If you want the "POTS OFF THE REEFS" (can I get a Sticky?)

[njdiver]

You gotta be at the NJ Senate Environment Committee meeting October 4th. Tentatively slated for Trenton. If you call the Chairman of the Committee Senator Smith's office we might be able to get the meeting moved closer to the shore. Here's the number:

(732) 752-0770

Ask that the meeting be moved closer to the ocean! The enviros got their Ocean Council meeting moved to Monmouth Univeristy. Ask that we be given the same courtesy!

[Luna Sea 5]

 

[Hotrod]

I can make this

With Video Camera in hand

[njdiver]

Called Senator Smith's office, the pleasant young lady informed me that they usually have only one meeting in the summer outside of Trenton. So, floor three of the State Annex bldg it is! Stay tuned for exact room location and time!

Please do call however. The more they hear from us the better our chances!

[njdiver]

Per another phone call to Senator Smith's office the meeting will be held at the State House Annex, Trenton, NJ, Committee Room 10, 3rd Floor.

Thursday, October 4th, 10:00 AM!

[njdiver]

Senate Environment

Thursday, October 04, 2007 - 10:00 AM Meeting - Committee Room 10, Third Floor, State House Annex, Trenton, NJ

S2635 Fishing gear on artificial reefs-proh.

S2677 Forest stewardship-estab. Discussion Only

[Capt. Ed]

Hi NJDiver,

Thanks for all the posts about such matters. I have made my calls. I think this is one we can win (if win is the right word).

Thanks for all the contributions!

Best wishes,

Capt. Ed

[njdiver]

New date for Senate Environment meeting, October 18, same location and time. I will post again when I get confirmation from Senator Smith's office.

Word is that they could not get a quorum.

[wb]

Word is that they could not get a quorum.

Prolly all on vacation....

[njdiver]

The Senate Environment Committee will meet on Thursday, October 18, 2007 at 9:00 AM in Committee Room 10, Third Floor, State House Annex, Trenton, New Jersey.

The following bill will be considered:

S-2635

McCullough/Asselta

Prohibits the use of certain fishing gear on artificial reefs.



Note the Early start time!

[IrishAyes]

Thanks for the update, NJDiver.   

[njdiver]

Senate Environment

Thursday, October 18, 2007 - 9:00 AM

Meeting - Committee Room 10, Third Floor, State House Annex, Trenton, NJ


Bill         Abstract
S2635 Fishing gear on artificial reefs-proh.



NEW JERSEY LEGISLATIVE CALENDAR

Office of Legislative Services -- Office of Public Information
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2007

Senate Environment Meeting 9:00 AM
Committee Room 10, 3rd Floor, State House Annex, Trenton, NJ
Chair: Sen. Smith, Bob
S2635 [McCullough, James J./Asselta, Nicholas+2], Fishing gear on artificial reefs-proh.



Note the early start time!

[njdiver]

Plan to ban lobster, fish traps on N.J. artificial reefs advances

Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 10/18/07
BY TOM BALDWIN
GANNETT STATE BUREAU
TRENTON -- Score one for sportfishing.

The state Senate Environment Committee today voted unanimously to advance legislation that, if adopted, would ban the setting of lobster and fish traps on New Jersey's two offshore artificial reefs.

This is being done by commercial fishing boats, advocates for which argued today against the ban, saying the reefs are for the use of all.

"The reefs belong to everyone," said Jean Hollerbach, who said she has been
lobstering, with her 400 traps, out of Point Pleasant for 26 years.

Advocates for sportfishing groups said that setting the traps -- called "pots" -- on the reefs makes it impossible to build up the structures, reduces access for recreational fishing and tends to overfish the wildlife there.

The pots are connected by ropes to a float on the ocean's surface, and the
recreational interests said that too often they snagged their hooks on the ropes or the pots themselves.

"The reefs were designed for the average angler," said marine biologist Bill Figley of Manahawkin.

"It's a matter of fairness," said state Sen. Stephen Sweeny, D-Gloucester, a
co-sponsor of the proposal.

The bill now heads to Senate President Richard J. Codey, who will decide if it is to be given a vote by the full Senate. A companion measure exists in the Assembly, where no action has been taken.

Both chambers must OK their bills before the legislation is sent to Gov. Jon S. Corzine to either sign into law or send reject. The current legislative session ends in the second week of January.

State Sen. Bob Smith, D-Middlesex, who is chairman of the committee, said the ban would affect only the two reefs in New Jersey's three-mile territorial waters.

The two are Sandy Hook Reef, located less than two miles off Sea Bright, and the Axel Carlsen Reef, located about two miles off the Bay Head and Mantoloking beaches.

Smith said the bill calls for the state Department of Environmental Protection to ask the federal government to ban "potting" on 13 other reefs off the Jersey Shore located beyond Jersey waters.

The building of man-made reefs off Jersey's sandy ocean floor, begun in the 1980s, has been acclaimed for providing bountiful fish habitat.

Most East Coast states have banned potting on man-made reefs, North Carolina being the exception. Anywhere north of New York State, in New England, there is no issue because vast areas of the sea bottom there are rocky, requiring no man-made reefs.

Tom Baldwin: tbaldwi@gannett.com

http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071018/NEWS0301/71018034/1007/NEWS03

http://www.courierpostonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071018/NEWS01/71018037



MCCULLOUGH REEF PROTECTION BILL PASSES COMMITTEE TEST

By wmurray - October 18, 2007 - 12:24pm
Tags: McCullough, Reefs, Recreational fishermen,
Release Date: October 18, 2007


Legislation sponsored by Senator James J. McCullough, (R-2), which would prohibit setting commercial fishing pots or traps on any of New Jersey’s artificial reefs cleared the Senate Environment Committee unanimously today.
“New Jersey’s artificial reef program is an important economic and environmental benefit for all New Jersey residents bought and paid for, in a large part by recreational anglers,” McCullough stated. “When large commercial pots are placed on our artificial reefs it interferes with recreational fishing.”
New Jersey currently maintains 15 artificial reef sites located from 2 to 25 nautical miles offshore. This bill would prohibit, within the marine waters of the State, any person from using, leaving unattended, setting, or deploying fishing gear, other than rod-and-reel, hand line, spear, or recreational gig, within 100 feet of artificial reefs created under the Division of Fish and Wildlife’s artificial reef program. Violators would be subject to the penalties established for violations of the Marine Fisheries Management and Commercial Fisheries Act.
“Not only will the use of commercial pots or traps on our reefs deny their use to recreational anglers they very well may destroy the reefs they are monopolizing. The existing reef structures are vital to increasing the bio-mass and bio-diversity off of New Jersey’s shores,” McCullough concluded.

http://www.politicsnj.com/mccullough-reef-protection-bill-passes-committee-test-12926

[IrishAyes]

That is great news. 
However, it is only part of the equation.  Now we need the people who make the rules and regulations to get off of their derrieres and come up with some common sense regulations for our fisheries.  The ones they have in affect now are so outrageous they should be ashamed of themselves.

We can have to reefs open to us and it would be meaningless if we had nothing to legally catch.

[ped579]

 

[njdiver]

Fight demonstrates value of reefs

Recreational fishermen ask lawmakers to bar commercial gear

10/21/07
BY KIRK MOORE
STAFF WRITER

TRENTON - It's often said that the struggle over New Jersey's artificial reefs is something that fishermen describe, with disarming simplicity, as a "gear conflict." But there's a deeper conflict over history too.
That much was evident Thursday as the state Senate Environment Committee listened to advocates for recreational fishermen, divers and commercial fishermen recount the 24-year record of state-sponsored reef building, its financing, and who's benefited.
The Senate committee agreed to release bill S-2635 for a vote by the full Senate, opening the door for a ban on fish and lob¬ster traps on New Jersey artificial reefs. A similar measure is already awaiting an Assembly vote. Lobbyists close to the debate say it could be decided after the November general election.
Usually the Legislature is content to let specialists at the Department of Environmental Protection deal with the arcane science and Byzantine politics of managing ocean fisheries. But under intense pressure from recreational groups, lawmakers could intervene directly within weeks, as they have on other hot-button debates over commercial fishing for striped bass and menhaden.
At the Thursday hearing, senators heard Bill Figley, the retired coordinator of the state reef program and an East Coast guru on the subject of artificial fish havens, argue the program was always intended for hook-
and-line fishing only.
For 20 years New Jersey used federal Wallop-Breaux funds to build its reefs, drawn from tax revenue on recreational fishing equipment, "to increase fishing opportunities for recreational fisherman," Figley said.
By federal law, "Wallop-Breaux funds cannot be spent on commercial fishing projects,"
Figley told the Senate committee. But it's money well spent of the recreational side, said Figley and others who advocate banning commercial fish and lobster traps from the state's 15 reef sites.
Some 40 percent of marine fish caught by sport anglers come off New Jersey's reefs, fueling a $1.8 billion industry that's under pressure from catch restrictions on other key species like summer flounder, they said.
Commercial fishermen offered their own arithmetic, portraying themselves as surrogates for millions of New Jersey consumers who don't catch their own fish.
"The reefs were designed to benefit both the commercial fishing and recreational sec¬tors," said Denise Wagner, who with her husband Joe operates a trap boat. "We rely on these reefs for lobster and tog."
On the other side, recreational fishing groups feel a deep investment in the reefs, which they started building in the 1930s, long before the state Division of Fish and Wildlife took charge and made it a coast-wide project in the 1980s.  Now there's 14 million tons of material on the reefs, from obsolete ships to rock blasted out and barged from New York Harbor channels. Peter Grimbilas of the Point Pleasant Charter Boat Association said his group has raised more than $500,000 for reef projects over the years.
Commercial fishermen parsed the numbers their own way, arguing they and the general public have a stake in money from annual state budgets used for building reefs, from the Department of Environmental Protection's planning process to the Department of Corrections. Prisoners craft hollow, cast-concrete "reef balls," a kind of modular home for fish.
Seafood businesses, too, have cleaned up and donated old fishing boats to be sunk on reefs,
said Jeff Reichle, an owner of Lund's Fisheries in Cape May.
By next year, commercial trap fishermen need to switch from using floating polypropylene rope to new "sinking line," to meet federal rules for reducing accidental entanglements with sea turtles and marine mammals. Low-lying lines will reduce anglers' complaints about snagging their hooks on commercial gear, said Dan Cohen of Atlantic Capes Fisheries, another Cape May seafood company.
But neither that, nor the DEP's proposed May through October seasonal ban on traps, seems likely to achieve a compromise.
To lawmakers, the most convincing arguments seemed to come from Figley, who shaped the reef program, and says it was designed to provide sustainable fishing for rod-and-reel anglers within reasonable dis¬tances from New Jersey's ocean inlets.
But now, there's too much trapping on the reefs, Figley said. He told senators: "Special areas need special consideration. The reefs were designed for the average angler."
Nearly a quarter-century later after the state reef program started, older fishermen recalled discussions over where to place the reefs. Retired state conservation officer Ed Markowski, who's now president of the New Jersey Federation of  Sportmen's Clubs, said commercial fishermen in the early 1980s favored basing the sites on previously unproductive sea floor - a custom that harkens back to the 1800s when the state set aside areas for planting oysters.
One thing this controversy does is demonstrate what a tremendous biological and economic engine the reefs have become, say advocates on both sides. To this day, some doubters question whether reefs merely attract fish to be picked off. But Figley says studies clearly show reefs increase the productivity of typical, sandy Mid-Atlantic bottom by 1,000-fold.
In terms of biomass - the sheer weight of life on the sea floor as measured by biologists - that means the sunken ships, reef balls and rock host a half-ton of life for every pound of sand dollars, worms and sponges out on bare sand.
"The fact that so many people are fighting over artificial reefs today is testimony to the fact that our artificial reef network is so valuable," said Jack Fullmer of the New Jersey Council of Diving Clubs.

[ped579]

DUH!!!

[njdiver]

The vote is coming up. What is needed now are letters and phone calls to Senator Codey and Assemblyman Roberts to get the bills on the board list for the next sessions of their respective houses.

For S2356: An Act prohibiting the use of certain fishing gear on artificial reefs and supplementing P.L.1979, c.199 (C.23:2B-1 et seq.).


Senator
Richard J. Codey
(Senate President)

DISTRICT OFFICE ADDRESS:
449 Mount Pleasant Ave.
West Orange, NJ 07052

PHONE NUMBER:
(973) 731-6770



For A3986: An Act prohibiting the use of certain fishing gear on artificial reefs and supplementing P.L.1979, c.199 (C.23:2B-1 et seq.).


Assemblyman
Joseph J. Roberts Jr.
(General Assembly Speaker)


DISTRICT OFFICE ADDRESS:
Brooklawn Shopping Plaza
Route 130 & Browning Rd.
Brooklawn, NJ 08030

PHONE NUMBER:
(856) 742-7600

[njdiver]

From the December 5th Legislative Calendar:

MONDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2007

*SENATE SESSION 2:00 PM Senate Chambers
10:00 AM: Committees at the call of the President.
2:00 PM: Voting Session:

(Snip)
S2635 [McCullough, James J./Asselta, Nicholas+2], Fishing gear on artificial reefs-proh.
(Snip)

[IrishAyes]