For Release: Monday, June 23, 2008
State Sues over Flawed, Outdated Fluke Quotas
New York Saddled with Disproportionate Burden Under Federal System; One Bay, Two Drastically Different Catch Limits
Saying federal officials relied on flawed, outdated and scientifically questionable data, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) today sued to overturn fishing restrictions on summer flounder, a popular marine fish also known as fluke.
DEC filed suit against the U.S. Commerce Department, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Marine Fisheries Service, claiming the agencies used defective information to impose fluke harvest quotas on New York for the 2008 season. The lawsuit claims that the agencies used flawed data from one fishing season (1998) to set the baseline for fluke limits without considering recent significant changes in the fluke population and fishing patterns. Further, because of flaws in the quota system, New York is arbitrarily saddled with a disproportionate burden of the federal plan for the fluke's recovery. For instance, an angler on the New York side of Raritan Bay can land four fluke per day that must be at least 20.5 inches long while someone on the New Jersey side of the bay can land eight fish that only have to be 18 inches long.
"The quota system is based on flawed science and obsolete data and has resulted in grossly inequitable harvest limits," DEC Commissioner Pete Grannis said. "New York favors a uniform, coast-wide approach to fluke management that is both equitable and more likely to foster the recovery of the species."
Fluke are one of the most sought-after commercial and recreational fish along the Atlantic Coast, from Florida to Nova Scotia. The federal Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act requires that the fluke stock must by rebuilt by 2013. Accordingly, the U.S. Secretary of Commerce, acting through the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), ultimately sets rules for fluke management. For nearly a decade, NMFS has been setting quotas based on just one year's (1998) worth of data from recreational fishermen.
The lawsuit points out that the 1998 survey has been criticized as a "poor tool" for managing the fishery by both NMFS professionals and outside experts. It also notes that there is evidence that fluke numbers have increased steadily in the last decade and that the population generally has shifted north.
In 2007, seven of the nine states in the management plan exceeded their fluke quotas - some by much greater numbers than New York. (That year, DEC took the unprecedented step of closing the fluke season early due to concerns that New York would exceed its quota.) However, when federal officials set the 2008 limits, the lawsuit claims that federal officials unfairly applied a new management adjustment, forcing New York to reduce its fluke harvest an additional 34 percent - far more than any other state. Virginia's 9 percent reduction was second highest, followed by New Jersey at 4 percent. Four states had no reduction. Federal law requires that the burden of the recovery plan should be shared equally among states.
To meet its 2008 limits, New York will have to impose "the most stringent size and bag limits in the history of the recreational (fluke) fishery, even as the summer flounder has been recovering," the lawsuit states.
The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. Commissioner Grannis has asked the court to vacate the 2008 fluke quotas and direct federal agencies to impose uniform, coast-wide limits for fluke harvest. The state Attorney General's Office filed the lawsuit on behalf of DEC.
