Although the Board set the 2026 TAC at its October 2025
meeting, future TACs, and the future of the Bay cap, were not yet established.
To help resolve that uncertainty, Virginia legislators have introduced four
bills addressing the menhaden resource, which range from the conservative to
the improvident ends of the spectrum.
The most conservative bill of the four is arguably House Bill 1048 (HB
1048), a very short bit of legislation which would outlaw all reduction fishing
for menhaden in Virginia’s portion of the Chesapeake Bay unless and until “the
Secretary of Natural and Historic Resources [determines] that research specific
to the Chesapeake Bay has demonstrated that the menhaden reduction fishery does
not negatively impact other fisheries or menhaden-dependent species…”
The bill strikes a precautionary posture, not closing the
door on reduction fishing within the Chesapeake Bay, but allowing it only if
research demonstrates that the reduction fishery has no negative impact on the
Bay’s other fisheries or other natural resources. In doing so, it seems
vulnerable to the same sort of criticism that Mr. Landry leveled against the
Board, as it specifically targets the reduction fishery, and does not apply the
same conditions to the menhaden bait fishery, even though that fishery, too,
might negatively impact other fisheries or “menhaden-dependent species” in
Virginia waters.
HR 1048 was referred to the Chesapeake Subcommittee of the
Virginia House Agriculture, Chesapeake, and Natural Resources Committee, which
unanimously voted to table the legislation, killing any chance that it might
have had of becoming law.
A second bill, House Bill 1049 (HB
1049), would allow the reduction industry to continue to fish in the Chesapeake
Bay, but would also direct Virginia’s Marine Resources Commission to “develop
and maintain a quota period management system” which would “ensure that the
removal of menhaden from the Chesapeake Bay is more evenly distributed
throughout the harvest season…to mitigate the negative impacts of concentrated,
high volume menhaden removals from the Bay.” HB 1049, if passed, would require
the Marine Resources Commission to either cap monthly reduction fleet harvest
at 15% of the Bay cap or to establish a “trimester system” that would see
one-third of the Bay cap harvested by the reduction fishery each trimester.
Should fishermen fail to harvest their full quota in any month/trimester, the
unharvested quota could be rolled over into the next period.
HB 1049 would also create an observer system, and require
that a “trained observer” be carried on at least 10% of all reduction fleet
trips “to document the composition and weight of the actual catch and…report
such documentation to the Commission.” The legislation neither defines the term
“trained observer” nor establishes who would pay for the observer’s training,
time, and services.
It also fails to create an exception to section
28.2-204C of the Code of Virginia, which states that “The information
collected or reported shall not be disclosed in any manner which would permit
identification of any person, firm, corporation or vessel, except when required
by court order…” Since the entire menhaden reduction fishery in the Chesapeake
Bay is conducted by Ocean Harvesters, any observer data related to the
reduction fishery’s landings, bycatch, and similar issues would be deemed
confidential and unavailable to the public.
HB 1049 has also reached a dead end. It, too, was referred
to the Chesapeake Subcommittee, which, on a vote of 7 in favor, 3 opposed,
recommended that the Agriculture, Chesapeake, and Natural Resources Committee
report the bill out of Committee and refer it to the House Appropriations
Committee. While the Subcommittee’s recommendation found unanimous approval,
the Appropriations Committee failed to approve the legislation.
HB 1048 and HB 1049 were almost certainly introduced in good
faith, and if passed, might well benefit the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem. Still,
the people and organizations that support those bills, and who say
things like, “We look forward to working with legislators…to chart a
sustainable, productive future for the Bay’s fisheries,” are engaging in a bit
of hypocrisy.
For while menhaden, like all of Virginia’s other regulated
marine fish species, are currently managed by the state’s Marine Resources
Commission, that wasn’t always the case. Until early 2020, the
Virginia legislature had retained management authority over Atlantic
menhaden, while delegating the management authority for all other marine
species to the Marine Resources Commission. That allowed legislators friendly
to the reduction fishery to block
menhaden conservation efforts, a situation that led
to a confrontation between the Virginia legislature and the ASMFC, and
ultimately between the legislature and the United States Secretary of Commerce,
after the ASMFC reduced the Bay cap from 87,216 to 51,000 mt in 2017, and the
legislature refused to make a corresponding change to Virginia law.
Conservation advocates were happy when the legislature
finally handed menhaden management over to the Marine Resources
Commission, with
one announcing, “Great news for menhaden! Today key committees in
Virginia’s Senate and House of Delegates passed bipartisan legislation to
transfer management of Virginia’s menhaden fishery from the General Assembly to
the Virginia Marine Resources Commission.”
But now that the Marine Resources Commission isn’t taking
the actions that the menhaden advocacy community is calling for, the same
people who once argued that the Commission, and not the legislature, should
have the authority to manage menhaden are reversing course and, like the
reduction industry in years past, are seeking to have the Virginia legislature
dictate menhaden management measures.
But not all of the recently-introduced menhaden bills are
seeking to restrict the reduction fishery. Senate Bill 474 (SB
474) would create an “Atlantic Menhaden Research Fund” (Fund). SB 474 also
provides that the Virginia Institute of Marine Science
shall utilize moneys from the Fund to produce research
relating to Atlantic menhaden necessary to inform a scientifically defensible
and ecologically meaningful harvest limit for Atlantic menhaden in the
Chesapeake Bay and an annual report summarizing such research…The report shall
address the seasonal abundance of Atlantic menhaden in the Chesapeake Bay; the
movement rates of Atlantic menhaden between the coast of the Atlantic Ocean and
the Chesapeake Bay; the impacts of predator demand, such as striped bass and
osprey, and predator consumption of Atlantic menhaden on the Atlantic menhaden
population; the spatial and temporal patterns of the Atlantic menhaden
commercial fishing efforts in the Chesapeake Bay, and the possibility of
localized depletion of Atlantic menhaden in the Chesapeake Bay. [formatting
omitted]
Unlike HB 1048 and HB 1049, which would immediately impose
restrictions on the reduction fishery, SB 474 would effectively defer any
management actions until sufficient research reveals the nature and extent of
management measures that would best conserve Atlantic menhaden in the
Chesapeake Bay. However, SB 474 shared a similar fate, with the Senate Finance
and Appropriations Committee voting unanimously to continue the bill to its
2027 session.
The fourth menhaden bill introduced in the Virginia
legislature the year is Senate Bill 414 (SB
414). Sponsored by a long-time advocate for the reduction fishery, it seeks to
avoid reductions in the menhaden TAC, and possible reductions in the Bay Cap,
by withdrawing Virginia from the ASMFC. There is a real likelihood that such
effort would be futile, and that even if Virginia withdrew from the ASMFC, the
language of the Atlantic
Coastal Fisheries Cooperative Management Act, which granted the ASMFC the
authority to enforce the provisions of its fishery management plans on Atlantic
Coast states, would
still compel Virginia to adhere to the terms of the menhaden
management plan. However, since SB 414 is more an expression of the reduction
industry’s pique rather than a bill that has any realistic chance of becoming
law, there is little reason to discuss it further. While it isn’t technically
dead yet, the Senate Privileges and Elections Committee, on an 11 to 3 vote,
chose to refer it to the Finance and Appropriations Committee, where it met the
same fate as SB 474, a unanimous vote to continue the bill to the 2027 session.
Thus, none of the four menhaden bills introduced in the
Virginia legislature will become law in 2026, as state legislators struggle to
address the issues surrounding the menhaden reduction fishery in the Chesapeake
Bay.
Despite all of the meetings that have been held, and all of
the management measures that have been put in place, menhaden management in the
Chesapeake Bay remains a contentious, yet poorly understood, issue. The ASMFC
is seeking a way to maintain the menhaden population, in both the ocean and the
Chesapeake Bay, at a level that will provide enough forage for predatory fish,
birds, and marine mammals, without causing unnecessary harm to the fishing
industry. The Virginia legislature, more focused on menhaden within the
Chesapeake Bay, cannot agree on a clear policy, with some members favoring
conservative menhaden management, and others favoring the menhaden fishing
industry.
It will probably take years before all of the questions are
fully resolved. One can only hope that when that resolution comes, it is based
on science and good data, and not on mere emotion, and that concerns about
industry’s short-term cash flows are not elevated above the health and
long-term sustainability of the menhaden resource.
-----
This essay first appeared in “From the Waterfront,” the blog
of the Marine Fish Conservation Network, which can be found at
http://conservefish.org/blog/
No comments:
Post a Comment