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An amendment that would have had a significant impact on the seafood industry in North Carolina is dead in the water. 

The amendment, attached to House Bill 442, would have prohibited shrimp trawling within one-half mile from the shorelines of the Atlantic Ocean, various sounds (such as the Pamlico Sound) and estuarine waters. It would have made catching shrimp with a trawl net within one-half mile from the shoreline a Class A1 misdemeanor, the proposed bill states. 

The amendment was added to House Bill 442 on June 17, just days before the General Assembly adjourned after the long session. 

House Bill 442 passed twice in the Senate with the last vote being 39-2 on June 19. Senator Bob Brinson (R-Beaufort, Craven, Lenoir) voted against the bill twice because of the trawling amendment. 

Brinson said he voted against the bill, because to him, it violated the North Carolina constitution. The state constitution reads in Article 1, Section 1, “We hold it to be self-evident that all persons are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, the enjoyment of the fruits of their own labor, and the pursuit of happiness.” 

“And to me, that’s exactly what this is,” Brinson said. “Shrimp trawling is how people make their living or even supplement their living and we would basically be banning their right to work that line of work.” 

On Wednesday, June 15, the bill was sent to the Committee on Rules, Calendar and Operations of the House. The General Assembly adjourned for the year before the amendment could be voted on. 

Rep. Keith Kidwell (R- Beaufort, Dare, Hyde and Pamlico) told the Daily News before Wednesday that if House Bill 442, with the trawling amendment, was brought before the House for a vote then he would vote against it. 

Kidwell and Representatives Frank Iler, Ed Goodwin and Ted Davis Jr. introduced a bill on June 23 that would have gone into effect if House Bill 442 passed through the House. House Bill 441 would have created the Shrimp Trawl Transition Payment Program which would give commercial shrimpers annual payments through Oct. 1, 2028 in an attempt to help them recoup costs as a result of House Bill 442. 

“Our shrimpers don’t want a payout — they want a paycheck. These are hardworking men and women who have built their lives around this industry. I’m proud that House Republicans listened to their constituents and took another look at these misguided bills,” Kidwell said in a prepared statement. 

Jason Hall is the owner of Washington Crab restaurant and seafood market and is the Vice President of NC Catch – an educational resource for consumers about North Carolina seafood.  

Hall said that House Bill 442 dying in committee was a “very significant win” for the state’s seafood industry. 

“It was impressive to see how united we were on Monday and Tuesday,” Hall said, referring to the estimated 1,000 people -business owners, supporters of the seafood industry and fishermen- who went to Raleigh to protest. Hall, his wife Lindsay (who owns and operates Pamlico Books on Market Street) and their children traveled to Raleigh on Monday to join protestors of House Bill 442 and talk to multiple representatives including Kidwell. 

Hall said if House Bill 442 would have been enacted, it would have “really changed the landscape of the whole seafood industry pretty drastically.” It would have had the same effect on Washington Crab, he said. 

While there are a few fishermen with smaller boats that directly bring shrimp to Washington Crab, Hall rebuys shrimp through other fish houses that are located on the coast where most shrimp trawlers are docking. The amendment would have reduced Washington Crab’s ability to get North Carolina shrimp which is one of the top three revenue items it sells. 

“It would have had a major impact on us. It would have forced us to look at other domestic products or some other imports, more likely than not, because the domestic product can only support so much,” Hall said. Not having access to North Carolina shrimp would have forced Washington Crab to look at imported products from Ecuador and India which do not have the strict regulations or the inspections that harvested USA food has, especially here in North Carolina. North Carolina has some of the most stringent regulations in the United States.

House Bill 442 was initially introduced in March as a proposal to expand flounder and red snapper fishing season to May 15 to November 15 with a limit of one fish, per person, per day but without a seasonal limit. A commercial quota would have been set to 75,000 pounds with overages limiting the following season’s harvest and any unused quota applied to the following year. 

Proponents of the bill like the North Carolina Wildlife Federation say that “each year, hundreds of millions of valuable fish are needlessly killed due to large-scale, inshore bottom shrimp trawling.” They believe North Carolina is the only state on the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts that still allows shrimp trawling, a “destructive practice” inside juvenile fish nurseries. The bill, they hoped, would protect juvenile fish and “preserve public trust resources.”

“Large-scale, inshore bottom shrimp trawlers’ chains and nets drag along the sea floor, devastating our marine fisheries. This unsustainable practice results in bycatch, threatening our sounds and estuaries with the unintended capture and killing of juvenile fish. Remarkably, 80% of inshore bottom trawling bycatch consists of valuable species like Southern Flounder, spot, croaker, weakfish, and blue crab,” the North Carolina Wildlife Federation shares on their website.  

Hall said that arguments about bycatch numbers are “absurd” because “our bycatch reduction devices that are included in our trawl nets are world class.”

Hall continued to explain that had House Bill 442 been enacted, it would have a significant impact on rural, coastal counties like Beaufort, but especially Hyde because it is “already economically challenged” and its economy largely depends on seafood. About 20% of its economy depends on the seafood industry, Hall estimated. 

Hyde and similar counties who rely on the seafood industry may have experienced “financial peril” and an “economic depression” because of the bill.