By Sheila Dassatt
It won’t be long and it will be baseball season! This is a sign that spring is on it’s way with the hope that things will take on a normalcy for the time of the year. There are die hard Red Sox fans and also die hard New York Yankee fans, and the two types of fans just don’t mix.
Okay, what does spring baseball have to do with the fishing industry? Well, I had to think long and hard to make this work. It’s kinda like throwing the dice or spinning the wheel to see where it’s going to land.
The wheel has various subjects on it to choose from, such as whales, windmills, restoring the damaged coast, measuring gauges, chic lobsters and the list goes on.
What I have learned from all of this picture that I am painting is that in order to have one, you must use another to distract in order to achieve it. This is much like watching second, which means you are in the middle and you must watch first and keep an eye on whoever is on third. Actually, the second baseman is stationed not exactly on the base, but partly in the middle between first and second or between second and third. Have I confused you yet? I don’t mean to, it is just the way that it is done with many of these issues that we are dealing with.
The latest that we are looking at is how the green energy plan is going. This has been in the making for quite a while now. I have paperwork from at least five years ago that proposed the experimental windmill site. As an example of what I am referring to, I have a letter that was sent out on March 16, 2018 to Zone D and E license holders. This letter is from Aqua Ventus of Maine which is also tied with the University of Maine Darling Center. This letter describes the Future of Offshore Wind Development in Maine, a section of Cable Installation and Fisheries, Cable Installation and Cable Overview with various charts and pictures that show the internals of the cable and what this will all look like underwater.
All that was supposed to happen goes like this: “There are no plans for exclusion zone or setbacks for fishing around the two turbines once installed off Monhegan Island. MAV will work with the fishermen that fish around the two Monhegan turbines to determine an acceptable standoff distance for safe operations near the floating hull, mooring chains, anchors and electrical cables. No additional turbines will be added off Monhegan Island, nor could the proposed 12 MW undersea cable support any additional turbines.”
Then on February 2, 2021, we received a letter from the New England Aqua Ventus Subsea Cable Survey concerning an overview of the seabed geophysical survey planned for March 8 through April 4, 2021, weather permitting. In this notice, the schedule for these survey vessels are mapped out, one of which says: “R/V Westerly will also transit to Mack Point, Searsport, and perform a geophysical survey east of the Bulk Pier. Another vessel, M/V Fugro Explorer will also transit to Mack Point, Searsport, and perform a limited geotechnical survey taking one CPT east of the Bulk Pier and the two CPT’s within the previously dredged area west of Sears Island.”
So to those that were convinced that Green Wind Power is the answer, and unhappy with Governor Mills choice for the turbine port of Sears Island, here it all is. This comes as no surprise to a lot of us that have been informed from the beginning.
I have been mentioning this for quite a while now, and it has fallen on deaf ears or folks just didn’t want to believe it. With this being said, Green power is on first, now Sears Island is on second, so who is going to wind this ball game? One thing that we do know, we can’t always have these things both ways and choices and decisions need to be made. I sure hope that our average citizen now has a better understanding of how the fishermen feel about having all of these agendas before us.
The best that we can do is try to understand one another and do our best to work together with these agendas that’s going on before us. Don’t be fooled by the trickery of these agendas and end up striking out. We want to win this battle and I hope that everyone joins in and are not just victims of the money game any more.
Another way of putting this is “bait and switch” which is also a learning curve for the direction that all of this is going.
I would love to hear from you if you have further concerns or suggestions. I have been very pleased that people have been telling me that they are reading my articles and I thank you all very much. I really do care about the issues that I write about and most especially care about making sure our industry survives all of the challenges that we are facing.
