Sucking the ocean floor is no longer an option.
Following extensive debating of the bill earlier this month, the state Senate voted 29-18 to ban power dredging ? sucking up polluted silt along with oysters and clams from the ocean floor ? from around Ocean City and Assateague Island, back to the mainland. Despite no such measures being issued for dredging in the Chesapeake Bay, reverberations of the act by the state legislature will be felt by local organizations.
“People will have to find a different job,” said Larry Simns, president of the Annapolis-based Maryland Watermen?s Association?s board of directors.
According to House Bill 379?s Legislative Analysis report, from 2000 to 2006 an average of 22 commercial licenses were issued for hydraulic dredging. During that time, an average of $353,000 in hard- and soft-shell clams were reported caught per license.
The direct economic impact the ban will have on the clammers has been one of the main focuses of debate between the sides. While many believe it would unfairly bankrupt the fishermen, the numbers indicated there would be fewer than 10 total fishermen who would be forced to go out of business, The Associated Press reported.
For some, this long-term benefit outweighs the short-term cost.
“There are only a handful that this is affecting, and the environmental harm was too much to bear,” said Richard Novotny, executive director of the Maryland Saltwater Sportfishermen?s Association.
The reason the bill was initially proposed centered on the impact that power dredging has onthe environment. Groups such as the Maryland Saltwater Sportsfishermen?s Association, based in Pasadena, have been proponents of the bill, citing the damage it does to the environment by kicking up polluted silt and destroying the area for recreational fishing and future uses. Countering this claim is the Maryland Watermen?s Association, which believes the bill has less to do with environmental impact and more to do with the dredging being an eyesore for wealthy landowners.
“We will do what we can, but it?s been such a big movement from the property owners,” Simns said. “It?s hard to fight them. They have money we don?t. They have time and we don?t. They have a lot of people and we don?t.
The ban is set to go into effect in 2008.
