Science and monitoring committees for the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council this week approved a staff recommendation to increase the 2010 East Coast flounder quota to 22.13 million pounds, up from 18.45 million pounds for this year.

The council will consider the proposal when it meets next month in Alexandria, Va. If approved, it would be the second annual increase, up from a 2007 low point of 15.77 million pounds that was mandated by federal law.

The annual catch limit had been as high as 30 million pounds, until in late 2005 the National Marine Fisheries Service determined that flounder was technically overfished and falling behind a calculated target for rebuilding the stock.

But last year a scientific stock assessment committee considered new calculations contributed by outside scientists, including one expert retained by the New Jersey-based Save the Summer Flounder Fishery Fund.

That contributed to a reassessment of the flounder population and its trajectory of rebuilding, which allowed for an increase in the catch. However, the council’s science and statistical committee said there is still a problem with recreational anglers overrunning their share of the catch, as measure by a federal recreational survey. Anglers went over the limit by an estimated 27 percent in 2008, according to council documents.