Huge Ocean Windpower takeaway at Maine Fishermen's Forum:
UK fishers to Yank lobstermen,scallopers trawlers, hookers:
Love the places you fish so much you prefer keeping site specific catch information off the public record? Keeping the tracks/routes of the runs that make you a success confidential?
MAKE.THEM. PUBLIC.NOW.
Lifetime fisherman Colin Warwick, now UK "Fishing Liaison for Offshore Wind and Wet Renewables" urged and Massachusetts fishfolk seconded It is IMPERATIVE you record the track of EVERY trip you take, From dock to grounds to dock, and make these "tracks" available.
. If you don't: NO LEGAL EVIDENCE of how often you fish there - to the joy of ocean wind applicants. You can write letters and go to public hearings and meetings and tell them how often But where's your proof? Word of mouth? testimony of self and coworkers? Hah
As far as the federal and state & provincial governments of the Gulf of Maine and the greater eastern seaboard are concerned, if you don't have your tracks, you got nothing. You're just another stakeholder. Able to prove you fish, but unable to prove where and how often.
The offshore wind industry relies on Maine fishermen/s penchant for confidentiality to make it easy for growth off their shore. Dredge dumpers Outfall pipe wannabees? Same for them. No tracks no solid evidence you fish there. Or transit through . Some Massachuysetts fishers have to come in through 16 miles of windfarms to get to shor. The one-nautical-mile channel spacing between turbines is a very narrow corridor in a serious blow.
We heard harrowing stories of Massachusetts fishermen dying a in storm because the windfarms turbine spacing made it unsafe for the rescue chopper to get close enough to even find them let alone rescue them.
AGAIN: START RECORDING YOUR TRACKS DOCUMENTING YOUR USE OF YOUR GROUNDS.
If you don't, you may have "stakeholder" status, but you may as well hold that stake over your heart and and let wind industry pound it in, for all the good it does you.
No comments:
Post a Comment