The fact that we fishermen do not have access to oyster beds, whether for legal harvest for our own consumption or for the occasional bucket of bait is due to a failure of government in doing its job. For near on 30 years they have kicked the fishermen to the curb as far as protecting our access rights.
I'm not a conspiracy minded person but it is darn hard to imagine how the build on every marsh development interests would not be just as happy to have the oyster beds closed so that they did not have to step up protections for water quality when they build.
And it's worth keeping in mind that eventually, if water quality is allowed to degrade to far, if to many bulkheads are built, if to many creeks are allowed to silt in........well.......guess who suffers.....US!
Maybe time for some of us to make a call or write a letter.
And yes......I've been doing it for years. Actually serve on the GTNERR Oyster Water Quality Task Force. But it takes a lot of us to force these things along.
http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2017-10-16/progress-coming-not-fast-reopening-duval-county-oyster-beds
Replies
The whole article from the T-U seems to pull up fine for me.
The commercial aspect of it is not at all important, even if it was ever to happen. It's about us fishermen having access.
Bulkheads are only mentioned as part of the big picture of protecting what we needs to keep the resource we fish in healthy.
You can not harvest for your own use because the Dep. Of Ag. has not been doing the water testing that leads to certification for decades.
And you are correct about "to".....got in a hurry and did not proofread in the least.
As for what to "glean"........that there is hope to get the beds back where we recreational fishermen can use them and that lending some bit of support would be a good idea.