Last year's trawl permit buyback plan was just one step in stabilizing the commercial groundfish industry, but the next step - and one already generating much controversy - is individual quotas, also called individual transferable quotas or individual fishing quotas.

Individual quotas, according to the Pacific Fishery Management Council, are federal permits issued to a person or corporation to exclusively harvest a quantity of fish, usually a percentage of the fishery's total allowable catch.

Though establishing a quota plan for the trawl industry isn't expected to be complete until at least 2007 or 2008, a few groups are mustering support for a program designed, as two groups say, to protect coastal communities and jobs.

The new, Portland-based Coastal Jobs Coalition "represents everybody from the boat to the dinner table," coalition Director Kent Craford said today, the same day the group unveiled its Web site. "The seafood industry is really a lot larger than a lot of people might think. It goes far beyond the dock."

Much of the controversy about trawl quotas revolves around the fear that small boats and communities will be harmed and also that there is a potential for the concentration of wealth and monopolization of quotas.

The Marine Fish Conservation Network, based in Washington, D.C., also concerned about quota programs' effects on communities, recently established a Web site promoting national standards for quota programs at http://www.fairifqs.org. A properly designed program that meets national criteria would protect the small-boat fishermen, communities and the groundfish resource, the coalition Web site says at http://www.coastaljobs.org.

Streamlining the groundfish industry is a huge task, with many issues.

"There are many goals to rationalization," Craford said. "I think one of the things overlooked is, what will be the effect on jobs? If we're going to rationalize this industry, we need to recognize investment in this industry in all sectors."

The coalition's members include fishermen, processors - the coalition started out as a program designed by the West Coast Seafood Processors Association and the Gallatin Group, a public relations firm - trucking companies, restaurants, engineering firms and packaging producers such as Georgia-Pacific.

The key to the coalition's campaign is that groundfish management reforms must treat processors and fishermen equally.

"Some fishing vessel owners believe they deserve to be granted 100 percent of the quota under ITQ reforms," the Web site says. "We disagree. A one-sided quota system such as this would put thousands of jobs at risk, leaving seafood processors and coastal communities with no safeguards or long-term stability."

Quota systems already are in place in several fisheries, including the Alaska halibut and sablefish fisheries; the surf clam and ocean quahogs in the Mid-Atlantic states; and the wreckfish fishery in the South Atlantic. The West Coast has an IQ-like program for sablefish longliners that allows fishermen to stack up to three permits and catch the fish anytime during a set summer season.

"I think IQs will have a big impact on where consumers see West Coast groundfish, how often and at what price," Craford said.

The coalition launched its Web site at about the same time the Marine Fish Conservation Network is holding informational meetings to discuss quotas.

The informational meetings will be held Tuesday in Astoria; Wednesday in Port Townsend, Wash.; on July 26, in San Francisco; and later in San Diego.

The Pacific Fishery Management Council, which makes recommendations to the National Marine Fisheries Service on fisheries management, will hold public meetings to accept public comments in Seattle on July 20 and in Newport on July 27.

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On the Web:

Coastal Jobs Coalition: http://www.coastaljobs.org

Marine Fish Conservation Network: http://www.fairifqs.org

Pacific Fishery Management Council info on IFQs: http://www.pcouncil.org/groundfish/gfifq.html#background