Case against East End fisherman Bill Reed, charged with overfishing, thrown out

A Southampton judge on Friday dismissed a case mid-trial against an East End commercial fisherman charged with overfishing after he returned to port to avoid a storm. The case against Reed fell apart after Matthew Foster, an enforcement officer for the state Department of Environmental Conservation, and DEC official Steve Heins acknowledged on the witness stand that a “safe harbor” provision the agency uses to grant exceptions to its quota rules was “general practice” but never “written policy.” Read the rest here 16:40

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