New York sues NOAA and NMFS for bigger share of summer flounder quota

[Bassknuckles]

New York sues NOAA for bigger share of summer flounder quota

By Jason Huffman Oct. 15, 2019 15:41 in the undercurrent news

The state of New York has filed a federal lawsuit against the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) looking to challenge the 2020-20201 quota allocated in relation to the commercial fluke (summer flounder) fishery.

In the lawsuit, filed Oct. 10 in the US Southern District of New York, Basil Seggos, commissioner of the state's Department of Environmental Conservation, charges NMFS, NOAA and also the parent US agency, the Department of Commerce, with violating the Magnuson Stevens Act and Administrative Procedures Act.

New York's lawsuit describes how New York's annual fluke quota is based on a state-by-state allocation formula that was adopted by NMFS in 1993, using landings data from 1980-1989. In the 1980s, the fluke population had been fished to low levels and was centered south of its present location, the state says. The species' population has since recovered and migrated northward due, in part, to rising water temperatures from climate change.

However, when NMFS, on Oct. 9, issued its final rule to divvy up how much of the total 11.5 million pounds of fluke quota it would allow each state during the 2020-2021 commercial fishing season, it gave just 7.6% to New York, while giving North Carolina 27.4% and Virginia 21.3%, the 33-page complaint says.

"Boats from North Carolina and Virginia -- states which have significantly larger quotas than New York predicated on the now obsolete landings data derived from the vastly different fishery of the 1980s -- routinely travel hundreds of miles to waters off Long Island, fish, and then return hundreds of miles back to land their catch," the state advises.

 

[george]

I could be wrong but I think they tried this last year.