THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 10, 1995 TAG: 9509100049
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY BETTY MITCHELL GRAY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 94 lines
The faces and the politics of the Marine Fisheries Commission could change substantially this month when five of six seats on the panel held by commercial fishing interests will expire.
Gov. James B. Hunt Jr. will make the appointments to the 17-member panel that promulgates rules designed to protect coastal fish stocks. Its members serve six-year terms.
The commission has been criticized by some in the state in recent years who say it is too slow to take the needed steps to protect fish populations while others, particularly commercial fishermen, say the panel is too aggressive in regulating the commercial fishing industry.
Jerry Schill, executive director of the N.C. Fisheries Association, a commercial fishing trade group in New Bern, said that finding qualified members for the commission may not be easy because of the number of difficult decisions that confront panel members.
``It's one thing to find someone who's qualified,'' he said. ``It's another thing to find someone who is willing.
``It's a difficult position to be in, There's a lot of responsibility that goes with being a member of the the commission and a lot of hard decisions that have to be made,'' he said. ``Sometimes these decisions aren't fun.''
The commission will be charged with enacting some recommendations from the Moratorium Steering Committee which is scheduled to report its findings to the General Assembly in May.
The panel could be asked to deal with such questions as charging fees to license some types of fishing gear and limiting the access of fishermen to some types of gear.
And a growing number of its members say it should take a more active role in fisheries habitat and water quality issues.
Terms for three of four commercial fishing seats and two seats designated for shellfishing interests expire this month. They include:
Wanchese seafood processor Joey Daniels, who fills a seat designated for a seafood processor;
Washington and Colerain seafood dealer Linnie Perry, who holds a seat designated for a shellfish interest;
Vandemere seafood dealer Ed Cross, who also holds a seat designated for a shellfish interest;
Hampstead commercial fisherman Jodie Gay, a Republican who was recently appointed to the South Atlantic Fisheries Management Council, a federal fisheries council, and
Beaufort menhaden processor Jule D. Wheatly, a Republican.
Their terms expire Sept. 30.
Only Cross has indicated that he does not want to be reappointed to another term on the commission.
One signal that change may be pending for the panel comes from public statements about the general make-up of the commission made by Chairman Robert V. Lucas in meetings with commercial fishermen along the coast.
In the Carteret County fishing community of Mill Creek, Lucas told a gathering of commercial fishermen that there are too many seafood dealers and processors and not enough rank-and-file commercial fishermen on the commission. And he reiterated that concern at a July meeting of commercial fishermen in Smyrna.
``We have 17 people on the commission and how many of these are commercial fishermen?'' Lucas said at the Smyrna meeting. ``Two. We've got a bunch of dealers but we have just two commercial fishermen.''
This week, Lucas would say only that his remarks were about the commission in general and not about the upcoming appointments in particular.
But Schill said the number of seafood dealers and processors representing commercial fishermen on the commission does not necessarily need to be changed.
``I see no problem with that,'' he said. ``I doesn't matter who they are as long as they are looking out for the industry as a whole.''
Thanks to a recent change in state law, one or more of the current commission members could be replaced by a woman.
In a nod to the growing clout of the women's auxiliary chapters of the North Carolina Fisheries Association, the General Assembly specified that a spouse of a commercial fisherman should serve in a commercial fishing slot - but to date, none has been appointed.
N.C. State University researcher JoAnn Burkholder is the only woman on the Marine Fisheries Commission.
State statutes require that four seats represent commercial fishing. Three of these must be actively involved in the industry and derive at least 50 percent of their income from commercial fishing, and a fourth must be a seafood processor.
State law also says that three members of the commission represent shellfishing interests.
State statutes require that at least one of the commercial fishing representatives be from a 15-county area in northeastern North Carolina bordering the Albemarle Sound; one from Beaufort, Hyde and Pamlico counties; one from Carteret, Craven and Jones counties and one from a six-county area in southeastern North Carolina. by CNB