By JOE GORDEN
HARRISBURG — Among its many actions on Tuesday, the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission took a first step toward keeping a serious fish disease away out of the state, postponed approval of an early trout opener in several southwestern counties and clarified its position on wind-power development.
Newly elected commission President Len Lichvar said the commissioners’ tentative approval of a ban on the sale, introduction, transport or import of fish species known to be susceptible to viral hemorrhagic septicemia (VHS) from areas where it is known to exist in the wild is, perhaps, the most important action it took during the two-day session that ended Tuesday.
“I think that’s real important, even though that’s not real sexy or flashy,” he said. “Yet, it’s extremely significant.”
Fish commission personnel said VHS is an infection found in at least 37 species of fish. It has spread throughout most of the Great Lakes and their tributaries, and is the subject of a growing number of state and federal regulations. Fears about spreading the disease have all but shut down the system by which states used to trade fingerlings and eggs for stocking.
VHS has never been found in Pennsylvania. To strengthen its efforts to keep it out, the commissioners gave tentative approval to a regulation banning fish, dead or alive, or parts of fish, from Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Wisconsin, Ontario and Quebec except under certain conditions.
The measure must be approved at the commission’s October meeting to take effect as planned on Jan. 1, but a temporary executive order issued in mid-June by Executive Director Doug Austen fills that gap until final approval comes.
“Even though it hasn’t been identified in Pennsylvania yet, we’re trying to be pro-active in taking steps to make sure that our rivers, streams and hatcheries are VHS free and will stay that way,” Lichvar said.
Lichvar also said he thought one of the most important actions of the two-day meeting was delaying a decision on opening trout season early in seven southwestern counties, and also putting off a proposal to allow year-round trout fishing in stocked lakes.
“We deferred the opening of early trout season in southwest counties at least a year until we get more information,” he said. “I think that’s wise. Sometimes no action is the best action on something that you’re not sure of. We understand it is a social-driven initiative, not really resource-based.”
For the past two years, trout season has opened early in several southeastern counties in a program that has been proclaimed a success.
“The opening in the southeastern part of the state was resource-based because of the clear temperature differentials in the waters and the streams there,” Lichvar said. “They do warm up earlier, so there was a resource reason, really, to do that there. We are still trying to find more legitimate reasons to do it in the southwest.”
Lichvar also touted the adoption of an official agency policy on wind-power development.
“That’s pertinent to the Cambria-Somerset region,” he said. “That’s something I worked on and helped write, along with our Environmental Services unit. Even though it just restates our current policy, it also gets it out there to the public and reinforces what we do to our staff as well as to the public and to our agency partners that we are a key player in the review of wind power permits and, because they are often sited in the headwaters of our watersheds, it’s appropriate for the fish and boat commission to be ever vigilant on it.
“That was something of importance that was almost a half-year in the making.”
