New laws in three states that slightly increase the legal size of lobsters there are creating a headache for some Maine dealers, but a little thought might help resolve the problem.

New York, Connecticut and New Jersey, apparently as a conservation measure, have recently made it illegal to possess lobsters with a carapace size below 33/8 inches.

Since the minimum size for “keeper” lobsters in Maine waters is 31/4 inches, that eighth of an inch is a huge difference for dealers shipping to those major urban markets to the south.

As Norm Olsen, commissioner of the Maine Department of Marine Resources, has noted, it takes about seven years for lobsters to grow to legal size — and almost all of them get to reproduce during that period, because unlike other species of marine life, catching a “short” does it no harm.

They are merely measured when they are pulled out of a trap and, if they aren’t of legal size, they are tossed back in the ocean to continue growing.

That’s one of the major reasons the lobster fishery remains healthy, and there’s no apparent scientific reason why requiring another season of growth, which the extra eighth of an inch represents, would have any effect on the health of the resource.

So if those three states want to impose an extra burden on dealers by making them measure lobsters exported there an additional time, the answer seems simple: Charge them more for the lobsters they demand.

What’s an extra few cents per lobster to some New York gourmand, after all? If those states want to be picky, well, let them pay for their fussiness. Mainers could even call the extra fee a “clawback.”