WAGNER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 54 lines
The National Marine Fisheries Service has reluctantly complied with a federal judge's order to raise the commercial quota for flounder, but a regional fishing company says the states are still stonewalling.
The fisheries service, following U.S. District Judge Robert Doumar's Nov. 4 order, increased the 1994 commercial flounder quota from 16 million pounds to 19 million pounds.
Although it complied with Doumar's ruling, the service said it will ask the Justice Department to appeal his decision. Doumar ruled that the quota was based on conservative flounder population estimates that leaned toward conservation and away from the interests of commercial fisheries.
The 19-million-pound quota limits the amount of summer flounder that commercial fishermen can bring in to docks from Maine toNorth Carolina. In Virginia, the national fisheries service's latest action will make little difference, said Tim Daniels, vice president of Wanchese Fish Co. in Hampton.
``What they've done is they found that the government was wrong,'' Daniels said. ``Now, they've taken about a month (to comply) and the states are saying, `No.'
``So far we haven't gotten one pound of fish, because the government's been dragging their feet.''
The federal government's increased quota won't take effect until the individual states raise their limits. Three states receive the bulk of the 19-million-pound quota: Virginia with 3.9 million pounds, North Carolina with 5.2 million pounds and New Jersey with 3 million pounds.
The Virginia Marine Resources Commission met Tuesday but decided to wait until its Dec. 20 meeting to consider raising the quota from 3.2 million to 3.9 million pounds for 1994.
Jack Travelstead, chief of the fisheries management division with the VMRC, conceded that the increase in the federal limit ``doesn't mean anything really'' if the states don't follow.
As of Nov. 12, Virginia still had 700,000 pounds of its 1994 quota left. Travelstead said Hurricane Gordon's slowdown of fishing means the fisheries should be able to continue pulling in flounder, at least until the commission's Dec. 20 meeting.
The commission is concerned that raising the limit this year would force them to lower next year's already anemic 2.4 million pound quota, Travelstead said.
``While you would receive some benefit from catching additional fish now, it may reduce you in '95,'' he said. ``And that's something I'm not sure we want to do.'' by CNB