DATE: Monday, June 30, 1997                 TAG: 9706300068

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA 

SOURCE: BY LANE DEGREGORY, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:  124 lines

STATE SENATE MAY EXTEND CRABBING LICENSE MORATORIUM

For three years, Reese Stecher has waited.

Tuesday's the day state officials were supposed to lift a three-year ban on commercial fishing license sales. Legislators were supposed to wade through the sea of red tape in the state's Division of Marine Fisheries and come up with a plan to save saltwater species - and coastal watermen.

It was also the day Stecher, 27, was supposed to be able to buy a commercial crabbing license and start pursuing his boyhood dream of working on the water.

Now, it looks like he may have to wait up to another three years before he can begin trying to crack into the crabbing business.

``It just makes no sense to have all these rules and keep anyone new from entering the industry when there are so many crabs out there,'' Stecher said Sunday from his Kitty Hawk home.

``For three years, people've been telling me if I just do one more thing and wait 'til July 1, I'll be set. But I've spent three years waiting - and more than $22,000 doing everything they said I should. Now, I've got orders for at least 10 bushels of crabs for July Fourth weekend - but no one can eventell me if I'll be able to buy a license by Tuesday.''

Legislators have been studying fishing regulations since the state stopped selling commercial licenses in 1994. They were supposed to study all aspects of fishing rules, adopt new laws and open license sales by July 1, 1996. But they extended the ban another year because the system seemed too complicated.

On June 10, the House overwhelmingly passed a Fisheries Reform Act that would restructure rules and licenses. But now that the budget has hit an impasse, members of the Senate have bigger fish to fry than fixing the fisheries' problems. Senators are working to extend the license sale ban another 30 days to buy more time to debate the proposed fishing laws.

One plan being considered calls for continuing the ban on crab license sales until 2000.

``There's no real limitation as to how long the license moratorium can go on - except that it can't be indefinitely,'' said P.A. Wojciechowski, who heads the appeals panel for the fisheries department. Legislators ``can extend it years - as long as they feel they need to. They'll probably extend it another month since they're not ready to make a decision yet.''

Whether the license sales are banned for another month or another three years, Stecher says his crabbing business could be sunk. If he doesn't get his license by the end of July, this year's season will be more than half over - and he'll lose all the orders he's already taken.

``I got two friends who quit their jobs and moved down here to help begin this business. We all went on the words of state people who told us we'd be able to get going by July 1. Now, I'm not sure what to believe,'' Stecher said.

``But I don't want to give up yet. All I really want is to be out on the water crabbing.''

The moratorium on commercial fishing license sales was supposed to cap the number of working watermen until biologists could figure out how much fishing each coastal species could stand. In 1994, about 22,000 boats held commercial fishing licenses in North Carolina and 11,785 people had crabbing and shellfish licenses. As of mid-June, 14,310 people had renewed commercial licenses for their boats and only 6,573 people held crabbing and shellfish permits.

That means that about 7,700 more people could buy crab licenses before the state limit would be reached.

But unless Stecher can prove that he previously earned a significant income as a crabber - or unless he has a relative in his immediate family who wants to surrender a crab license - he can't buy one of those licenses.

``It's not that I don't want to give this guy a license,'' said Wojciechowski, who has met Stecher at two appeals hearings and has scheduled a third for July 8. ``It's just that we want to be fair to the current crabbers and not add any new people into the industry until we can figure out how many crab pots can be out there without depleting the fishery.''

Stecher says he understands why the state wants to protect shellfish populations. He also sees why some people want to limit the number of people working on the water. But he spent $1,800 buying commercial fishing licenses from people who were willing to surrender their permits - and now he can't get the $22.50 certificate to crab.

``Two people are getting out of the industry by selling me those licenses. I'm one person who desperately wants to get in. I can't help it that no one in my family crabbed,'' said Stecher, a Virginia Tech graduate whose dad is a dentist. ``And now I got the license to fish, adding one more person to stress out some of those species. But I can't crab - which there are plenty of.

``Then I see some guy who isn't even from this country get a crabbing permit right in front of me - after my appeal was denied again - and that gets me upset.''

A few Vietnamese crabbers who worked overseas before moving to America have been granted licenses during the moratorium, Wojciechowski confirmed. Anyone who can prove they earned their income crabbing immediately before the moratorium was put in place, no matter where it was, is eligible for a permit. But because Stecher was in college - and earned only about $6,000 crabbing between 1991 and 1995 - he doesn't qualify for an exemption.

``The Vietnamese guy isn't considered a new entry to the industry because he already was a crabber,'' said Wojciechowski, whose three-person panel has granted 89 new licenses during appeals and denied 70. ``Stecher wasn't really working on the water full-time. It does anger some people.''

If Stecher were 10 years younger or 10 years older, he wouldn't be ensnared in such a mesh of regulations. Teen-agers who crabbed with their parents can get their own permits under the moratorium. Watermen who worked in the industry during two of the three years before the license sale ban could renew their permits.

``I moved back to the Outer Banks on July 5, 1994, and found out I missed buying that crab license by four days,'' Stecher said. ``That's when I started banging my head against the wall. And it hasn't stopped yet.''

Stecher spent $16,000 buying and fixing a crabbing boat. He put a deposit on 200 crab pots and paid rent at a store in Duck where he'd hoped to set up shop. He studied to get his captain's license and recently received his certificate from the Coast Guard.

He plans to catch crabs and sell them directly to consumers, instead of turning them over to a seafood dealer. But he can't catch crabs for any commercial purpose without a permit.

He's prepared to drive the six hours to Morehead City again next week for his third formal appeal.

But he's starting to think something fishy is going on.

``I've been real careful and meticulous and documented everything they told me to do - and done it all, through this whole process,'' Stecher said. ``But it just doesn't help. I'm just a small little blurb that's buried in that big bill.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo

WILLIAM P. CANNON/The Virginian-Pilot

Reese Stecher, 27, of Kitty Hawk, above, prepares to put a personal

crab pot in the Albemarle Sound. He has been waiting for three years

for the state to lift its moratorium on new crabbing licenses. At

right, a crab is measured to make sure it meets the 5-inch

requirement. KEYWORDS: OUTER BANKS CRABS

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