Washington, Oregon reach crab catch pact

SEATTLE – Oregon and Washington have reached a reciprocal agreement to restrict commercial fishing for Dungeness crab in federal waters off each other’s coasts, officials said Saturday.

Neither state has authority over the other’s commercial crab fishermen, but both profit from the arrangement approved Saturday by Washington’s Fish and Wildlife Commission, meeting in Olympia, and on Friday by the Oregon panel.

The deal requires Oregon vessels crabbing in federal waters off Washington – beyond the state’s three-mile jurisdiction and within the 200-mile federal boundary – to have Washington licenses, and vice versa, said Phil Anderson, special assistant to Jeff Koening, head of Washington’s Fish and Wildlife Department.

“The principal thing here is two states have taken this action, which will enable us independently to take additional actions to stabilize the economic well-being of our coastal commercial crab fishery,” Anderson said in a telephone interview from Olympia.

Data from Oregon indicates its crab fishers take more than 1 million pounds annually out of federal waters adjacent to Washington, and deliver the catch to Oregon ports, he said. Conversely, Washington crabbers have been taking about a half million pounds in federal waters off Oregon.

Dual-licensed vessels will be able to fish off both states.

One of the incentives for Washington state was that as tribal crab fleets develop capacity to harvest half Washington state’s shellfish – a right affirmed in 1994 – “more and more of our boats will be going down to Oregon,” Anderson said.