February 15, 2018 — Florida’s commercial fisheries, hit hard by Hurricane Irma, should pull in a $200 million boost from the two-year federal budget passed last week.

The $200 million will be included as funding for the “catastrophic regional fishery disaster for Florida” in the proposed $300 billion increase in the federal budget, Florida U.S. senators Bill Nelson and Marco Rubio announced.

Florida Keys commercial fishers were among the most affected by the Category 4 Hurricane Irma Sept. 10, the strongest storm in 57 years to make landfall in Monroe County.

“The hardworking folks in the Keys and throughout our state who rely on Florida’s bountiful marine fisheries can finally begin to rebuild their livelihoods and businesses following Hurricane Irma,” Rubio said in a Feb. 9 statement.

“When it came to securing the funding in Congress to help fishermen and communities get back on their feet, we fought hard to ensure they would be taken care of,” Nelson said in his statement.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross endorsed the fishery-disaster declaration that allows “fishermen and fishing communities to apply for Small Business Administration disaster loans, Federal Emergency Management Agency public assistance, Economic Administration Development grants and Housing and Urban Development community development block grants,” Nelson said.

“Fishermen, aquaculturists, and harvesters have suffered extensive damage or outright destruction of vessels, facilities, equipment, traps and gear,” the state’s senators wrote in a joint appeal sent in October. “Florida’s waters have provided family-owned businesses with income for generations but these businesses and people who depend on them are now at risk.”

Part of that federal money could go toward ongoing trap-recovery efforts, Florida Keys Commercial Fishermen’s Association executive director Bill Kelly said Monday.

Read the full story at the Florida Keys News