[Federal Register Volume 60, Number 71 (Thursday, April 13, 1995)]
[Proposed Rules]
[Pages 18794-18798]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 95-9082]
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[[Page 18795]]
DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
50 CFR Part 625
[I.D. 032295A]
Summer Flounder Fishery; Public Hearings; Supplemental
Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS)
AGENCY: National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Commerce.
ACTION: Notice of intent to prepare an SEIS; scoping meetings; request
for comments.
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SUMMARY: NMFS announces that the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management
Council (Council) intends to prepare an SEIS for proposed Amendment 7
to the Summer Flounder Fishery Management Plan (FMP). NMFS informs the
public herewith of the opportunity to participate in the further
development of Amendment 7 to the FMP. All persons affected by, or
otherwise interested in, the proposed amendment are invited to
participate in determining the scope of significant issues to be
considered in the SEIS by submitting written comments. The scoping
process also will identify issues that are not significant and will
eliminate them from detailed study.
DATES: Written comments must be received by April 14, 1995.
The hearings are scheduled as follows:
1. April 10, 1995, 7 p.m., Manteo, NC;
2. April 10, 1995, 7 p.m., Galilee, RI;
3. April 10, 1995, 7:30 p.m., Ronkonkoma, NY; and
4. April 12, 1995, 7 p.m., Cape May Courthouse, NJ.
ADDRESSES: Send written comments on the scoping process and scope of
the SEIS to David R. Keifer, Executive Director, Mid-Atlantic Fishery
Management Council, Room 2115 Federal Building, 300 South New Street,
Dover, DE 19904-6790; telephone: 302-674-2331; FAX: 302-674-5399.
The hearings will be held at the following locations:
1. Manteo--North Carolina State Aquarium, Airport Road, Roanoke
Island, Manteo, NC 27954;
2. Galilee--Dutch Inn, 307 Great Island Rd., Galilee, RI 02882;
3. Ronkonkoma--Holiday Inn, 3845 Veterans Memorial Highway,
Ronkonkoma, NY 11779; and
4. Cape May Courthouse--Cape May County Extension Office,
Dennisville Rd., Route 657, Cape May Courthouse, NJ 08210.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: David R. Keifer, Executive Director,
302-674-2331; FAX: 302-674-5399.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
Problems to be Discussed for This Amendment
1. A Moratorium on Entry of Additional Vessels Into the Commercial
Fishery
A moratorium on entry of additional vessels Into the summer
flounder commercial fishery was implemented with Amendment 2. The
moratorium automatically expires in 1997. Given the large number of
unemployed and underemployed fishing vessels in the Northwest Atlantic
and the overfished nature of the summer flounder resource, serious
consideration should be given to continuing the moratorium.
Extension of the moratorium will provide an opportunity for
participants in the fishery to benefit as the resource continues to
rebuild as a result of the fishing mortality reduction program. If the
moratorium is allowed to lapse, the fishery will revert to open access
and new vessels will enter the fishery. This would tend to dissipate
any chances of profitability. More likely, the problems experienced by
the existing participants in the fishery would be increased in
magnitude; more fishermen would be attempting to catch the same
quantity of fish, thereby increasing costs and decreasing income.
2. Moratorium Permits
Vessels with documented landings of summer flounder for sale
between January 26, 1985, and January 26, 1990, qualify for a
moratorium permit to land and sell summer flounder under this
moratorium program. The FMP provides that, if a commercial vessel fails
to land any summer flounder within any 52-week period, its moratorium
permit expires. The theory behind this provision is that the FMP had
very liberal qualification rules for a moratorium permit, so a
retirement provision was needed to reduce harvesting capacity over
time. Another view of this issue is that the retirement rule could
force fishermen to participate in the summer flounder fishery only to
keep their eligibility, thereby increasing effort to the fishery each
year.
3. Vessel Replacement Criteria
The New England Council has requested that the Mid-Atlantic Council
adopt the replacement language of the Multispecies FMP in the Summer
Flounder FMP.
The Summer Flounder FMP prohibits vessel replacement unless the
vessel sinks, burns, or is declared unseaworthy by the Coast Guard. The
rule was implemented to prevent increases in fishing power. The New
England Council's Northeast Multispecies FMP also contains a vessel
moratorium. The Multispecies FMP allows vessel replacement, as long as
the horsepower does not increase by more than 20 percent and the
length, gross registered tonnage, and net tonnage do not increase by
more than 10 percent.
The Multispecies FMP also provides that the moratorium permits
issued for a given vessel may not be divided between two vessels.
Therefore, under the Multispecies FMP rules, if the owner of a vessel
with multispecies and summer flounder permits wants to build a
replacement vessel, the owner would not be able to transfer the summer
flounder permit to the replacement vessel.
Many vessels are permitted under both FMPs. Of the 4,516 vessels
that have commercial multispecies permits, and of the 1,206 vessels
that have commercial summer flounder permits, 1,032 vessels have
permits under both FMPs.
4. Recreational Catch Limitation Adjustment System
The Summer Flounder FMP provides that, if a state exceeds its
commercial quota, the excess is deducted from the next year's quota.
There is no parallel system if the coastwide harvest limit for the
recreational fishery is exceeded. If the recreational fishery were to
exceed its target, it is possible that the overall quota (commercial
quota and recreational harvest limit) would need to be reduced for the
next year. In other words, the commercial fishery quota may be reduced
because the recreational target was exceeded. Some people in the
industry believe that this situation presents an equity problem that
should be addressed.
If the coastwide recreational management system continues, one
management alternative would be to deduct any recreational overage from
the harvest target for the following year.
5. Commercial Quota System
When Amendment 2 was being developed, many quota management systems
were considered, including a coastwide quota, regional, and state-by-
state quotas. A simple coastwide system was not feasible, due to the
migratory patterns of summer flounder. Fishermen at the southern end of
the range could possibly catch all the quota before fishermen at the
northern end of the range had access to the summer flounder.
[[Page 18796]]
To mitigate this inequity, the Council adopted a state-by-state
quota system. The states are responsible for managing their quotas, and
NMFS retains an oversight role to assure that the state quotas are not
exceeded. Since then, the FMP has been amended to allow the states to
combine or trade quotas.
Some industry representatives would like the Council to consider
alternative quota allocation systems. Many of the states have divided
their annual quotas into quotas for shorter time periods, e.g.,
quarterly, and have instituted trip limit systems to reduce the chances
of closure. The trip limits may be adequate for resident fishermen, but
may be too small to support transient vessels that traditionally have
landed in a number of states from Massachusetts to North Carolina.
Another problem with state-by-state quotas is differing trip limits
in adjacent states. Vessels will land in the state with the highest
trip limit. This problem occurred in Connecticut, where trip limits
were considered unnecessary and thus were not imposed. However, in
response to a reduction in the Massachusetts trip limit, many vessels
landed in Connecticut and filled Connecticut's quota in a few days--
before preventative action could be implemented.
In general, any alternative to a state-by-state quota system would
have to allow for an equitable allocation of the commercial quota
between northern and southern participants, as well as between the
smaller day boats and larger offshore vessels. Due to the seasonal
nature of the summer flounder fishery, the quota also would have to be
divided into smaller temporal units to allow for a fair distribution.
One possible approach is a bimonthly quota allocation system. To
minimize effects on traditional landings patterns, the allocation to
each period would be based on past landings instead of a system that
divided the quota equally over the six periods. For example, based on
1992 data, 23 percent would be allocated to period 1 (January-February)
and only 6 percent to period 3 (May-June)(Table 1.).
Table 1.--The Percent of the Total Summer Flounder Landed Commercially
in 1992 for Each 2-Month Period
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Period Percent
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jan-Feb...................................................... 22.68
Mar-Apr...................................................... 13.78
May-Jun...................................................... 5.97
Jul-Aug...................................................... 8.29
Sep-Oct...................................................... 28.13
Nov-Dec...................................................... 21.14
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: NMFS Weighout Data.
A coastwide bimonthly quota allocation system would allow fishermen
to land in any port along the coast. All commercial landings during a
bimonthly period would count toward the quota for that period. When the
quota had been landed for a bimonthly period, fishing for and/or
landing summer flounder would be prohibited for the remainder of the
period. Landings in excess of the allocation for the period would be
subtracted from the following year's quota for the same period.
However, bimonthly allocations without trip limits would encourage
derby-style fishing practices that would allow the quota to be landed
by larger, more mobile vessels at the beginning of each period.
Supplies of summer flounder would be discontinuous and smaller boats
would be disadvantaged. Therefore, trip limits would be necessary to
ensure a safer and more equitable fishery.
The trip limits could be established and modified throughout the 2-
month period to allow for a continuous supply of product and equitable
distribution of flounder to fishermen using both small and large
vessels. For example, a 3,000-lb (1,360.78 kg) trip limit could be
established for the beginning of period 1. The limit would decrease to
1,000 lb (453.59 kg) when 50 percent of the allocation was reached, to
500 lb (226.8 kg) when 75 percent of the quota was taken, and to 100 lb
(45.36 kg) when 90 percent of the landings were reached. Different trip
limit systems could be designed for each period to ensure equitable
distribution over each 2-month period.
Unlike the current management program that allows states to design
their own systems, NMFS would be responsible for implementing trip
limits for each period. Therefore, NMFS will need significant resources
to design and implement such a system.
6. Management of the Recreational Fishery
During the development of Amendment 2, much debate arose over
whether the recreational fishery should be managed on a state-by-state
basis (the same as the commercial fishery), on a regional basis, or
coastwide. The final decision was to manage on a coastwide basis.
The recreational fishery is now managed with a combination of
minimum fish size limits, possession limits, and seasons that apply
coastwide. However, recreational landings are not equally distributed
along the coast. For example, summer flounder landings are considerably
higher in New York and New Jersey than they are in North Carolina.
Coastwide management results in the fishing mortality reduction
measures effectively being averaged across all of the states. To ensure
greater equity between northern and southern states, the Council has
been asked to consider regional or state-by-state management of the
recreational fishery.
Regional management could require that different measures be
implemented in the three regions along the coast. As an example, the
fishing mortality reduction strategy in Amendment 2 called for a
reduction of 47 percent in the first 3 years of implementation. The
resulting coastwide management measures included a 14-inch (35.6-cm)
minimum fish size, a 3-fish possession limit and no closed season on a
coastwide basis. Had the fishing mortality reduction strategy been
implemented in subregions with the same size limit and season, the
possession limit would have been two from Maine to Connecticut, two in
the states from New York to Delaware, and six from Maryland to North
Carolina.
A state-by-state system would allocate recreational quota to each
state. Each state would then be required to develop management measures
to ensure that the harvest limit would not be exceeded for that state.
7. Summer Flounder Bycatch in the Sea Scallop Fishery
Although scallop dredges account for approximately 1 percent of the
summer flounder landings, they are the second most important gear in
the commercial summer flounder fishery (after otter trawls). The
scallop fishery is currently managed under the Atlantic Sea Scallop
FMP, which placed a moratorium on the entry of additional vessels into
the sea scallop fishery and imposed an effort limitation system.
Under the Summer Flounder FMP, sea scallop fishermen, if they
qualify for a permit, may land all the summer flounder they catch, as
long as they meet the minimum fish size limit and comply with the
applicable state trip limits or closures. However, the summer flounder
FMP and implementing regulations provide that when a state's commercial
quota has been taken, no
[[Page 18797]]
commercial vessels may land summer flounder. The issue arises then, of
whether sea scallop fishermen should be allowed to land their bycatch
without regard to state summer flounder trip limits or closures, so
long as the flounder meet the minimum fish size limit.
8. Bycatch Allowance
The summer flounder FMP provides that only vessels with moratorium
permits may land summer flounder for sale. All other vessels must
comply with the recreational seasons, size limits, and possession
limits. The issue for scoping is whether commercial vessels that did
not qualify for moratorium permits should be allowed to land for sale a
specified amount of summer flounder caught as bycatch in fisheries
directed at other species.
9. De Minimis Status for States
The Summer Flounder FMP is a joint plan prepared under both the
Magnuson Fishery Conservation and Management Act of 1976, as amended,
and the Atlantic Coastal Fisheries Cooperative Management Act (ACFCMA).
Under ACFCMA, if a state does not implement measures required by an
FMP, the Federal Government may impose a moratorium on landing the
species covered by the FMP in that state.
In the case of summer flounder, several states, e.g., Maine, New
Hampshire, and Delaware, had historically very small, or de minimis,
commercial fisheries and, therefore, received very small quota
allocations. A question for resolution under Amendment 7 is whether
these states should be required to impose a full array of management
measures for what could be a bycatch fishery.
This issue is essentially an Atlantic States Marine Fisheries
Commission (ASMFC) concern, because the Director, Northeast Region,
NMFS, must ensure no landing of summer flounder by federally permitted
vessels once a state's quota has been landed. The Federal minimum fish
size limit would apply to summer flounder in commerce. Federally
permitted vessels would be required to use the appropriate minimum cod
end on otter trawl nets, which is the management measure established by
the FMP.
Several states also have de minimis landings in the recreational
sector. It must be determined whether adequate conservation reasons
exist to incur the governmental costs associated with preparing and
implementing regulations. The state-by-state distribution of the 1989
summer flounder recreational catch is shown in Table 2 below.
Table 2.--Estimated Total Recreational Catch of All Species and Summer
Flounder (SF), Maine to North Carolina, 1989
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total catch SF catch State SF State SF
----------------------------- catch as catch as
percent percent
of coast of state
State SF catch total
(lb) (lb) ----------- catch
----------
% %
------------------------------------------------------------------------
ME................... 2,206,420 ........... ......... .........
NH................... 1,765,093 6,360 0.2 0.4
MA................... 14,137,658 26,122 0.9 0.2
RI................... 4,984,989 120,842 4.3 2.4
CT................... 5,908,942 33,875 1.2 0.6
NY................... 20,114,161 449,865 16.0 2.2
NJ................... 17,176,916 651,288 23.2 3.8
DE................... 4,371,203 143,750 5.1 3.3
MD................... 12,791,667 471,839 16.8 3.7
VA................... 20,127,089 527,566 18.8 2.6
NC................... 16,852,753 372,652 13.3 2.2
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: Unpublished NMFS Data.
(Table originally appeared as Table 42 in Amendment 2 to the Summer
Flounder Fishery Management Plan)
10. Summer Flounder Landings by Vessels Without Federal Summer Flounder
Permits
A better reporting system must be developed for summer flounder
caught in state waters. Currently, vessels that land summer flounder
caught in state waters are not required to have Federal permits, and
therefore, are not required to file Federal logbook reports. In
addition, some dealers handle only summer flounder caught in state
waters and are thus also not subject to the Federal permitting and
reporting requirements.
The commercial quota, however, applies to all summer flounder
caught for sale, regardless of where caught. The states must,
therefore, implement a reporting system to account for the summer
flounder caught in state waters.
11. In-Season Quota Adjustments
The summer flounder FMP allows quotas to be set once a year and to
take effect January 1. It may be desirable to change quotas during the
year as new information becomes available. This may create uncertainty
in the industry, however, and further complicate the quota setting
process.
12. Quota Setting Process
The annual quota setting process would be more clearly defined
under the alternative proposed in Amendment 7. The summer flounder FMP
contains fishing mortality rate targets, factors to be considered in
setting the quotas, and a process for the Council to follow in setting
the quotas. The FMP does not discuss the limits that may be placed on
the Council's discretion in setting the quotas, specifically the
probability of achieving the target fishing mortality rates. This
alternative would establish guidelines to be used by the Council when
it sets annual quotas.
13. Fishing Mortality Rate Reduction Strategy
The current fishing mortality rate reduction strategy, incorporated
in Amendment 2, called for a reduction in fishing mortality (F) to 0.53
during the first year that Amendment 2 was in
[[Page 18798]]
effect (1993). That rate was to remain constant for a total of three
years (1993-95). In 1996, the fishing mortality rate will be reduced to
Fmax (F = 0.23) and remain constant at that level.
Although the fishing mortality reduction program has had some
success, the poor 1993 year class will significantly reduce the
allowable catch in 1996 in order to meet the fishing mortality rate
target. This reduction may have significant negative impact on the
fisheries. Therefore, it might be appropriate to readjust the fishing
mortality rate reduction strategy in order to reduce the severity of
the 1996 reduction.
For example, an alternative strategy could set the fishing
mortality rate for 1996 at 0.38, which is halfway between the 1995
target F (0.53) and 0.23. Based on the information provided by the
latest stock assessment, this intermediate reduction could allow for a
1996 quota that was approximately 50 percent larger than the one
associated with the current strategy (i.e., an F of 0.23). However,
this increase in quota would have a slight affect on the spawning
stock; stock numbers would only be reduced by 10 percent in 1997
relative to the stock size associated with the current reduction
strategy.
Current Management Objectives. (Part of scoping is the possible
reevaluation of the existing objectives). The objectives of the FMP are
to:
1. Reduce fishing mortality in the summer flounder fishery to
assure that overfishing does not occur.
2. Reduce fishing mortality on immature summer flounder to increase
spawning stock biomass.
3. Improve the yield from the fishery.
4. Promote compatible management regulations between state and
Federal jurisdictions.
5. Promote uniform and effective enforcement of regulations.
6. Minimize regulations to achieve the management objectives stated
above.
Commercial Fishery Management Measures. Possible management
measures for the commercial fishery include: Minimum and/or maximum
fish size, minimum mesh size, closed seasons, quotas (including
adjustment among states), moratorium on vessels, ITQs, trip limits,
permit limits, and gear restrictions and limits.
Recreational Fishery Management Measures. Possible management
measures for the summer flounder recreational fishery include: Minimum
and/or maximum fish size, maximum possession limit, closed seasons,
closed areas, gear restrictions and limits, quotas (including
adjustments among states), and restrictions on the ability to sell
recreationally caught fish.
Possible management measures for the summer flounder fishery that
carries recreational fishermen for hire include: Minimum and/or maximum
fish size, maximum possession limit, closed seasons, closed areas, gear
restrictions and limits, quotas (including adjustment among states),
and restrictions on the ability to sell recreationally caught fish.
Any measures that are implemented under Amendment 7 would most
likely be included in the summer flounder framework. The framework
allows the Monitoring Committee, made up of representatives of the
three Councils, ASMFC, and NMFS, to review annually the condition of
the resource and fishery and recommend adjustments to the measures
(e.g., possession limit, quota, etc.) to achieve the desired goals.
Permitting and Reporting. It is not anticipated that the permitting
and reporting provisions of the current FMP will be changed as a result
of this Amendment.
Authority: 16 U.S.C. 1801 et seq.
Dated: April 7, 1995.
Richard H. Schaefer,
Director of Office of Fisheries Conservation and Management, National
Marine Fisheries Service.
[FR Doc. 95-9082 Filed 4-10-95; 9:16 am]
BILLING CODE 3510-22-W
