[Federal Register Volume 64, Number 83 (Friday, April 30, 1999)]
[Proposed Rules]
[Pages 23260-23261]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 99-10903]


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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

50 CFR Part 648

[I.D. 041599B]


Fisheries of the Northeastern United States; Atlantic Bluefish 
Fishery

AGENCY: National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and 
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Commerce.

ACTION: Notice of availability of Amendment 1 to the Fishery Management 
Plan for Atlantic Bluefish (FMP); request for comments.

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SUMMARY: NMFS announces that the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management 
Council (Council) has submitted Amendment 1 to the Atlantic Bluefish 
FMP for Secretarial review and is requesting comments from the public. 
Amendment 1 would establish new management measures to control fishing 
mortality on Atlantic bluefish (bluefish) while addressing the new 
requirements of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and 
Management Act (Magnuson-Stevens Act), as amended by the Sustainable 
Fisheries Act (SFA). The intent of Amendment 1 is to eliminate 
overfishing and rebuild the Atlantic bluefish stock.

DATES: Comments must be received on or before June 29, 1999.

ADDRESSES: Send comments to Jon C. Rittgers, Acting Regional 
Administrator, National Marine Fisheries Service, Northeast Regional 
Office, One Blackburn Drive, Gloucester, Massachusetts 01930-3799. Mark 
the outside of the envelope: ``Comments on Amendment 1 to the Atlantic 
Bluefish Plan.''
    Copies of Amendment 1, including the final environmental impact 
statement and regulatory impact review, are available from Daniel 
Furlong, Executive Director, Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council, 
Room 2115 Federal Building, 300 S. New Street, Dover, DE 19904-6790.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Myles Raizin, Fishery Policy Analyst, 
978-281-9104.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Amendment 1 would: revise the overfishing 
definition for Atlantic bluefish; implement a 9-year stock rebuilding 
schedule based on a staggered reduction of fishing mortality rate (F); 
specify a commercial quota with state allocations and a coastwide 
recreational harvest limit for the first year of the rebuilding 
schedule; implement permit and reporting requirements for commercial 
fishermen, dealers, and party/charter boat operators; establish a 
Bluefish Monitoring Committee; establish an annual adjustment process 
to meet fishing mortality rate objectives of the FMP; establish a 
framework adjustment process to change measures such as minimum fish 
size, gear restrictions, recreational seasons or bag limits, closed 
areas or commercial seasons; specify a de minimus commercial quota for 
certain states; and identify and describe essential fish habitat (EFH) 
of bluefish.
    This amendment is intended to bring the Atlantic Bluefish FMP into 
conformance with the Magnuson-Stevens Act as amended by the SFA. The 
provisions in section 108(a) of the SFA require that Fishery Management 
Councils either add to or revise the required provisions of any fishery 
management plan prepared by a Council or the Secretary of Commerce to 
include the following provisions on: (1) bycatch reports (standardize 
reporting methods to assess the type and amount of bycatch in a 
fishery); (2) bycatch measures (develop management measures to minimize 
bycatch and mortality of bycatch); (3) commercial, recreational, and 
charter fishing sectors (specify data for each sector); (4) EFH 
(describe and identify EFH, minimize to the extent practicable adverse 
impacts from fishing, and identify other actions to encourage the 
conservation of such habitat); (5) fishing communities (assess in a 
fishery impact statement the likely effects of measures on fishing 
communities); (6) and overfishing (specify objective and measurable 
criteria for identifying whether a fishery is overfished, and include 
measures to prevent overfishing). Public comment is invited on the 
adequacy of Amendment 1 in meeting the requirements of section 108(a) 
of the SFA.

Overfishing Definition

    Amendment 1 would revise the overfishing definition so that it is 
composed of two reference points to bring it into accordance with the 
new national standards of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, as amended by the 
SFA. The proposed overfishing definition for bluefish is: Overfishing 
occurs whenever F is greater than the F threshold = Fmsy = 
0.4; bluefish is overfished when biomass is less than 1/
2Bmsy=118.5 mil lb (53,750 mt). The long-term F target is 90 
percent of Fmsy and the Btarget is Bmsy. No 
change to the regulatory text is necessary to change the overfishing 
definition.

Rebuilding Strategy

    An additional requirement of the SFA is that stocks identified as 
overfished (i.e., stock biomass is less than minimum biomass threshold) 
must be rebuilt to the level that will produce BMSY in as 
short a period as possible. The Council and Commission propose to 
rebuild the bluefish stock to the BMSY level over a 9-year 
rebuilding period. The 9-year rebuilding schedule would eliminate 
overfishing and rebuild the stock through a graduated reduction in the 
F. The current F associated with MSY is FMSY=0.4. In 1997, 
the F was estimated at F=0.51, so that overfishing was occurring.
    For the first 2 years of the rebuilding plan (1999-2000), F would 
remain at the current level, F=0.51 and then would be reduced to F=0.41 
in years 3-5 (2001-2003), and finally to F=0.31 in years 6-9 (2004-
2007). During the rebuilding period, the target F for the next fishing 
year would be set at the level specified in the rate reduction schedule 
or the level estimated for the most recent year, whichever is less. 
Based on the overfishing definition, target F would continue to be at 
90% FMSY  (F=0.36), once rebuilding is achieved. Amendment 1 
proposes that commercial landings quotas and a recreational harvest 
limit are the chief measures to achieve these goals.

Essential Fish Habitat Designation

    The Council identified and described EFH for various stages of the 
life cycle of bluefish, fishing impacts on EFH, non-fishing threats on 
EFH, and research recommendations relevant to a better understanding of 
EFH. The Council intends that the EFH designations for bluefish under 
this Amendment be reviewed and, if needed, updated at least every 5 
years. Amendment 1 would authorize the revision of EFH components of 
the FMP through the FMP's framework process.

Management Measure Considered for Disapproval

De minimus Status

    De minimus has been defined as a situation in which, under existing 
conditions of the stock and scope of the fishery, conservation and 
enforcement actions taken by an individual state

[[Page 23261]]

would be expected to contribute insignificantly to a coastwide 
conservation program required by a FMP or amendment. Amendment 1 
proposes that any state that has commercial landings less than 0.1 
percent of the total coastwide commercial landings in the last 
preceding year for which data are available would be eligible for de 
minimus status. The de minimus status would only apply to the 
commercial fishery, and any state granted de minimus status would be 
allocated 0.1 percent of the coastwide commercial quota. Further, 
Amendment 1 proposes that the sum of the allocation to de minimus 
states would be deducted from the coastwide commercial quota before the 
remainder of the quota is allocated to other states. The proposed 
measure to establish de minimus quota specifications is identical to 
the measure that NMFS disapproved in Amendment 8 and Amendment 10 to 
the Fishery Management Plan for Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea 
Bass.
    This measure would require an annual examination of state landings 
to determine if landings in that state during the preceding year for 
which data are available were less than 0.1 percent of the overall 
annual quota. If a state met this criterion, it would be granted de 
minimus status. This provision raises a number of concerns: the burdens 
of administering this provision could well outweigh its benefits; and 
lack of any clear obligation on the part of a de minimus state to close 
its fishery (i.e., prohibit landings) once its quota is harvested, 
could result in overfishing. These concerns will be considered in 
determining the approvability of this provision.
    If de minimus status does not, at the very least, require a state 
to impose landing constraints, the provision may encourage owners of 
vessels that have not traditionally landed in that state to land 
amounts of bluefish much greater than they could land in their home 
port states. This could result in the state's de minimus quota being 
rapidly exceeded and compound the overfishing situation if a de minimus 
state is not required to close its fishery when its de minimus quota is 
harvested.
    A proposed rule that would implement Amendment 1 may be published 
in the Federal Register for public comment, following an evaluation of 
the proposed rule by NMFS under the procedures of the Magnuson-Stevens 
Act. Public comments on the proposed rule must be received by the end 
of the comment period on Amendment 1 (see DATES) in order to be 
considered in the decision concerning approval or disapproval of the 
Amendment. All comments received by June 29, 1999, whether specifically 
directed to Amendment 1 or the proposed rule, will be considered in the 
approval/disapproval decision on Amendment 1. Comments received after 
that date will not be considered in the approval/disapproval decision 
on Amendment 1.

    Authority: 16 U.S.C. 1801 et seq.

    Dated: April 26, 1999.
Bruce Morehead,
Acting Director, Office of Sustainable Fisheries, National Marine 
Fisheries Service.
[FR Doc. 99-10903 Filed 4-29-99; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510-22-F