New Rush For Fish Licenses

A two-year moratorium on new commercial fishing licenses for lobstering and fin-fishing in New York State ended on June 30, prompting a flood of applications: 382 had been filed as of Tuesday and 500 were expected by press time.

The predicted landslide of applications has prompted an angry response from the industry, from the Marine Re sourc es Advisory Council, and from State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., who represents the South Fork.

One official of the State Department of Environmental Conservation said the rush for licenses was "like a half-price sale at the Farmers Market."

Outraged Chorus

The moratorium was imposed in 1995 on fin fish licenses, with the exception of striped bass and fluke (summer flounder), as well as on lobstering licenses and nonresident permits for lobstering.

Mr. Thiele joined the chorus of outraged members of the commercial and recreational fishing industries in blaming Assemblyman Richard L. Brodsky of Elmsford, chairman of the Assembly's Environmental Conservation Committee, and the Assembly's Democratic majority for not backing legislation that would have imposed a cap on the number of new fishing licenses or extended the moratorium for another year.

The Senate already had approved a bill sponsored by Owen Johnson of Babylon to put a cap on licenses at 1996 levels for three years. The idea was that the complicated licensing issues needed prolonged study.

But the bill failed to get to the floor of the Assembly. As a result there is no longer any limit on the number of food-fish or lobster licenses that can be issued.

D.E.C. Request

The moratorium was imposed at the request of the D.E.C. as part of an effort to impose a fisheries management policy called limited entry, that is, limiting the number of persons who have access to the resource. Summer flounder and striped bass are regulated under separate legislation and already had limits on the number of people who could obtain licenses.

Based on an agency report, the moratorium also was meant to help develop criteria to define who would be classified as engaged in commercial fishing, such as how much of an individual's income was derived from it. An agency spokesman said the D.E.C. had hoped the Legislature would cap licenses at 1995 levels.

Unthinkable even a decade ago, limited entry has become accepted by commercial fishermen as the most efficient way to prevent overfishing.

Blaming Brodsky

The Marine Resources Advisory Council, a state-appointed group representing commercial and recreational fishing as well as environmental and government groups, places blame on Mr. Brodsky, but he and others blame the D.E.C. itself.

"Brodsky is irresponsible in the extreme. He has really hurt the commercial fishermen of New York," Arnold Leo, secretary of the East Hampton Town Baymen's Association, said yesterday.

Mr. Leo, who chaired a committee of the Advisory Council working to define licensing criteria, said the D.E.C. had proposed increasing li cense fees as much as three times more than his committee had recommended. The fees now are $50 for lobster licenses and $100 for food fish licenses. The Senate bill had reduced these fees.

Mr. Brodsky also opposed the fee increases, according to Bill Wise, chairman of the Advisory Council. Moreover, Mr. Brodsky also was said to believe that placing caps on access to fisheries might be unconstitutional, although other states, and indeed the Federal Government, have been using them to manage fisheries for some years. Mr. Brodsky also did not champion a compromise bill that would have kept the moratorium in place for another year.

Not Too Late

The issue is not a simple one. Many inside and outside the commercial fisheries saw the moratorium as the first step in a longer process to legislate limited entry. While the concept of limited entry has been accepted by the industry as a valid conservation measure, no one yet had come up with acceptable criteria for who would be allowed to remain in commercial fishing and who would be locked out.

"If you're above capacity now and you add 500 more boats to the fishery, what do you think that's going to do to the fishing industry and to the ecosystem?" an angry Mr. Thiele said last week.

"We're interested in having this matter resolved," said Jennifer Post, a D.E.C. spokeswoman, who added that the agency would like to see Senator Johnson's bill approved by the Assembly.

Assemblyman Thiele said it was not too late for the Legislature to pass an extension to the moratorium, if nothing else, before legislators leave on vacation in a few weeks.

(An editorial to that effect appears in this issue.)