Virginia's disaster aid would buy crab licenses from watermen

Virginia wants to spend some of its $10 million in federal disaster aid to buy back licenses from watermen who would volunteer to no longer catch blue crabs from the Chesapeake Bay.

The buyout option is one part of a larger state plan, described this week by state officials, to restore sagging crab stocks in the Bay and use federal money made available this year after the U.S. Commerce Department declared the crab fishery a federal disaster.

The department has not released any of the aid yet, mostly because Virginia has not completed its required plan on how it intends to use as much as $10 million over the next three years.

Maryland, which also will receive $10 million in disaster relief, already has turned in its plan, according to federal officials. It also has set aside $3 million in state money to put watermen to work. Most are conducting state environmental projects on the Bay.

Virginia, too, is dipping into state funds, authorizing up to $1 million to pay more than 50 watermen to trawl the Bay in search of abandoned traps that still catch and kill crabs.

John Bull, a spokesman for the Virginia Marine Resources Commission, said the state expects to be reimbursed when federal aid arrives, probably early next year.

The commission had previously said it could not afford to tap state coffers. But "we made a command decision that we needed to get our program up and going," Bull said.

By reallocating dollars in recent weeks in the state Waterways Improvement Fund, Bull said, the commission has purchased side-scanning radars, installed the equipment onto watermen's boats, trained them on how to use the devices, and turned them loose in search of lost traps, also known as ghost pots.

The state is paying 58 watermen $300 per day and covering their fuel costs, too. Under the program, the watermen can work up to 50 days per year. They must photograph all ghost pots they collect and dispose of, Bull said. Most watermen in the work program are crab dredgers. The state this year banned such dredging, which involves scraping crabs - most of them females - from the Bay's bottom during winter months.

At least one dredger, Robert Hollowell, a Norfolk resident who has crabbed this way for 30 years, chose to stay home.

"I could have gotten in my boat and rode around, but I didn't want to do that," Hollowell said Wednesday. "It's a waste of taxpayers' money, and they need to be held accountable for where all that money goes."

But Ken Smith, president of the Virginia State Waterman's Association, said the program is helping the Bay, scientists and fishermen struggling to make ends meet.

"I had been very skeptical," Smith said, "but it's actually working pretty good. They're getting up pots, working with the scientists. It's a win-win."

L. Preston Bryant, the state secretary of natural resources, said the buy back initiative will be for active and unused, or latent, licenses. No one will force the watermen to give up their licenses, he said. Only those who volunteer will participate in what Bryant described as an "auction-based" system.

"That is, the state will allocate a certain amount of money for the buy back program, and the market will determine how many licenses the fund will accommodate," Bryant wrote in an e-mail this week.

When asked why it has taken Virginia so long to submit its relief plan to the Commerce Department and obtain federal aid, Bryant defended the state's approach.

"We have taken care to work with our watermen, discuss the matter with legislators, and work with our crab advisory committee," he wrote. "That level of outreach takes a little bit of time."

Bryant and others noted that other initiatives will be included in the plan. A scientific study of crab pots will be funded, for example, and the state is looking to involve watermen in various environmental research projects, such as planting sea grasses at various points in the Bay come springtime.

All money, though, will be funneled through watermen, officials said. Workers in crab packing houses and merchants suffering for lack of crabs to sell are not likely to receive aid, said Bull, the marine commission spokesman.

"We're designing this as a bridge, for doing the necessary construction work to restore crab stocks in the Bay so we can have a sustainable crab fishery," Bull said.

Citing scientific estimates, he said such a recovery could take two to three years.

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