THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, August 3, 1995 TAG: 9508030507
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3A EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY BETTY MITCHELL GRAY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SOUTH CREEK LENGTH: Medium: 97 lines
For the past week, Etles Henries Jr. and his father have done what they do almost every year at this time on the shores of the Pamlico River - spot fish kills.
Last Thursday, the elder Henries was one of the first fishermen to spot a large number of flounder, mullet, croaker and spot washing ashore along a two-mile stretch of the Pamlico River between Hickory Point and the southern terminus of the Pamlico River ferry.
It was one of the largest fish kills that he had seen on the Pamlico River since 1989, when millions of menhaden and other fish died in a series of fish kills that affected the Pamlico, Neuse and Chowan rivers.
``It's a hot summer,'' said Debbie Crane, spokesperson for the Department of Environment, Health and Natural Resources, the agency charged with protecting the state's environment. ``I think it's going to be a nasty year.''
In recent weeks, there have been low oxygen concentrations in waterways all along the mid- and northeastern coast, according to Crane.
And natural conditions in many of the coastal waterways have been aggravated by man-made problems. In June and July, breaks in animal waste lagoons sent more than 25 million gallons of untreated wastewater flowing into the New River and other rivers. Flow reductions by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Virginia Electric Power Co. contributed to dissolved oxygen problems on the Roanoke River.
Six years ago, Henries and son were among a small group of fishermen, environmentalists and state fisheries officials who were so alarmed by the fish kill and its effects on the commercial fishermen who made their livings from the Pamlico River that they traveled to Raleigh to meet with Gov. James G. Martin.
During the hour-long, closed-door meeting, Martin promised that state agencies would work together and better coordinate their efforts to deal with the environmental problems affecting the river.
Later that day, a public hearing was held in Greenville to discuss a state plan to reduce nitrogen and phosphorus entering the waterway. State fisheries officials described the once-thriving Pamlico River as ``commercially dead.''
Six years later, his meeting with the governor is a distant memory.
In his office at Carolina Seafood Inc. on South Creek, once a thriving commercial fishing community on the south side of the Pamlico River, Henries Jr. has a framed copy of a local newspaper article about his meeting with Martin. It includes a photograph of the Henries, father and son, sitting with Martin in his office in the state Capitol.
``I'll read it every now and then, and it makes me right mad,'' said Henries Jr.
``Gov. Martin promised us that he would not go out of office carrying the blame of the Pamlico dying,'' he said. And two years into the third administration of another governor, ``the river is still commercially dead.''
``And nobody wants to take any blame whatsoever,'' he said.
While the catch of blue crabs on the waterway has increased since 1989, finfish catches continue to be low.
In 1989, the commercial flounder catch on the Pamlico River was recorded at 131,102 pounds; mullet at 104,790; shad at 17,012 and spotted seatrout at 14,079. In 1994, the Division of Marine Fisheries changed its data collection system. With the better data collection, catches of some species of fish increased, but others remained at near historic lows. The commercial flounder catch in 1994 was recorded at 150,377 pounds; mullet at 58,693; shad at 4,039 and spotted seatrout at 18,655.
In 1989, the state Environmental Management Commission, at the urging of the Pamlico-Tar River Foundation, declared the Pamlico-Tar River ``nutrient sensitive'' and approved a plan designed to reduce the amount of nitrogen and phosphorus entering the waterway.
The General Assembly, during its 1995 session, appropriated about $1.2 million to the Department of Environment, Health and Natural Resources to help address problems of large hog operations that have proliferated in the river basin in the ensuing six years. However, it delayed action on most measures designed to regulate the growing industry until a blue ribbon commission studies the matter.
But since 1989, the role of fisheries managers in investigating Pamlico River fish kills has been reduced.
The chairman of the state Marine Fisheries Commission, Robert V. Lucas, has been calling for better cooperation between state agencies in solving environmental problems and has taken up the call for the commission to be given more power over water quality issues.
``Right now the only remedy that the Marine Fisheries Commission has got to protect the resource is to deal with overfishing,'' he recently told one group of fishermen in Smryna. ``Until you give the Marine Fisheries Commission the full authority to deal with water quality issues, you're not going to solve the problem.''
``And in some fisheries, water quality is the number one problem,'' he said.
For the Henries, the time for action is long overdue.
``We study the situation to the point where we realize we've got a problem but we don't get anywhere,'' Henries Jr. said. ``Now we have to get down to some hard decisions, and that's where the real negotiations start.''
``The question is what are we going to do about it?'' he said. by CNB