DATE: Wednesday, October 1, 1997            TAG: 9710010402

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B7   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:   34 lines

JUDGE ORDERS FEDERAL STUDY ON IMPACT OF FLOUNDER LIMITS

A federal judge has ordered the Commerce Department to study the economic impact of flounder quotas on small businesses.

U.S. District Judge Robert Doumar issued the order Monday after a North Carolina official testified that summer flounder quotas set by the National Marine Fisheries Service could severely harm the state's economy and threaten the livelihood of commercial fishermen.

Mike Street, chief of analysis and planning for the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries, said quotas could cause the state to lose $14 million each year.

Street testified in a lawsuit against Commerce Secretary William Daley. The North Carolina Fisheries Association complained that quotas set by the fisheries service - part of the Commerce Department - are ``arbitrary and capricious.''

The lawsuit sought to set aside the 1997 summer quotas for North Carolina and other East Coast states and asked the court to order the secretary not to alter annual quotas after the first of each year to reflect overages from the previous year.

The trial was held in a packed courtroom of about 200 people, many of them fishermen who oppose flounder quotas. Some wore T-shirts that said, ``Save the Commercial Fisherman.''

Jerry Schill, head of the North Carolina fisheries group, said Doumar's ruling will benefit commercial fishermen even though it won't affect their harvests this fall.

``This will help to fix the whole situation,'' Schill said.

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