Tag Archives: North Carolina Coastal Fisheries Reform Group
Panel hears debate on whether dead fish are pollutants
A Fourth Circuit panel heard arguments Tuesday over whether dead fish dumped back into the water by shrimping boats counts as pollution under the Clean Water Act. “You never know what you’re going to pull up fishing,” attorney Brian David Schmalzbach of McGuireWoods, who argued on behalf of shrimp fisheries, told the three-judge panel.,, And, your honors, contrary to the briefing from the appellees, this is right down the middle of the barrel of the Clean Water Act,” said attorney James L. Conner of Calhoun Bhella & Sechrest, who represents the North Carolina Coastal Fisheries Reform Group, at Tuesday’s hearing. “Are you still arguing that putting live fish back in the water is a pollutant?” Conner began to respond but Rushing interjected with a follow-up question. “You’re not arguing that live fish are a biological material? Only dead fish are a biological material?” she asked. >click to read< 20:00
One lawsuit dismissed, another filed against State of North Carolina over fisheries management
The latest suit was filed on Tuesday in state court, the same day another group’s legal action against government officials’ management of marine fisheries in North Carolina was dismissed in federal court. The Coastal Conservation Association of North Carolina, along with 86 North Carolinians, filed their civil action Tuesday against the state in Wake County Superior Court. In an unrelated case, an organization called the North Carolina Coastal Fisheries Reform Group filed a federal lawsuit in August saying regulations that allow large, ocean-going shrimp trawlers to work in the state’s sounds violated the Clean Water Act. >click to read< 08:01
