State elected officials expect an answer this summer on Virginia and Maryland's request for the federal government to declare a blue crab fishery disaster in the Chesapeake Bay.

"We're kind of looking for something anytime," said Rep. Robert J. Wittman, R-1st, one of the Virginia congressmen who wrote Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez in late spring in support of the designation.

But even if they hear back from the secretary in the next couple of months, they will probably need more patience finding money to relieve displaced watermen.

At the beginning of May, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine and Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley jointly requested that Gutierrez declare the fishery a disaster after regulators drastically tightened restrictions in both states on their orders.

Congress has budgeted the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's fishery service $183 million recently to aid troubled fishing industries for West Coast salmon and New England groundfish, but not blue crabs.

Crabbers have been hit simultaneously by a collapse of crab numbers, shrinking markets and tightened conservation regulations.

A Senate subcommittee included $20 million in an appropriations bill for the blue crab disaster late last month. The fate of any new funding request remains uncertain with President Bush vowing to keep a tight rein on spending.

"There's rumors that not many, if any, appropriations bills are going to get passed," said Brent Robinson, Wittman's senior assistant.

Any federal money likely would be used to provide jobs for watermen most affected by the fishery regulations, such as those who live on Tangier Island and have no other job options.

"It's rough on the guy that's a crabber and that's all he's ever known," said Ken Smith, the president of the Virginia Watermen's Association.

In Virginia alone, a recent decision to close the crab-potting season for female crabs a month early on Oct. 27 and to abolish the four-month winter dredge season is expected to cost watermen almost $4.3 million in lost catches this year. The impact is expected to reach $15 million over the next three years, according to figures from the state. Maryland expects its new controls will cost its fishing industry almost $3 million in 2008.

The new regulations, coupled with national immigration policies that have created a shortage of seasonal workers in bay-area crab-processing houses, have hammered watermen. After a disease-induced collapse of the bay's oyster fishery in the mid-1980s, blue crabs remain the most important resource left in the bay for commercial fishermen.

"Unfortunately, it's been a perfect storm of events that make life that much worse for the crabber," said Jack Travelstead, deputy commissioner of Virginia's Marine Resources Commission.

The future looks bleak.

"We used to have four or five picking houses here and have only one left now," said crabber Bill Parks, 63, who lives in Quinby on the Eastern Shore.

Said Wittman: "Folks say we don't want a handout, what we'd like to have is the ability to go to work on the water doing things that will help the Chesapeake Bay and be paid for it until we can go back to work."
Contact Lawrence Latané III at (804) 333-3461 or llatane@timesdispatch.com.