December 10, 2018 — A decision this week by the New England Fishery Management Council to vote down a resolution that would’ve allowed clam harvesting in a 280 square mile area off Nantucket Shoals is drawing fire from the clam industry and others, South Coast Today, a New Bedford, Massachusetts-based newspaper, is reporting.
In particular, critics are pointing to the council’s decision to allow offshore wind development to continue in a 1,400 square mile area in a similar region, according to the newspaper.
“It’s amazing to me that they’ve turned this complete blind eye on really the most intrusive project that’s ever come on the East Coast, which is wind,” Scott Lang, a former New Bedford mayor and attorney for the clam industry, is quoted as saying. ”… They’re acting like that’s something we’re just going to have to live with, but a fishery that’s been around for a couple hundred years is a threat to the habitat.”