For months, the Gloucester fishing community and industry leaders across New England and the nation have begged federal regulators to delay the implementation of a new regulatory structure that, by many counts, could throw the regional industry into chaos and drive many independent boat owners out of business.

Now, one of the biggest environmental lobbies in the nation is joining them — sort of.

This doesn't mean that the Pew Environment Group is suddenly in sync with area fishing interests. The $5 billion philanthropy still believes in draconian restrictions on fishing, in the name of preserving the resource and fighting the effects of alleged and disputed "overfishing." The Big Green still supports "catch-shares," a system of fisheries management that divides the resource into saleable commodities, for the groundfishing industry in New England, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and its National Marine Fisheries Service are moving toward implementing the system next year.

But the words from Lee Crockett, director of Pew's federal fisheries policy — outlined during a nationwide teleconference Tuesday and reported in yesterday's Times — took many by surprise. That's because Crockett urged the Obama administration — and that means NOAA chief and former Pew Fellow Jane Lubchenco — to "go slow" on catch shares, and not to make it "the default management system."

"One size fits all is inappropriate and ignores local variability," he said.

That puts Pew at odds with a supposedly kindred green — the Environmental Defense Fund — which has vigorously lobbied for catch shares both as a way to control fishing and as an investment opportunity.

Not surprisingly, Crocker's comments prompted a rebuke from the EDF. Diane Regas, its vice president for oceans, contended that the catch share system "work(s) for people and for the oceans."

Perhaps it all comes down to what the definition of "works" is, and who are the "people" that the EDF says will benefit.

David Festa, another EDF vice president and a close associate of Jane Lubchenco, former vice-chairman of EDF and now head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said at an investors' conference this past spring that catch shares could produce profits in the 400 percent range.

There is nothing wrong with profit, but the fact that Festa was promoting catch shares to investors instead of fishermen suggests that those profits will not be going to those who actually do the work. And, judging by catch share histories shared from other fisheries, that's absolutely the case.

As we've noted in the past, the virtual privatizing of fisheries opens the door for giant corporations — perhaps including those who provide the bulk of funds to these enviro giants themselves — to gobble up several fishermen's catch shares, take over the fishery, and drive the fishing families and their small-business boats out of the picture, not unlike the way so-called agri-business companies have sadly driven family farms from the American landscape. Is that really what President Obama meant when he said he wanted to "spread the wealth around?"

If the catch share system is going to have any hope of working for fishermen as well as investors, Pew's Tuesday commentary drives home the point we've been making that this change must be pushed back at least a year beyond the current May 2010 start date.

Indeed, according to an announcement from NOAA, Lubchenco is promoting a policy in which she said fishery management councils would not be required to adopt catch-share programs, but only encouraged to, "consider (them) wherever appropriate ... to achieve long-term sustainability of our nation's fishery resources and fishing communities."

If fishing communities like Gloucester and so many others are considered as important as the fish — and they certainly ought to be — then federal regulators, along with the environmental groups, ought to be willing to delay the imposition of a system that is clearly not yet ready for New England.

And now, even Pew Environment officials have said catch shares don't fit all situations.

They and federal regulators must also concede that it sure doesn't fit well for 2010 in New England.