01:00 AM EST on Sunday, March 27, 2005

During the last year, 17 whales, including 6 highly endangered North Atlantic right whales, became entangled in fishing gear along the East Coast. About 72 percent of the 300 or so right whales in existence bear scars from entanglements.

Now, the National Marine Fisheries Service has concluded several years of studies by proposing modifications to the gear fishermen use offshore.

Hearings are scheduled throughout the Northeast. The sole Rhode Island hearing is scheduled for Tuesday from 6 to 9 p.m. at the Hotel Viking in Newport.

The National Marine Fisheries Service devoted 41 pages of text and maps to describing the new rules and their effect.

The key change would be to phase out the use of ropes that float to the surface from lobster pots and nets.

Another requirement calls for installing weak links in gear so that when whales become entangled, the lines part.

There also would be closures during certain times and in given areas where whales congregate, more resources for disentangling whales, more research into protecting whales, and improved surveillance.

Right whales, the species closest to extinction, migrate northward along the East Coast in the spring and spend time off Cape Cod before going on to Canadian waters for the summer. They migrate south to waters off Florida and Georgia in the fall.

Along the way, they must pass through tens of thousands of vertical fishing lines connecting gear on the bottom to buoys on the surface. The coastal waters also are some of the most congested with shipping and small boats.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has been working on ways to reduce whale entanglements since 1996.

New England Aquarium, which does extensive research on right whales, recently observed that five right whales have died since November. Two were pregnant, and two others were females of reproductive age.

Along with entanglements, ship strikes are a primary cause of death to right whales. Three weeks ago, a fast-moving recreational yacht nearly severed the tail of a right whale off Cumberland Island, Georgia.

Scientists at the aquarium recommended that vessels travel at 10 knots or less within 30 miles of shore when the whales are migrating. And they chided the Fisheries Service for moving so slowly on changing shipping rules to protect the whales.

"Some valuable and potentially effective ideas have been developed," said Amy Knowlton, a research scientist at the aquarium. "However, these ideas have yet to become regulations and languish in a bureaucratic maze within the National Marine Fisheries Service.

"Despite good calving years, population models suggest that there are still more whales dying than being born every year," said Scott Kraus, senior scientist at the aquarium.

"This is a crisis that cannot continue unless we as a society are willing to accept our role in the extinction of this species," added Knowlton.

The proposed entanglement rules aren't expected to go into effect until the summer.

Details of the plan can be found at http://www.nero.noaa.gov/nero/hotnews/whales/index.html.

For those who want to know more about right whales, the Audubon Society of Rhode Island will host a presentation at 7 p.m. Thursday at its Environmental Education Center in Bristol.

URI Prof. Robert Kenney will present "North Atlantic Right Whales: The Legacy of a Millennium of Whaling." He will discuss the longtime efforts to hunt the whales and the more recent efforts to save them.

Admission is $3, and registration is required. Call (401) 245-7500, ext. 18.

Training offered for watershed stewards Volunteers interested in doing community-service projects on local waterways are being invited to a special watershed-stewardship training program that will be offered in May.

The Rhode Island Rivers Council is looking for 30 volunteers to enroll in a program that offers classes from 6:30 to 9 p.m. May 2, 9, 16 and 23 at the Knights of Columbus at 475 Sandy Lane in Warwick and from 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, May 14, at the Warwick Wastewater Treatment Facility.

The council was created by the General Assembly to foster river protection and restoration.

Candidates who take the course and complete a community-service project will be designated a Rhode Island Watershed Steward.

A course fee of $45 will help pay for a manual, a water testing kit, refreshments and a workshop lunch. For more information, call council Chairwoman Meg Kerr at (401) 714-2313.

Nature Conservancy elects new chairman Douglas B. Rhodes, a retired publishing executive, has been elected chairman of the Board of Trustees of The Nature Conservancy of Rhode Island.

He succeeds Arthur C. Milot, who has chaired the board for the last two years and chaired the group's recent campaign that raised $57 million in money and gifts of land. Milot will continue as an honorary trustee.

Rhodes is an avid birder who serves on the board of the Manomet Center for Conservational Sciences in Manomet, Mass. He previously served on the board of the Audubon Society of Rhode Island.

At a recent board meeting, Janet Coit, the conservancy's state director, praised both men for their "incredible commitment, passion and hard work."

Senators urge study of lobster disease U.S. Senators Jack Reed and Lincoln Chafee, along with other New England senators, have proposed that Congress appropriate $3 million to establish a cooperative research program to study the shell disease that is damaging the lobster fishery in Rhode Island and elsewhere in New England.

"We hope that you will agree that one of our country's most valuable fisheries also deserves assistance in a time of economic crisis," the senators said in a letter to the ranking members of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

They proposed that the money be included in the fiscal year 2005 supplemental appropriations bill.

"The apparent northward movement of this virulent disease raises the specter of a major resource disaster and calls for an aggressive research initiative to determine its causes," they wrote.

They said fisheries in the so-called Area Two south of Rhode Island are "essentially bankrupt, both biologically and economically."

Landings for Rhode Island and Massachusetts declined from a peak in 1999 of 6.75 million pounds to 1.54 million pounds in 2003, they wrote. They said it's time for a cooperative research program similar to the one the National Marine Fisheries Service financed after the Long Island Sound lobster industry collapsed several years ago.

The letter was also signed by Senators John F. Kerry and Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and Olympia J. Snow and Susan M. Collins of Maine.

The Environmental Journal is a listing of brief news items about the actions of individuals, organizations and businesses that affect the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the landscape that surrounds us.

If you have comments or suggestions, please contact environment reporter Peter B. Lord at (401) 277-8036, by e-mail at plord [at] projo.com, or by writing him, care of The Providence Journal, 75 Fountain St., Providence, RI 02902.