THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, December 8, 1994 TAG: 9412080497
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY CHRISTOPHER DINSMORE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 60 lines
The flounder fishing industry just can't seem to get any satisfaction.
First, the National Marine Fisheries Service was slow to act on a federal court order to raise the 1994 commercial catch quota to 19 million pounds from 16 million pounds. The agency complied on Nov. 25, but only after fishermen went back to court to force the issue.
Now Virginia and other states where flounder is landed have yet to raise their individual quotas, effectively maintaining the old quota on the fishery.
So the fishermen have gone back to court, filing a motion Wednesday asking U.S. District Judge Robert Doumar to force the federal government to require the states to accept the new quota.
The dispute is more of an issue in Massachusetts and New York, where the fishery has been closed because the old quota has been filled. In Virginia and North Carolina, there is still room on the old quota for fishermen to land flounder.
As of Nov. 26, fishermen landing flounder at Virginia packing plants had only brought in 566,930 pounds of the 1-million-pound fourth-quarter 1994 quota, said Jack Travelstead, director of fisheries management for the Virginia Marine Resources Commission.
``We still have a considerable amount of fish left on the previous quota,'' Travelstead. ``It should last well into December and could last, depending on the weather, until the end of the year.''
The commission has delayed acting on the government's decision to raise the quota until its Dec. 20 meeting, in part because there was room left on its existing quota, Travelstead said.
It will decide whether to raise the state's landing limit to 3.9 million pounds from 3.2 million pounds at that meeting. The commission is worried that raising this year's quota will force it to reduce next year's already lower 2.4-million-pound quota, Travelstead said.
The fishermen won the initial round when Doumar ruled in October that the federal government based the quota on conservative population estimates that tilted too far toward conservation and failed to balance the interests of the fishermen.
Wanchese Fish Co., with packing plants in Hampton and Wanchese, N.C., was one of the plaintiffs in the suit against the Commerce Department, which runs the federal fisheries service.
The fisheries service agreed to raise the quota, but also asked the Justice Department to appeal Doumar's decision.
In the motion filed Wednesday, the fishermen's attorney David E. Frulla argued that once the federal government sets the quota, the states can't refuse to let the fish be landed. He cited a previous federal court decision involving federal quotas for red drum that conflicted with state regulations.
``The fisheries bureaucrats have been playing games with the summer flounder quota and this court's authority too long,'' Frulla wrote in the motion. ``With 1994 soon ending, their delaying tactics are succeeding in practical effect.'' by CNB