Panel OKs cap on fish seen as vital to bay's health

After a year of lobbying, a coalition of environmentalists and recreational fishermen finally got what it wanted yesterday: limits on the industrial harvest of menhaden in the Chesapeake Bay.

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission voted 12-2, with three abstentions, to put a five-year cap on the menhaden harvest, a move that affects a single company in Virginia. The vote came at the end of a four-hour meeting in Alexandria, Va., that featured a debate that was sometimes contentious.

Under the cap, Omega Protein may only catch 105,800 metric tons of the small, oily fish for each of the next five years. That will allow...