A group of watermen say the state, not they, is to blame for the poor health of the Chesapeake Bay. FILE/Newport News Daily Press Visit the Photo Place

Watermen might sue state over dirty Bay

Watermen weighing lawsuit against state over failure to clean up Chesapeake Bay

BY FRANK DELANO

Date published: 4/11/2008

BY FRANK DELANO

Dispossessed of their livelihood, a group of Northern Neck and Middle Peninsula watermen is mulling legal action against state agencies for failing to clean up the Chesapeake Bay.

Virginia faces a 2010 deadline to improve the quality of waters that once produced a bounty of oysters, crabs and fish and supported a thriving seafood industry. By all measures, the improvement will not occur, leaving the state open to federal intervention.

"What you want is for the government to do its job and get you a clean Bay, so you can harvest your crabs and make a living," White Stone attorney Lee Anne Washington told about 40 members of the Virginia Waterman's Association in Kilmarnock Wednesday night.

"There comes a time when you've got to play hardball with state and local officials," said Kelly V. Place, a commercial fisherman and waterman advocate from Williamsburg.

Those officials, said VWA Vice President Ken Smith, "are now squirming to come up with excuses why they're not enforcing the law."

"The watermen are being blamed for things that are somebody else's fault," said retired scientist Lynton Land of Northumberland County.

Land said it has been known for many years that nitrogen discharges from farms, lawns and sewage-treatment plants are the primary cause of the Bay's decline. The nutrients feed algae that degrade water quality, he said.

In March, the Virginia Marine Resources Commission angered crab fishermen by adopting tighter restrictions to stem crab declines. VMRC will likely impose additional crab limits at its meeting April 22.

"What VMRC has been doing has not been working. Why do they think new regulations are going to work?" said attorney Washington, who has volunteered to help the watermen find avenues of redress, including a possible lawsuit against the state.

"VMRC has regulated us for the past 15 years. Every year we get new regulations. Do you think it's right for VMRC to drive us out of the water?" said VWA President Dale Taylor.

The governors of Virginia and Maryland will meet next week in Colonial Beach for briefings on the the plummeting population of blue crabs in the Chesapeake Bay. Crab populations in the Bay have dropped to historic lows. Govs. Tim Kaine and Martin O'Malley will hear from marine scientists about reasons for the crab decline and from fishery and other regulators on proposed remedies to reverse it, John Bull of the Virginia Marine Resources Commission said yesterday. The meeting will be at 3 p.m. Tuesday at the Potomac River Fisheries Commission on Taylor Street, near the shore that forms the boundary between Maryland and Virginia, Bull said.

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Date published: 4/11/2008