- Target:
- Commercial and Recreational Fishermen
- Region:
- United States of America
NOAA has leased Offshore Wind Energy Areas to several wind farm developers including U.S. Wind and Orsted. The intention is to place 850' tall wind turbines right in the middle of some of the most productive fishing grounds of the Mid-Atlantic. This has and will continue to disrupt commercial and recreational fishing and boating activities for ever.
If you would like to the Maryland Public Service Commission to put a halt to this please read and sign this petition.
PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION OF MARYLAND
Andrew Johnston, Executive Secretary
Maryland Public Service Commission
6 Saint Paul Street, 16th Floor
Baltimore, MD 21202-6806
Regarding CASE NO. 9666
This letter indicates our objection to the continued development of the Wind Energy Areas named MarWin and Skipjack that are currently leased by U.S. Wind and Orsted.
Commercial fishermen depend on access to the fertile and productive fishing grounds along the mid-atlantic coast without the fear of loosing equipment or unrestricted access.
Commercial fishermen have used these areas to make a living for decades to not only support their families but support an entire industry. The benefactors of commercial fishing are many, to name just a few, boat manufacturers, parts for their boats, special attire, fishing nets, traps, pots, bait, tackle, and fuel. The above mentioned businesses benefit from the effort of the fishermen. Once they return from a successful trip, a different sector is engaged. Some fishermen offer fresh seafood dockside to support the local community, others sell to wholesale buyers who in turn may sell retail to local markets, supply restaurants, deliver orders for specialty products that will be processed and packaged to be sold domestically or even internationally.
The Wind Energy Area off the coasts of Delaware and Maryland have proven to cause a disruption to the commercial fishing industry. Over the years since the leases began there have been many claims for lost fishing gear. The losses so far have only been reckoned with gear replacement which has not accounted work that went into preparing and setting the gear but the lost fishing time or the time
,their employee's families, the families of the people who purchase the seafood at wholesale and process it into consumable products. The families of othey feed the community with fresh caught wild seafood. They support The wind energy areas are being developed over productive fishing grounds that have been used for decades to harvest various fish and shellfish species. To this point the commercial fishing community has been told by representatives from US Wind and the fisheries liaisons that the wind farm developers would work with commercial fishermen to coexist in the same area. As of November 1st, the fishing community experienced the first recorded interaction between the wind farm survey vessel Miss Emma McCall and the F/V Allison, it has become apparent, with the example of this incident that the the wind energy companies do not have regard for the commercial fishing industry as they destroyed fixed fishing gear by running it over even while they were being advised of their actions.
For Hire Recreational Fishing - navigation impact and potential loss of traditional fishing grounds.
Recreational boating and fishing - navigation impact and potential loss of traditional fishing grounds
As an interested party, please note my objection to the wind farms.
Sincerely,
You can further help this campaign by sponsoring it
The Fishermen who want to stop MarWin petition to Commercial and Recreational Fishermen was written by Vince Cannuli and is in the category National Affairs at GoPetition.