With hurricane damage in Gulf, blue crabbers catch a break

Pushed by lawmakers from Virginia and Maryland, Congress has allocated $75 million to aid watermen and seafood merchants hit by "national fishery disasters" this year, including the Chesapeake Bay blue crab.

How that federal money is to be distributed, however, has not been determined, as the U.S. Commerce Department is weighing other disaster declarations in the Gulf of Mexico in the wake of hurricanes Ike and Gustav.

Chesapeake Bay watermen may also have to get in line with colleagues from other states where the government may declare more fishery disasters.

Pending requests include Florida (for sharks), Massachusetts (because of red tides that killed fish and shellfish), New York (for hard clams), Maine (for groundfish) and several Native American tribes on the West Coast (for sal-mon), said Monica Allen, a spokeswoman for the National Marine Fisheries Service.

"It's been pretty crazy around here," Allen said this week.

The $75 million will go into one big pool, Allen said, that then will be distributed to the states where a disaster has officially occurred.

It is the first time that Virginia has ever asked for such federal aid. North Carolina was allocated money for damage done to five fisheries, including crabs, following hurricanes Floyd and Dennis in 1999.

Allen and other officials estimated that this year's funds - either as low-interest loans or for work programs - will arrive in Virginia in another month or two.

An aide to U.S. Sen. Jim Webb, a Virginia Democrat, said he will likely send a letter asking the Commerce Department for about $20 million.

The disaster declaration stemmed from years of declining stocks of crabs in the Bay and a significant drive this year by Virginia and Maryland to curtail harvests in hope of sparking a recovery.

Since the spring, the Virginia Marine Resources Commission has imposed a slate of new regulations intended to cut catches of female crabs by 34 percent this year.

John Bull, a VMRC spokesman, said the commission and other state officials have only started laying out "broad-brush" ideas for how the disaster aid might be spent.

Chiefly, Bull said, the state "wants to help those hardest hit" by the crackdown, mentioning watermen on Tangier Island as the most likely to first receive aid. Island residents rely heavily on commercial fishing, mostly crabs, to make ends meet.

James Eskridge, the mayor of Tangier and a commercial crabber, said watermen would rather work than accept government aid. "But," he added, "if they're going to put us out of business, they better well pay us for it."

Virginia officials also would like to channel some federal funding to environmental restoration projects that watermen could help complete.

Bull mentioned projects such as planting aquatic sea grasses or removing abandoned crab pots as likely candidates. "They have boats and expertise on the water, and we need boats and their expertise," he said.

Scott Harper, (757) 446-2340, scott.harper@pilotonline.com