(a) Notwithstanding Section 9002, the department, in consultation with the Dungeness crab task force, shall develop regulations as necessary to provide for the retrieval of lost or abandoned commercial crab traps.
(b) (1) As part of the regulations adopted pursuant to subdivision (a), the department shall establish a retrieval permit program that facilitates the removal of lost or abandoned crab gear in an efficient and cost-effective manner consistent with all of the following:
(A) The department shall establish a retrieval permit that grants a person who obtains a retrieval permit the authority to retrieve during the closed season of the Dungeness crab commercial fishery lost or abandoned Dungeness crab traps belonging to another person and to receive compensation for that retrieval on a per trap basis from the revenue generated by the fee established pursuant to subparagraph (B).
(B) The department shall establish a fee to be charged to a Dungeness crab vessel permitholder for each trap belonging to the permitholder that is retrieved through the program. The department shall set the fee at a level sufficient to cover the reasonable regulatory costs associated with the program and to provide reasonable compensation to a retrieval permitholder on a per trap basis. The reasonable regulatory costs associated with the program include, but are not limited to, administrative costs, storage costs, and costs associated with disposing unusable traps or traps whose owner cannot be identified.
(C) The department may use entities in addition to the department, including, but not limited to, nongovernmental organizations, to help implement the program.
(D) A Dungeness crab trap shall not be returned to the owner of the trap until the owner has paid the fee established pursuant to subparagraph (B).
(E) The department shall not renew a Dungeness crab vessel permit until any fee imposed pursuant to subparagraph (B) has been paid.
(2) The department may adopt additional requirements necessary to implement the program described in this subdivision.
(3) The department shall submit the proposed program developed pursuant to this subdivision to the Dungeness crab task force for review, and shall not implement the program until the task force has had 60 days or more to review the proposed program and recommend any proposed changes. The director may implement the program earlier than 60 days after it is submitted to the Dungeness crab task force for review, if recommended by the task force.
(c) This section shall become inoperative on April 1, 2019, and, as of January 1, 2020, is repealed, unless a later enacted statute, that becomes operative on or before January 1, 2020, deletes or extends the dates on which it becomes inoperative and is repealed.
(Amended by Stats. 2016, Ch. 542, Sec. 6. (SB 1287) Effective January 1, 2017. Inoperative April 1, 2019. Repealed as of January 1, 2020, by its own provisions.)
Last modified: October 25, 2018