THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, February 28, 1996 TAG: 9602280385
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY SCOTT HARPER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NEWPORT NEWS LENGTH: Medium: 67 lines
What happens when government officials pass new regulations but aren't sure what they actually mean?
That was the unsettling predicament facing the Virginia Marine Resources Commission Tuesday, as members tried to unravel their new set of protections for the prized but declining blue crab population in the Chesapeake Bay.
The commission adopted several measures after a marathon public hearing last month. But members could not agree on what they had just approved for the 1996 crabbing season.
The distinctions are important because the commercial crab harvest remains the backbone of a struggling Virginia seafood industry, supports thousands of jobs, touches on tradition and coastal heritage and begins April 1.
Members blamed the confusion on a discombobulating mix of uncomfortable chairs, long-winded speakers, intense public pressure, conflicting scientific data and an underlying problem that the state crabbing industry is too big and too complex to restructure in one afternoon.
They met again Tuesday to ``fine-tune'' their decisions, as members called it, and to try to close loopholes that have since become apparent.
One of the biggest misinterpretations, affecting crabbers in Hampton Roads, was a first-ever proposal to limit the number of hard crab traps, or pots, that each licensed waterman can sink in state waters.
In January, the commission approved what some thought was a 500-pot ceiling in the Bay and a 300-pot limit in tributaries. Not so, said commission member Tim Hayes, who sponsored the idea.
True, a 300-pot limit would apply to tributaries. But Hayes said he also wanted wanted to cut the Bay in half, and to impose a 500-pot limit in the upper Bay and a 300-pot limit in the lower Bay along Norfolk and Virginia Beach.
Splitting the bay, he said, was intended to let a handful of big harvesters near Tangier Island remain unscathed by new regulations, while also relieving a pot glut in the lower Bay, especially near the mouth of Lynnhaven Bay.
In the end, the commission agreed to accept what members adopted last month: A 300-pot ceiling in the tributaries and a 500-pot limit in the Bay, in Back Bay in Virginia Beach, and in Pocomoke and Tangier sounds.
Then there was the licensing debate.
Heeding warnings from some scientists, who said too many fishermen were catching too many crabs, the commission sought to cap the number of licensed crabbers this year. But in January, under pressure from watermen, the commission agreed to let boat mates and some hardship cases obtain a license in 1996.
However, the commission forgot to set limits on how many pots each mate or hardship case could use, and also did not define ``a mate'' or ``hardship case.'' On Tuesday, the commission voted to set a 100-pot limit for anyone entering the crab fishery for the first time this year.
In addition, no one can sink more than 500 pots in state waters in total. This closed the door on another potential loophole: watermen could have used 300 pots in a river and then 500 pots in the Bay, for a total of 800, and still would have been in compliance with the new regulations.
Restrictions on harvesting pregnant females crabs with brown or black eggs exposed on their bellies remained intact, although seafood packers will be allowed to import such females from out of state.
Commission chairman William Pruitt said he believes these more precise rules will ``preserve an industry and preserve a resource.'' by CNB