If you’ve been involved in fisheries management very long,
you’ve gotten used to politicians proposing dumb things at the behest of
various constituent groups.
For the past year or two, I figured that H.R. 3094,
which would strip the National Marine Fisheries Service of authority to manage
red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico and hand all management responsibilities over
to the states, was clearly leading the idiots’ parade.
However, somehow one bill slipped past me this summer, even
though it was proposed by a local congressman, and would affect an important fishery right here where I live on Long Island.
And when it comes to stupid, the local bill is head and shoulders above
any of the proposed red snapper legislation.
The bill in question is H.R.
3070, introduced on July 15 of this year by Representative Lee Zeldin, a
freshman Republican congressman who represents New York’s 1st
Congressional District, which includes the port of Montauk along with the rest
of Long Island’s East End.
Representative Zeldin entitled the bill the “EEZ
Clarification Act” and claims that its purpose is
“To clarify that for purposes of all Federal laws governing
marine fisheries management, the landward boundary of the exclusive economic
zone between areas south of Montauk, New York and Point Judith, Rhode Island,
and for other purposes.
As far as I can tell, the landward boundary of the EEZ south
of New York and Rhode Island is already pretty clear; it’s a line three miles
offshore, which is sharply delineated on both the charts prepared by NOAA and
on every electronic chart that a mariner can plug into his or her GPS. There’s not a lot of room for confusion.
However, there is room for discontent, because the waters
off Block Island are often filled with striped bass, and striped bass may not
be fished for, nor even possessed, in the EEZ. And Block Island is more than six miles from
the nearest landmass, meaning that it is surrounded by federal waters.
Originally, that made it impossible for fishermen—and particularly
Montauk charter and party boats—sailing from off-island ports to bring back
striped bass caught off Block Island.
NMFS long ago acknowledged the problem, and created a “transit zone”
that permitted vessels to return to port with bass caught in the state waters
surrounding the island.
However, that wasn’t enough for charter boats sailing out of
Montauk, which wanted to be able to fish in federal waters as well. Their plight wasn’t really any different from
that of their counterparts in Massachusetts, Virginia or North Carolina, all of
whom lost access to areas that they once fished in the EEZ. Even so, the Montauk charter boats have long sought
federal legislation that would give them their way.
The latest expression of that effort came on December 7,
when the House Natural Resources Committee held a field hearing in Riverhead,
here on Long Island. There, Captain Joe
McBride, as Legislative Representative for the Montauk Boatmen and Captains
Association, requested that Congress adopt H.R. 3070 which, by changing the
boundaries of the EEZ, would allow the Montauk boats to fish in waters
currently closed to striped bass angling.
Speaking
for his Association, Capt. McBride noted, in part, that
“We have a long standing problem with the Transit Zone
between Block Island, RI and Montauk Point, NY, and between Block Island and
Point Judith, RI. The unintended
consequences of this restriction is that New York State and Rhode Island have
lost over 60% of their historical striped bass fishing areas in the Transit Zone.
“This anomaly exists only in this area because of the
extended distance between Montauk Point, NY to Block Island, and is the same
for Point Judith to Block Island. The
distance from Block Island to Montauk Point or Point Judith is approximately 15
miles. We having [sic] been trying to
for many years to correct this problem with no success…”
Congressman Zeldin, who attended
the hearing, had already introduced H.R. 3070 in an effort to fix Capt. McBride’s
problem. In doing so, he would create
far more problems that exist already.
That’s because H.R. 3070 would
change the boundaries of the EEZ surrounding Block Island so that
“(1) the landward boundary of the exclusive economic zone
between the area south of Montauk, New York, and the area south of Point
Judith, Rhode Island, shall be considered to be a continuous line running
(A) from
a point running 3 miles south of the southernmost point of Montauk to a point 3
miles south of the southernmost point of Block Island, Rhode Island, and
(B) from
such point 3 miles south of the southernmost point of Block Island, Rhode
Island, to a point 3 miles south of the southernmost point of Point Judith…”
If you look at a chart—which,
apparently, Congressman Zeldin never did—you’ll note that the southernmost point
on Block Island is Black Rock Point, which lies at approximately 41. 08.8’
N, 071. 35.6’ W. Depending on
whether you measure the southernmost point on Point Judith from the
southernmost point of the mainland or the southernmost point on the jetty
extending therefrom, you get either 41. 21.5’ N 071. 28.8’W
or 41. 21.4’ N 071. 29.5’ W, respectively, for that.
A point 3 miles south of Black
Rock Point, where Rep. Zeldin would anchor one leg of the EEZ, would be located
at 41. 11.8 N 071. 35.6’ W. That leg would run to a point 3 miles south
of Point Judith, at either 41. 24.5’ N 071. 28.8’ W or 41.
24.4’ N 071. 29.5’ W.
If you then take a ruler and draw
a line from the point 3 miles south of Black Rock Point to either of the points
3 miles south of Point Judith, you’ll find that Rep. Zeldin would have the EEZ
run straight through Block Island, cutting off the southeast corner
from roughly Mohegan Bluffs to somewhere just south of Old Harbor.
Yes, if Rep. Zeldin got his way, a
surfcaster standing with his boots dry on shore, who casts a plug toward the
rocks off Southeast Point, would be illegally fishing for stripers in the EEZ!
But that’s probably the sort of
legislation that we can expect from a
congressman who supports H.R. 1335, a bill that would tear the heart out of
the most successful fisheries law in the world.
Or of someone who, as
a state legislator, was proud of the fact that he repealed New York’s salt
water fishing license, leaving the state’s fisheries regulators without
enough money to do their jobs.
As I said when I began, I’ve been
around fisheries politics long enough that there is little left to surprise me.
But sometimes, something does.
Such as a
federal legislator who say that the finest fisheries conservation and
management law ever written was “arbitrary”—and then arbitrarily draws
lines in the ocean, without first consulting a chart.
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