THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, July 18, 1995 TAG: 9507180307
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY BETTY MITCHELL GRAY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: MOREHEAD CITY LENGTH: Medium: 87 lines
States would gain control over some of their offshore fish stocks under a plan discussed by some U.S. senators in Morehead City on Monday.
The Republican-dominated Senate may add fisheries management to its list of programs targeted for so-called ``devolution'' as part of its plan to reauthorize the 20-year-old Magnuson Fishery Conservation and Management Act.
A proposal, suggested by Sen. Ted Stevens, a Republican from Alaska, would give all the states, not just Alaska, jurisdiction over fish caught in offshore waters that are not covered by a federal fisheries management plan.
``I think it would be a very effective way to manage most species that migrate across the boundaries'' of state and federal management Stevens said during the hearing on the Magnuson Act. ``States would have one plan for the entire 200-mile limit for the same species of fish.''
Stevens is chairman of Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation's subcommittee on Oceans and Fisheries, and he presided over Monday's hearing, the last of seven held nationwide on the Magnuson Act.
He was joined at the hearing by Sen. Jesse Helms, a North Carolina Republican.
The states currently have jurisdiction over fishing up to three miles offshore with the federal government responsible for fishing that takes place from three to 200 miles offshore.
Generally, commercial fishermen and state fisheries managers on Monday approved of the proposal, which, they said, in many instances, would codify existing management practices for several species of fish.
A House version of the bill extends state jurisdiction into offshore waters only for Alaska.
The Senate change would be ``a very good thing. It would accomplish consistency in regulations,'' said Robert V. Lucas, chairman of the state Marine Fisheries Commission. ``The fish don't know where three miles is.''
That change, coupled with one proposed last week by the state Senate, would give state fisheries regulators significant new controls over fishing practices in offshore waters.
The Magnuson Act, enacted in 1976 amid concerns that foreign fleets were depleting the population of fish off the coast of the United States, established a conservation zone from three to 200 miles off the coast. And it empowered the federal government, through eight regional management councils, to develop fisheries management plans for stocks of fish within their management regions.
The bill authorizes $755 million over the next five years to implement the act and includes the following provisions:
Across-the-board mandates to reduce bycatch and other waste in the fishing industry;
New conflict-of-interest and recusal requirements for fishery management council members as well as other council reforms;
Guidelines for individual transferable quotas, or ITQs;
New standards to ensure that conservation and management measures take into account the importance of fishing to individual communities that depend on fishing for their livelihoods;
Increased protection of habitats that are essential to the life cycles of fish stocks;
A vessel and permit buy-back program helping certain fisheries and their dependent communities.
Stevens said there has been ``unanimous support'' in the hearings nationwide for a proposal to add North Carolina as a voting member to the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council.
That council oversees management of summer flounder, bluefish and other species that migrate along the Atlantic coast south to North Carolina waters. North Carolina now is eligible to send representatives to council meetings, but the state has no vote.
A similar provision has been placed in the House version of the bill.
While most speakers supported greater state control of offshore fishing and adding North Carolina as a voting member of the Mid-Atlantic council, they had reservations about the individual transferable quotas.
Individual transferable quotas are the authority given to an individual fisherman to harvest a specific quantity of fish that represents a percentage of the total allowable catch of a population of fish.
Melvin Shepard of Sneads Ferry, president of the Southeastern North Carolina Waterman's Association, called the proposal ``criminal.''
``We do not have to destroy lives in order to properly manage our fisheries,'' he said.
Stevens said the Senate bill probably would be amended over the next few weeks to take into consideration comments made at the public hearings. The measure will then be referred to the Senate Commerce Committee in early August and could be approved by the Senate in early fall. by CNB