Lawmakers "on the spot"
09/01/08 14:40
| It
was a difficult vote for Shore legislators.
"It put a lot of people on the spot, who were trying to have it both ways between their commercial and recreational guys," Kean said. Last summer, the DEP proposed seasonal reef exclusion rules that would keep lobster and fish traps off the reefs from May through October. That measure is proceeding through the DEP administrative process and could take effect later this year, state Division of Fish and Wildlife Director David Chanda said at last Thursday's meeting of the state Marine Fisheries Council. |
| "We're in the initial
rule-making stages. It would have to go
through the process of council review and
public comment," said Darlene Yuhas, a DEP
spokeswoman.
As planned by DEP officials, the rule would first apply to reefs within the state's three-mile territorial limit. But the agency also plans to ask the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council, a quasi-government board with authority in federal waters, to apply the same rule to artificial reefs outside three miles. The idea of a seasonal exclusion did not satisfy either side during last year's debate over the reefs; recreational advocates said it did not go far enough, while commercial lobstermen said it would ruin their business by kicking them off the reefs during the peak lobster season. Commercial fishermen said they would agree to a May through Oct. 15 exclusion of fish traps, but want to keep using lobster traps that use sinking line as required by new federal rules, DiDomenico said. |
