Aquaculture Lease Concerns
Editor:
The Board of Directors of the South Point Association feel it’s important to explain to your readers why we are opposed to Maryland awarding a lease for a new aquaculture farm in Sinepuxent Bay. We support the benefits of aquaculture, but the state’s siting process to date has failed to protect the public use of our coastal resources. Currently the plan is to cover three acres of recreational water in Sinepuxent Bay behind Assateague Island with poles and cages for cultivating shellfish. This will be a navigational hazard to safe recreational use of the waterway off South Point.
The proposed aquaculture site is unsafe, inappropriate and unnecessary. The 20-year commercial aquaculture lease application is located in an area heavily used for motorboats, sail boat, personal watercraft, water skiing, kitesurfing, kayaks and more. Worcester County encourages recreational use of this waterway by providing a public boat ramp on South Point. The Assateague Island National Seashore has a kite surfing staging area directly opposite the location of the aquaculture application. However, none of these activities will be safe in or near the lease area.
Boaters attempting to navigate around the farm will be forced into the shallows. There will be more groundings and more calls for assistance. If boaters try navigating closer to the shoreline, they will encroach upon submerged aquatic vegetation beds, an important resource the state spends millions of taxpayer dollars protecting.
Locating this commercial operation in a popular water recreation area presents real dangers to recreational navigation and is a serious threat to public health, safety and welfare. Collision with submerged objects precipitated five recreational boating accidents in Maryland in 2018, resulting in one death and two injured victims.
Due to the limited public notice, few know about the proposed aquaculture lease. If approved as it stands, the DNR will assign exclusive commercial use for decades of an area in the bay between Green Point and the South Point ramp. Unfortunately, the state says it has “developed plans related to improvement and promotion of recreation in state waters.” However, no such plan has been put on the table.
A reasonable solution exists. The DNR has already approved for aquaculture a multi-acre site about 1.5 miles south of the proposed location, where several aquaculture farms exist.
This plan doesn’t make sense, which is why we oppose it. Move the lease to south of South Point where there be no impact. Safety is our first concern.
South Point Association Inc. Board of Directors