At best, the lawsuit filed this week by four southern Maine lobstermen to block an imminent trap reduction only postpones the inevitable. Given the current regulatory climate, it may even be unwise. Regardless, it raises a point of crucial importance to those who toil in the state’s premier fishery: The state’s heavily compromised lobster conservation law does nothing to prevent every trap retired by a full-time fisherman from being replaced by a part-timer’s gear.

The four fishermen from Saco and Kittery contend the 800-trap limit scheduled to take effect Saturday in their management zone is the result of an illegal vote. Members of their zone — one of seven created by the 1995 law — voted overwhelmingly last November to lower the state trap cap of 1,200 to 800 this year, just one month after they voted overwhelmingly to endorse the Atlantic States Fishery Management Council’s plan for a 800-trap limit in the year 2000. This, the plantiffs say, violates their zone’s bylaws, which prohibit voting on the same issue within two years.

Whether voting one month to support a conservation plan developed by a advisory confederation of Eastern Seaboard states and voting the next for an accelerated local reduction is voting twice on the same issue or once on two separate issues is a fairly fine point of law and one that soon may be moot. Later this month, the National Marine Fisheries Service, the federal agency with real clout and real concerns about overfishing, will release its management plan and chances are good it will mandate a far more severe and immediate reduction, perhaps as low as 480.

And if the days of fishing offshore — and of supporting a family and a community — with 1,000 or 800 or even 600 traps become just a fond memory, the blame can be fixed squarely on the Maine Legislature for passing a conservation law that they knew from the start would not conserve. There were roughly 3 million traps in Maine waters three years ago; there are roughly 3 million today.

A lot of fishermen gave up a lot of good fishing days back in 1995 to warn lawmakers: A trap cap that cuts only the high end, that does not prevent a build-up from the low end, will not reduce overall fishing effort; reining in the full-timer does no good, from the federal regulator’s point of view at least, if the part-timer is allowed to run wild. Lobsterman after lobsterman told lawmakers a trap limit at the top must at least be accompanied by a freeze at the bottom for fishing effort to be truly reduced.

Lawmakers listened, nodded their heads and caved to expediency. Of the nearly 7,000 licensed lobstermen in Maine, almost 6,000 fish fewer than 800 traps, so it wasn’t hard for legislators to figure out whose ox not to gore. A trap cap that had been in the 800 to 1,000 range during the debate suddenly was boosted to 1,200. All the discussion about a freeze, a restricted part-time license or other measures to make the trap cap count apparently never happened. The four litigating lobstermen worry that the bottom they free up by hauling several hundred of their traps merely will be filled by small-timers with new room to expand. State fisheries officials admit it’s happening to some extent; lobstermen say it’s happening big time.

“From Kittery to Lubec, everybody’s seeing the same build-up, everybody’s seeing unbelievable numbers of new traps,” says David Cousens, president of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association. “We have full-timers who are looking at taking a 30-percent cut while the part-timers get to expand. It’s hard to explain why one guy should have to take 400 traps out of the water if someone else can come along and put them back. We said all along Maine can’t have a trap limit without a freeze.”

Maine certainly can’t have a freeze as long as its legislature lives in a dream world where 6,000 lobstermen/voters need make no sacrifice because 1,000 are getting it in the neck. The Department of Marine Resources has the authority to enact emergency rules in the interest of conservation. Perhaps a gesture in that direction might shake lawmakers awake.

Lobstering in Maine has a certain aura, a warm and fuzzy image of tradition and rugged independence, of open access and unlimited bounty. That’s fine for attracting the tourist trade, but it’s a dreadful basis for setting policy. All other fisheries of importance deal with closures, moritoriums, freezes and other measures for true effort reduction; lobster should be no different. Although it’s a side issue to the suit brought by the four fishermen from Saco and Kittery, the flippant way Maine manages it most important marine industry at least will get its day in court.