News Washington Bishop Announces Award of Over $250K in Grants to Remove Derelict Fishing Gear from Long Island Sound |
Bishop Announces Award of Over $250K in Grants to Remove Derelict Fishing Gear from Long Island Sound |
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Mattituck, NY, October 18, 2011– Restoration of the Long Island Sound
marine habitat took a major step forward today with the announcement by
Congressman Tim Bishop and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation of
two grant awards to Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County’s
(CCE) to identify and remove more than 118 metric tons (260,000 lbs.) of
marine debris, including abandoned lobster pots, from the Sound.
Through these awards, funded by the Fishing for Energy Fund and Long
Island Sound Futures Fund, CCE will employ up to 45 local lobstermen to
identify and remove derelict fishing gear, reclaiming more than 40,000
acres of the sea floor of the Long Island Sound.
“This innovative plan will use federal funds to put local fishermen to work, and use their knowledge of Long Island Sound to make it more hospitable to diverse marine life including commercially valuable species such as lobster,” said Congressman Tim Bishop. “I will continue to strongly support the innovative public-private partnerships that have facilitated steady improvement in the Sound’s water quality in recent years.” The members of the Long Island Sound Lobstermen’s Association and CCE project team will collaborate to identify the location of the gear, remove it from the seabed, and analyze the impact of the derelict fishing gear on the marine habitat. “By reclaiming derelict fishing gear from more than 40,000 acres of the sea floor of Long Island Sound, this project will benefit a variety of species including American lobster, blue crab, horseshoe crab, tautgog and oyster toad fish,” said Mark Tedesco, director the Long Island Sound Office of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. “I’ve fished for lobsters off of Long Island Sound for over 40 years and I have never, nor have any of the other fishermen, brought in the old traps we’ve found and disposed of them. Old traps always stay in the water because of the amount of labor and cost required to dispose of them properly; and since we’ve switched from wood to vinyl coated wire gear, these traps last indefinitely in the sea. Because of these grants to Cornell and the efforts of local fishermen, we now have the incentive and opportunity to bring in a lot of this lost gear. It’s a win-win situation,” stated George Doll, local lobsterman. Read the complete story from Congressman Bishop's website
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MELISSA WOOD, NATIONAL FISHERMEN: Meting out the meager
May 22, 2012 - Listening to the New England Council's Groundfish Advisory Panel talk about how that industry is going to pay for monitoring costs is kind of like trying to figure out how to pay your bills when you've just lost your job. Though monitoring is important keeping costs down is critical. As Panel Member Gary Libby pointed out, "If we had 100 percent monitoring we probably wouldn't have an industry."
